Time-Saving Tip for Naming your Characters
This month’s special guest Nicola May reveals a tip for naming your characters that will save you time in the long run…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: So, let’s start with what small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
NICOLA: I mean, again, I found this quite hard, but what I do do is… all my heroines have very short names; four letters or three letters. Ruby, Avy, Rosa. Victoria’s Vic. Because if you think how many times you type that in a manuscript, it saves you so much time. I mean, if you have something like Everard or, I don’t know, Christopher, you don’t want to be writing that… all those times. Although it’s good for word count.
MARK: I’m writing something at moment that has a character called Michael, and I’m four chapters in and already I’m thinking, I just want to call him Mike.
NICOLA: Yeah. You know, and I bet you you’ll have to go back because you will have so many wrong spellings of that as well.
MARK: Exactly. Yeah.
NICOLA: But it’s a little point, but it’s a good point. And also don’t choose a name that people can’t understand like Niamh, or things like that because there is nothing worse… As a reader, I hate it when I don’t know how to say the name.
MARK: You have to go to one of those those YouTube channels where they tell you how to pronounce it. Yeah, yeah,
NICOLA: Because I’ve got I’ve got a Joti in my book, would you say Joti or Jotti? And my audiobook narrator… I didn’t think actually to brief her on that.
MARK: I was going to mention this later. I went to the audiobook recording for The Corn Bride yesterday. And once I was in the room with them, they had a list. You know, it’s how you pronounce that? How are you pronouncing that? I. And I was like… (makes a non-commital noise). I don’t have strong opinions either way.
NICOLA: I never want to meet my narrator, because I’ve got one character who has an accent of someone who’s traveled many places abroad. So you don’t know where she’s from. And I put that on the brief. I’m like, oh my God, the poor woman.
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