All The Names
Scrooge, Oliver Twist, Pecksniff, Smike, the Cheeryble brothers. Dickens fashioned the best character names — full of word association and onomatopoeia, they conjure up distinctive personalities.
Compare that to Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, with the whole Finrod, Felagund, Fingolfin, et al. As the emperor in Amadeus might say, “Too many F’s.” (I know Tolkien was working linguistically, so all the names have particular meanings, but as a reader I found them difficult to keep straight.)
I almost fell into the same trap with Dead Hungry. At one point, there were Joyce, Jonathan, and Josh. As soon as I saw all those J’s, I knew something had to change.
Josh changed into Tristan before settling into Tucker. It amazed me how much a name affects my vision of a character. Josh appeared laid back. Tristan was youthful. But the character needed to be a grad student with personal problems, someone who is stoic. For some reason, the name Tucker fit the bill.
Jonathan almost stayed Jonathan (two J’s might not be too bad), but then I heard a lecture by a man named Darien. It seemed a perfect name for someone who feels a bit like an outsider. Again, no apparent reason, it just seemed to fit.
Joyce stayed Joyce because … well, she’s Joyce.
One character in Dead Hungry influenced the entire story more than any other: Robber. Initially a minor character, he was the musician boyfriend of Caitlyn. The name popped into my head: his name is Robert, but his French grandmother always called him “Robair,” which got Anglicized back to “Robber.” I loved the name too much to waste on a minor character.
Around this time, I was having difficulty getting into Tucker’s head; the guy was so guarded, he wouldn’t speak to me. Then it occurred to me that Robber was Tucker’s brother, and the whole grunge rocker vs grad student dynamic was born. Suddenly Tucker had someone personal to play off of. I really believe I couldn’t have written the novel without Robber.
On a similar note, it wasn’t until I came up with the title, Dead Hungry, that I was convinced I could write the novel.
The power of the right name.
