What's in a name...
I’m terrible with names. I mean, I can remember them, but I’m really bad at making them up. That’s why my pets usually get names after rock stars, like Billy and Jimi... Boo is the exception; he was originally named Foo, but it didn’t fit him, and when trying to think of something that would sound like Foo there weren’t many left to choose from.
When writing, this little handicap becomes a great obstacle to overcome; even the shortest of stories is filled with characters needing names. If you’re writing science fiction, there will be ships, planets, cities, gadgets, and languages also needing names. I once named a language after a brand of potato chips. I meant to go back and change it, but by the time the story was finished, it sort of worked, so I thought, “Well, why not,” and kept it.
I’m making a lot of fun of all this in the “Embarkment” series; the people of the future have decided to remind themselves of a civilization lost by reusing names and phrases well known in our time. Like Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and McDonald’s golden arches. They reuse people too, but to lesser extent. I know that some people will take this much too seriously and get upset, but these books aren’t meant to be serious.
There’s more to it than just thinking of a name though; sometimes a name helps define who we are, and I think this is as true for imaginary characters as for real people. I mean, I don’t think I would be the same person if my name had been, say, Anna, Lisbeth, or Petra. It might sound a little crazy, but think about it. Would you have turned out exactly the same with another name? Would you be able to change your name without a sensation of loss?
When I decided to write about Maria Callaway and Stephan Forks, I knew that I was in for trouble. I still couldn’t resist it; my fingers started to type on “Touch of the Goddess” almost by themselves. Both characters have existed for years, just not in the shape of a novel, and as hard as I tried to change her name to something, anything, besides Maria, it didn’t work. Every time I changed her name, it also changed her personality. Ms Callaway is not me, but she is a Maria. This far, my pessimistic outlook has been completely unjustified; only one reviewer has even mentioned it, and she seemed more amused by it than anything.
A while ago, “Touch of the Goddess” got a review on Night Owl Reviews. I braced myself for hearing, “Hahaha, you think you’re a four thousand year old Goddess,” but that didn’t happen. The reviewer said the dialogue is entertaining and funny, which is awesome; I love writing dialogue. She wasn’t entirely happy with the storyline. “The notion of a goddess who calculates her age in terms of thousands of years falling in love with a mere mortal was just a bit difficult to understand.”
I anticipated a lot of things, and that wasn’t one of them. I showed this to a friend, who giggled, “You didn’t think that through, did you?”
Normally, my answer would be, “Uuuh,” because normally that statement would be a perfect description of me. I plunge in head first in everything, reasoning, “How hard can it be?” and end up naming something after potato chips. This time, I was able to grin and say, “Actually, I did.”
I was fascinated with the Greek and Roman Gods when I grew up, and remember many stories of them entering more or less successful relationships with humans. This is how the demigods came to be, beings with one foot in each realm, who often had to fight with or for the Gods, dying for the bad luck of belonging to both species. I think that’s the charm of these stories, as powerful as the deities are, they’re still identifiable, with human weaknesses.
Oh, remember Medusa? The woman with snakes for hair who turns anyone looking into her eyes to stone? There are many versions of her story, but in one of them she wasn’t always a gorgon; she was a beautiful woman tending to Athena’s temple. Poseidon desired her, and when she kept turning him down, he eventually raped her, inside the temple. Athena was rampant and took it out on Medusa, turning her into a monster.
Anyway, the observant reader of the Goddess’s books will note that Ms Callaway isn’t really a God, no matter how much she wants to be or how successful she is; she has a human mother, so she’s really a demigod. In my imagination, this emphasizes her human instincts and weaknesses. Mr Forks, on his side, is genetically engineered and not really human.
Hmm, thinking about all this is igniting sparks of creativity; I should go write on the next book about them. Funny enough, the third one is almost ready, but the second one needs some serious work done.
:-) Maria
When writing, this little handicap becomes a great obstacle to overcome; even the shortest of stories is filled with characters needing names. If you’re writing science fiction, there will be ships, planets, cities, gadgets, and languages also needing names. I once named a language after a brand of potato chips. I meant to go back and change it, but by the time the story was finished, it sort of worked, so I thought, “Well, why not,” and kept it.
I’m making a lot of fun of all this in the “Embarkment” series; the people of the future have decided to remind themselves of a civilization lost by reusing names and phrases well known in our time. Like Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and McDonald’s golden arches. They reuse people too, but to lesser extent. I know that some people will take this much too seriously and get upset, but these books aren’t meant to be serious.
There’s more to it than just thinking of a name though; sometimes a name helps define who we are, and I think this is as true for imaginary characters as for real people. I mean, I don’t think I would be the same person if my name had been, say, Anna, Lisbeth, or Petra. It might sound a little crazy, but think about it. Would you have turned out exactly the same with another name? Would you be able to change your name without a sensation of loss?
When I decided to write about Maria Callaway and Stephan Forks, I knew that I was in for trouble. I still couldn’t resist it; my fingers started to type on “Touch of the Goddess” almost by themselves. Both characters have existed for years, just not in the shape of a novel, and as hard as I tried to change her name to something, anything, besides Maria, it didn’t work. Every time I changed her name, it also changed her personality. Ms Callaway is not me, but she is a Maria. This far, my pessimistic outlook has been completely unjustified; only one reviewer has even mentioned it, and she seemed more amused by it than anything.
A while ago, “Touch of the Goddess” got a review on Night Owl Reviews. I braced myself for hearing, “Hahaha, you think you’re a four thousand year old Goddess,” but that didn’t happen. The reviewer said the dialogue is entertaining and funny, which is awesome; I love writing dialogue. She wasn’t entirely happy with the storyline. “The notion of a goddess who calculates her age in terms of thousands of years falling in love with a mere mortal was just a bit difficult to understand.”
I anticipated a lot of things, and that wasn’t one of them. I showed this to a friend, who giggled, “You didn’t think that through, did you?”
Normally, my answer would be, “Uuuh,” because normally that statement would be a perfect description of me. I plunge in head first in everything, reasoning, “How hard can it be?” and end up naming something after potato chips. This time, I was able to grin and say, “Actually, I did.”
I was fascinated with the Greek and Roman Gods when I grew up, and remember many stories of them entering more or less successful relationships with humans. This is how the demigods came to be, beings with one foot in each realm, who often had to fight with or for the Gods, dying for the bad luck of belonging to both species. I think that’s the charm of these stories, as powerful as the deities are, they’re still identifiable, with human weaknesses.
Oh, remember Medusa? The woman with snakes for hair who turns anyone looking into her eyes to stone? There are many versions of her story, but in one of them she wasn’t always a gorgon; she was a beautiful woman tending to Athena’s temple. Poseidon desired her, and when she kept turning him down, he eventually raped her, inside the temple. Athena was rampant and took it out on Medusa, turning her into a monster.
Anyway, the observant reader of the Goddess’s books will note that Ms Callaway isn’t really a God, no matter how much she wants to be or how successful she is; she has a human mother, so she’s really a demigod. In my imagination, this emphasizes her human instincts and weaknesses. Mr Forks, on his side, is genetically engineered and not really human.
Hmm, thinking about all this is igniting sparks of creativity; I should go write on the next book about them. Funny enough, the third one is almost ready, but the second one needs some serious work done.
:-) Maria
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