Tag Archives: character names

Plotting the perfect crime…

Switching Genres…

Image by Davie Bicker from Pixabay

I’ve been a published romance writer for more than thirty years now. That’s seventy books for Harlequin Mills and Boon and a few more for other publishers.

I was in a groove – some people might call it a comfortable rut – but I was producing books that enough people loved to keep me in contract and an advance and royalties coming in.

It’s hard to give up that up just because you’ve had a story in your head for a very long time that refuses to go away.

When you’ve had that security for thirty years, to write a book in a totally different genre — crime — on spec, with no publisher, no advance or promise of publication is like stepping off a cliff.

Sink or swim?

Image by J Garget from Pixabay

Maybe it was lockdown, the sense that life was out of control and might never be the same again. The sense that if I didn’t do it now, then when? That if I didn’t take the risk, would I go to my grave regretting that I didn’t have the courage, or the self-belief that had the “do it now” bells ringing.

I’d delivered the last of the books on my current contract. I could take six months out for a passion project – I knew the story – inspired by a documentary I’d seen. I had my victim, I had my murderer, I had my “sleuth”.

I’d lived with them in my head for a long time. I could give them six months of my life.

The Beginning…

Continue reading

Off-putting Openings : how not to start a book?

key in lock in door

Image by MasterTux from Pixabay

Recently, I’ve started reading several books that I have swiftly put aside. Why?
Because they had off-putting openings.

What did I mean by off-putting openings? I’d say the kind of start that left me—as a reader—confused, or bored, or annoyed. The kind of start that made me say something like, “if this is the best this author can do, then I have better ways of spending my precious reading time.”

Off-putting openings #1 : a crowd of named minor characters

name badge: what is my name?When should an author give a character a name?

That’s not easy to answer. It may seem obvious that all characters have names—of course they do—but does the reader want to know the name, or need to know the name?

Not necessarily, I suggest. Continue reading

Naming characters: hints and tips plus a fun quiz

Naming characters — there’s no single right way

naming characters - what is MY name cartoonAuthors have different ways of naming characters. Some label their key characters hero and heroine until they have finished the first draft, others need names for their characters before they can write a word.

(And some need to know all the character’s backstory before they start to write… But that’s another blog altogether.) Continue reading

Naming Minor Characters: Fun and Games with Names

One of the fun things about writing fiction is that you, the author, can really play with names for your characters. Hero or villain or somewhere in between? You’re in charge when it comes to naming.

And if you’re writing historical fiction, you have even more scope. Continue reading