A Dozen Zyglips for the Lady!

A ROSE WOULD STILL SMELL..

In one of his play’s Shakespeare tells us that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.  But what if it was originally named a zygkrip?  Does that sound like something you’d stick under your nose?  Can you imagine calling the florist and telling them to send a dozen long-stemmed zygkrips to your wife for her birthday?  Maybe names do matter.

How do you pick names for your characters when you are writing?  Do you have a list of unused names by your desk and you just pick one?  Do you agonize over getting just the right sound out of a name for the bad guy who does terrible things to the good guy?  Where do your names come from?

I’m sure we all have different methods for naming characters.   I have one I’ve been using for years and it seems to work very nicely for me.  I use the same names to begin with in everything I write.  Huh?  Say what?  I know writers who come up with a character and then spend hours or sometimes days trying to come up with the perfect name.  To me, that’s a waste of time that could be used elsewhere.  My method eliminates that completely.

My first male character in anything I write is always called “Mike.”  My first bad guy is “Harry.”  The first woman is “Linda.”  These are names of friends and family and I know I’ll change them but I have to get to know the characters better before I re-name them.  If I give my killer the name “Charles” when he is first introduced, I may find out that he was called Charlie when he was little and Chuck in the bank where he stole the money and by the time the police catch him, I’ve decided I wanted him to be Lester all along.  It’s a name that fits his persona.

For me, characters tend to take on a life of their own and sometimes suggest their names.  My Johnny Morocco P.I. series is set in a pool room in Atlanta, GA in the early 1950’s.  Everyone in the place has a nickname because most of them are running from something, even if it’s life. Anonymity is important to them, so I have Babe, Slick, Preacher, Crip, Hockey Doc and others as needed.  Each nickname fits the character better than calling them George, Harold, Robert or Dwight.

Think about the characters you like from past books and movies. Would you have wanted your mother or father to read you a story about “Fred the Apple Guy,” or “Johnny Appleseed?”  Would you rather be defended in court by ‘’Thurman Bingley Seligman III” or “Atticus Finch?”

For the first time, I recently participated in a charity auction at my Rotary Club where I let them auction the naming of two characters in an upcoming release.  The book had already been written and was in editing when the auction happened and I had to go back and change the name of two characters.  Fortunately, the winners were both women and changing the names was not a problem.  And even better, the names fit the characters very nicely. 

I plan to offer that again, but next time it will be prior to finishing the book, so I can make certain all the parties involved get their money’s worth.  It worked out great this time, but I don’t want a future character to give me a problem when I have to change both his or her name and sex because of a high bidder.

J.E.L.L....aahhhh H.E.L.L. N.O.

Nailing Jell-O to a Wall.

I consider myself one of the luckiest people on earth for a lot of reasons.  I may go into some of them another time, but not now.  Suffice to say, one of the things I consider myself lucky about is to be doing what I have always wanted to do and that is to write.  I graduated from high school Derma cum Denta.  For those of you reading this who don’t speak Latin, that means “by the skin of my teeth.”  I never took the SAT’s or talked to a college recruiter.  That was not in the picture for me.  All I wanted out of school was ME.

A lot happened over the years to include a career of some 26 years in the Army, two combat tours during Viet Nam, a recall to active duty in 2004, my wife receiving a kidney from our youngest daughter and my realizing a life-long dream of writing.  First it was short stories and magazine articles and a newspaper column and publication of my first novel while I was on active duty.  Shortly after I retired (the first time) I watched my first screenplay produced and made into a feature film.  Like an addict with his or her first pipe full of crack, I was hooked.

I wrote a second novel and couldn’t give it away.  Nobody wanted it.  No publisher. No agent.  I don’t think my mother would have liked it if I had shown it to her.  But I didn’t let that stop me.  I was hooked, remember.  I loaded my pipe and fired it up again.  Novel number three.  No takers.  Nada.  I set it aside, fired up the pipe again and inhaled.  Number four.  Success!

I found a publisher who liked the book and wanted to publish it.  To make it seem even more like a fairy tale, he called me on my birthday to tell me.  He published that one and asked for the second in a SERIES!  I was on a roll.  I had a series going.  I was going to be rich and famous and then the call came.  “Sorry to tell you the publisher passed away last night and the company is folding.  You can have the rights to your novel back.  Good luck selling it someplace else.”  Now I really did need a crack pipe.

But wait…. there’s more.  I did find another publisher who liked what I wrote and now I have two mystery series in print and they will publish as many more as I can write as long as they sell, after all, it’s a business and they have to make money.

What’s the point of all of this?  Don’t give up.  Writing is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.  At first it looks like it won’t work and for most people it won’t.  But you’re a writer.  You’re not a “most people.”  You’re special.  You don’t give up. If you are sitting at a computer, a typewriter or a stack of yellow legal pads wondering if you can ever get published, the answer is probably yes.  It’s not definite.  Few things are and those are not something we look forward to.  But keep at it.  There is someone out there who is looking for what you have to say.  All you have to do is find them.  They’re not going to come knocking on your door.

Fire up the pipe, take a deep breath and go for it.

WORKING WITHOUT A NET

WORKING WITHOUT A NET

When I was a young boy my family lived in West Palm Beach, Florida.  We lived close to what is now the Palm Beach International Airport and was then a small airport on a left-over Air Force Base from WWII.  There was a very large area surrounding the airport and one day my dad took me over to watch a circus being set up.  It was the Ringling Brother’s Barnum and Bailey Circus and to a little boy, it was the Greatest Show on Earth.

A day or two later he took me to see the show.  I’m sure I was completely in awe over everything there, but I have always remembered two things. One was a seal who came out and his trainer set him or her down in front of a set of horns like you would find on a bicycle. The seal pushed each rubber bulb with his/her nose and played a little tune.  I have no idea what it was now but I still remember that part of the show. The other part I remember was the tightrope act.  Not because of the walk but where they did it.

In the center ring was a large metal cage with all sorts of ferocious beasts that need to be tames with whips and chairs, and the occasional blank fired from a pistol.  They were put through their act and then the lion tamer, or whatever the now PC name for that person is, left and all the animals were still there.  Sitting or walking around in the cage.  With a door.  With bars. But without a top.  It was open.

Then the Ringmaster announced that the next act would be a tightrope walker.  He began to walk out over the wire and got to the edge of the animal cage.  It was then I realized he would walk over them and if he fell, he’d be in deep kimchi.  I asked my dad why he did that and he explained it was called “working without a net.”

How many of us are working without a net waiting to fall into a den full of ferocious beasts?  Do you have an agent?  Is that agent a safety net that protects you from all the things that can be lurking below? Do you need a net, or are you confident enough to walk the wire without it?

I have had that safety net of an agent in the past and I am talking to another one at this time, but I have done okay in the past without that safety net.  I sold my first screenplay without and agent.  Smart idea?  Not at all.  In retrospect, I probably would have gotten a better deal if I had someone who knew more about the art of the deal than I did at the time.  The point here is, the script sold and was made into a movie.  That sale created more and ultimately got me a safety net for my screenwriting.

You will know when it’s time to get the safety net.  You don’t need one if you are just standing on the platform and about to step on the wire.  You need it when you are out there walking and looking down into the mouth of the beast wondering “what the hell have I gotten myself into?”

And if writing doesn’t work, you can always run away, join the circus and learn to play a tune with your nose.