  Romance/Love
This week: Edited by: darkin
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Welcome to the Romance/Love Newsletter. My name is darkin and I'll be your guest editor for this week.
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Product Type: Toys & Games
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Amazon's Price: $ 24.95
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What is your Character's Name?
Writers want to create memorable stories, with characters readers will relate to and care about. One of the things you can do as a writer to make your characters stand out is to give them a name that will stick in your reader's mind. But how do you do that?
When you are thinking about your character's name, take into consideration what message you want to convey to your reader about them. Don't name your strong, silent hero Gilligan Pick a name that shows your character's personality the way you want them to be remembered.
Avoid overly ironic or amusing names. Remember the cartoon Dudley Do-Right. All of the characters in that show had pretty funny names, very descriptive of their personalities and perfect for a cartoon. But would the same kind of names work for a historical romance novel? Probably not. When choosing your characters name, try to pick names that do not telegraphic your character's deep, dark secrets. Leave a little mystery for the reader to solve.
What time period do your characters live in? Taking that into account when choosing the character's names will help your readers identify with them more. While Tameeka may be a wonderful name for a modern character, but it would not work if you are writing a historical romance. To be sure you choose a correct name, a little research will be necessary. There are many web sites devoted to names, and searching one of them will help you find the kinds of names that were popular in the period you are writing about.
Take your characters location into account when choosing their names. Where and when was your character born? Parents tend to name their children based on their culture and neighborhood. What a child would be named in Chicago is different than a child born in Texas. People in the United States use different spellings of names than people in England or Italy. Location plays a big role in people's names, and it should in your character's names as well.
Unless you are trying to be funny, do not name your characters amusing names. Naming a criminal Snidely Whiplash is funny, but not if you are trying to make him someone to fear. If you want your hero to be loved, your heroine to be respected and your villain to be feared, give them names that will do just that.
Do not name all your characters alike in your story. Naming your heroine Tammy and your hero Sammy might sound like a match made in heaven to you, but not to your reader who will have to try to keep your characters straight while reading. If they have trouble following the story because of the character's names are confusing, they are not going to keep reading.
The most important thing is to pick a name that feels right to you, one that makes you think of your character as a real person. That is the key to making your characters real to your readers.
Characters are one of the keys to writing a wonderful story. Naming your characters with realistic and appropriate names will go a long way to helping your readers care about them, and your story.
Thank you for taking the time to read. Happy Writing!
darkin
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Here are some items I found while traveling the highways and byways of Writing.Com!
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Thank you for allowing me into your e-mail boxes for this week's issue. Since I am a guest editor this week, I don't have feedback to display, but I had a wonderful time writing this issue and would love to hear what you think about it.
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Romance/Love: January 17, 2007 Issue [#1499]
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