N is for Names

One of the challenges to fiction writing is naming our characters. Sometimes you might get stuck on a letter. I once read a short story where the main characters were John, Joe, Jake, Jack, Jared, and Jacob. It couldn't be read aloud without tripping over your tongue. Even beyond the tongue-twisting aspect, too many similarly sounding or spelled names can confuse the reader to the point they're thrown out of the story. A spreadsheet or table can help track names so you can recognize and avoid the problem.

It seems as I'm chronicling their tales, that the characters start off with one name. Then several chapters in they laugh and say, "fooled, ya. My name is XXX." Argghhh. Global change from XXX to YYY, then add a note to the character tracker to make sure none of the original names slip through on edits.

~till next time, Helen 

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