A Guide to Naming Characters

A Guide to Naming Characters

Real people make real characters

Genuine old Peregrino, Santiago de Compostella

I've saved a girl's life, had people try to kill me in a riot, found a murder victim with a gunshot wound to the back of his head, crashed a car at high-speed and survived, avoided being shot by a LMG by metres, learnt to fly airplanes, met a burglar coming out of a broken door with a gun in his hand, witnessed sights too horrendous to mention and fallen in love so deeply it's embarrassing. I've also left a business English class whilst unknowingly leaving my boxer shorts on the office floor for all to see. I could go on, but then you'd never need to read Kicking the Cans... *

Magical secrets on a routine street

I've spent 46 crazy years living a life worthy of a book, a very long book. I have met people that I didn't know existed - didn't realise could have existed. Yet there they were, larger than life and so real. More real than any book I have ever read.

When I need to add characters to my book I need real people, real characters. I can't see my characters unless I can see the person. And if I can't see my character then they won't exist for you either, no matter how much I tell you about them.

So, where is this all going? Please, if you have any writing ambition, LIVE YOUR LIFE! No one else will do it for you, and a life worth living is a life worth dying for. And once you have lived it, and met those people you didn't know existed, only then can you add them to your book as real people, real characters.

They exist, do you?

* My life, too much has happened for a single book, so KTCs is my first autobiography, starting from zero and finsihing at the end of my (official) education. How I survived at all I'll never know...

US super-cop just Cameron's cop-out, claim cops

Following the unprecedented rioting witnessed across England last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans for US police chief Bill Bratton to be a paid adviser to the UK government on 'gangs'.

British Police, quite rightly, are not impressed. Sir Hugh Orde, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said, 'I am not sure I want to learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them. It seems to me, if you've got 400 gangs, then you're not being very effective.'
Perhaps Mr Bratton might learn something from us?

• 2772 people arrested within a week
• 1179 have appeared in court
• 65% of those charge remanded in custody
• rapid justice system
• 3 charged with the Birmingham murders
• Arsonist in court for burning Reeves Furniture Store
• Convicted people likely to lose benefits and council houses
• Who can forget #operationcupoftea? (Twitter)
• or #operationlondonriotscleanup? (@riotcleanup) (Twitter)
• Giant screen in Birmingham city centre with pictures of rioters to identify
• mums taking kids to the police after seeing them on TV

I'm sure there is more to add to the list, but I think you are beginning to get the point?

So, Mr Cameron, no doubt you will pay hundreds of thousands to Mr Big US cop who will no doubt finish his working holiday with the following expert advice:

'Guns man! Give the cops guns! Jeez, you can't deal with gangs without guns!!'

Child minding...

Sometimes pure magic escapes from the mouths of children and lucky is the writer who gets to hear it. As a writer, you need people around you who surprise you with their unique and special outlook on the world, and none is more unique than a child. For fantasy writers, children are a great source of inspiration. If you aren't lucky enough to be surrounded by such magic, then a child in an adult's body is sometimes just as good.

And that's where I'm the lucky one. My wife...

Wifelette, in search of Faeries, Galicia, 2010

I was in the back garden of our new house the other day, filling in holes and flattening high-points on the lawn. Our garden is about as big as a telephone box and always reminds me of the surface of the moon, only covered in grass. My eye was drawn to a slight rise in the far corner. Atop of this rise was a large stone I recognized. This was no ordinary stone, this was the stone I had found on a Galician beach and lovingly carried home to my wife. This stone was as big as my out-stretched hand. This stone had spent centuries being caressed into a beautiful, flat round gem and it had, until this moment, been acting as a doorstop inside the house. I had even glued rubber to its bottom so as not to scratch the floor.

So what is it doing in the corner of this green moonscape? Enter wife.

'Wifelette? What's that stone doing on yonder hill?' I nodded in its direction.
The reply was instantaneous, with no time to think of a clever answer or even recall a well-rehearsed one.
'It's so the Faeries have somewhere to shelter,' she said, so matter-of-factly.
'Oh,' I said, and carried on filling the holes in, occasionally stealing glances at the stone in the corner.

If I'm lucky, I get a glimpse of the child inside of my wife's head every couple of weeks. The last one was when she opened the window to allow a butterfly to escape.
'Good bye little butterfly!' she called after it, 'Thank you for coming to visit us!'
Now why would a butterfly feel the need to visit people?

Ah, inspiration. Here it comes again...

Where does your inspiration come from? Are you as lucky as I am?