What's in a Name?

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I've been blogging about how to make a piece more literary.  A lot of authors just randomly choose names.  It feels right, or it's personally meaningful to the author.  They randomly choose it from a phone directory.  They arbitrarily choose it because ... fill in the blank.  Literary authors do very few things randomly and without meaning.  Yes, some have randomly chosen names.  But if you want your piece to feel meaningful, start by giving careful thought to your major characters' names. 

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Think through classic works. Willy Loman is the main character of Death of a Salesman.  His name tells you right away he's not high status that, in all ways, he's a low man.  Think of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird.  She's always exploring the world around her, socially, emotionally, and physically.  She is always asking questions and scouting out the truth.  Luna's name from the Harry Potter series brings to mind the moon and its associations with the word "lunatic" because she's both dreamy and pastel like the moon but also a bit nutty.  These names suggest to the reader a meaning that helps enhance and enlighten their character and their place in the book. 

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Alternatively, you can use a character's name as a literary allusion.  If you were to name your character Peter, James, John, James, Mary Magdelene, Adam, Eve, Gabriel, Moses, Noah, or a host of biblical names, you'd want to know the figures from the Bible in order to make your character more meaningful, to draw on a source that much of the modern world knows.  Peter from the Narnia series is noble and heroic, a leader like Peter in the Bible, for instance.  It's one thing to name your character Gabriel and have him be just a guy named Gabe.  It's yet another to make a sly and clever biblical allusion with a character who is by action or calling an angel.  The author should know exactly what he/she is doing with the name and what kind of literary history he or she is referencing.  The same is true if you use any literary name.  If you name your character Darcy, Perseus, Lizzy, Hamlet, Emma, Don Juan, Alice, Anne (with an E), Cordelia, Juliet, Miranda, or any other name your reader will automatically recognize, use it carefully.  A literary name is a quick and easy way to call on a wealth of literary allusion, but only if you, the author, know the history of the name. 

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Then again, you could use the name for ironic purposes.  Your character may be named Chastity and yet be a lady of the streets.  Suddenly, her name means more and makes your reader want to know more.  What if you had a Lucifer who sought to live in an upright and kindly way, while his neighbor, Jean Baptiste, is stealing from him and smearing his name?  Such irony (as in defiance of expectation) can be used to make a statement, bring in some other meaning, or for humor.  In the series "Sleepy Hollow," a character started to pray, "Jesus..." The other inmate in his cell responded with something like, "Yeah?  What do you want?"  The name is automatically humorous because of how it's used in the story.  But if you use a character's name for humorous or ironic purposes, that should be clear.  This use of literary names should result in a clear addition of humor or meaning.   Otherwise, a reader could easily consider your choice of a name a poor one and question your skills as a writer. 

Think through the names you're using for your characters.  What do they suggest right away, just with the word associations therein?  Is its meaning appropriate to the character?  Does your character's name bring to mind another literary character?  Does it work?  How can you bring out more meaning than you already do?  If it doesn't work, is there a better, more meaningful name you can use? 

Making the Most of Time

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Because of the pandemic, most of us must shelter in place.  Some of us still leave the home for work, but a lot of what filled our time before--sports, plays, movies, etc.--can't happen because of the current situation.  What does that leave most of us with right now?  Certainly not money, at least in many cases.  But what it does leave us all with is time on our hands that we didn't have before. 

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How can you use that time?  It's easy to while away the time without accomplishing anything productive.  Any number of streaming services can fill the void left behind by entertainments of the past.  But if you want to make the most of your time, you need to take charge of that time.  Instead of letting life come as it may, set up a schedule that carefully budgets your time and most of all leaves time for writing, editing, and other activities related to furthering your writing career. 

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How does this work? Step one is to set writing-related goals.  How much do you think you can get done in a day, a week, a month?  Figure out which tasks you can get done each week then by when you want to get some major goal done. For some, setting up incentives works.  Would you write more for a candy bar or movie standing by?  For others, they feel the need to penalize themselves if they don't get the goal done.  You could commit to donating to a charity if you don't fulfill your goal, for instance.  Find a way to hold yourself accountable for those goals. Maybe it will be enough to write your goals down and share them with someone who cares enough about you to check up on you. 

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Step two is to write a list of all you need to do in a day, a week, a month.  Most of us have at least a couple of weeks to a month in the current situation.  Schedule your day in whatever increments work for you.  Figure out a time each day you can work on your writing-related activities.  For some of us, it works better to write in the morning, some the afternoon, some the evening, and some the middle of the night.  You know yourself.  What time works for you?  What time do you actually need to set aside for your writing?

Once you have your goals and your time budgeting in place, it's time to execute them.  It's not enough just to have them.  You have to use them.  What are your writing goals for this break?  How do you want to keep yourself accountable?  How can you budget your time to make sure those goals actually happen?  If you do all of this, you're far more likely to come out of the next month feeling fulfilled and like you spent your time wisely than wondering what you just did with your month in isolation.