The first assignment is looking at the names we've picked for our characters.
My novel is a ghost story with aspects of witchcraft/paganism in it. There are four primary characters, two are from the 17th century and two from the present day.
My present-day main character's name is Annie, and I'm not sure where I got the idea from for that (I've been planning this book for years!). Her daughter is called Rose (Rosie). Originally I was going to call her Caitlin (Cait), because I like the name, but I decided it didn't look so good written down. I've joined a Wiccan Forum and been given a lot of help and advice from one of the Mods there. Part of her online name is Rose, so I decided to use that, and I think a flower name fits in well with the pagan aspects of the book.
The main character from the 17th century is called Cramer. He is a Witch-finder, and I took his name from one of the authors (Heinrich Kramer) of a witch hunter's handbook called "Malleus Maleficarum" ("The Hammer of Witches") which was published @ 1486. The title of my novel is "The Witches' Hammer" so I thought using his name was a nice reference to that. The other 17th century character is Rachel, one of Annie's ancestors, who Cramer burnt as a witch. As with Annie, I'm not sure where I got the idea for her name from.
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5 comments:
I like my character names to mean something if you look them up on one of those name sites or books, even though I can't always remember what that is.
For instance one of my characters has the last name Neal - "Variant of NEIL, From the Gaelic name Niall, which is of disputed origin, possibly meaning "champion."
- and that character is something of a champion.
By the way, another of my characters is named Annabel AKA Annie.
Hands off my name, you thief. ;-)
Sounds like a good start. Very intriguing storyline.
One point of concern: Cramer
The name immediately evokes a very popular character of another sort. Despite Seinfeld ending, I'm pretty sure it will impact your readers. Perhaps there's a better choice?
:-p @ Ben *lol*
Thanks rand, I don't watch Seinfeld so I hadn't thought of that. I'll maybe re-think it because my character is definately not funny.
It's coming up to the first anniversay of my blog at the end of this month, and it struck me that I haven't actually said much about the plot of my book, and the book was the whole reason I started this blog in the first place!
Hopefully that should change over the next few weeks :-)
John Kincaid was a famous "witch finder" in the 1600's in Scotland.He became very wealthy using the "pricking" method to determine who was a witch.He was later accused of using trickery and denounced as a fraud.Not much help for those he'd already accused and sent to their deaths.You may consider using his name in your book, Feena.Might add a little ring of authenticity.
Thanks thistledown :-)
That's a really good idea to use a real person, and it fits the time period of the Prologue perfectly.
I've been thinking of using a "pricker" as an important element in the book so it could work brilliantly
*goes off to Google*
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