Better the Devil you know

Don't fear the dead, they have left only words. The living are with you indeed.

I've a feeling that might be a famous quote - or I may have just made it up. Either way, fact or fiction, it makes an intriguing chapter opening or character introduction.

I like choosing names. It's something I'm rarely stuck on. If anything, I have the opposite problem - too many to choose from. For me, the question is not what to select, but how to pick.

Something unusual? A name that's special to you as the writer? A name that defines your character? Or something completely and totally random- there are name generator tools for that if you really can't decide. And let's face it, the choice is unlimited (within reason).

If your protagonist is a blond archeologist for example, how would Red Bracie, or Dug Ticker sound? How do you choose? How do you know what's right? Does it matter?

First impressions count. Many books, especially children's ones, echo similar names inside and out - ever noticed there are many stories with Sams and Daves or The Boy Who... on the cover. Ask yourself this: do you want your character to join this curious melee, or stand out and make your reader curious. Think about that.

Of course, you could end up causing reader distraction, with an unusual spelling. Say, an unpronounceable heroine like:

Niamh Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch*

Certainly unforgettable, but with something this far out, you run the risk of halting the flow - your reader will either skip over the complicated that they can't get their tongue round, or spend so long trying every possible permutation that they give up and swap your story for something that doesn't need a DIY glossary.

My favourite place for character inspiration is the local churchyard. That might seem a dark place to start, until you discover headstones create flash fiction all of their own.

Try it - study the names, dates, inscriptions, monumental carvings and statuettes. Just watch out for weeping Angels... don't blink!

Graveyards offer peaceful anthologies of family and social history, if you look hard enough and learn how to read them. Question whether they say more about the person under the ground, or the person who laid the stone? Afterall, unless extremely well organised in forward planning, who designs and orders their own epitaph? And if so, how would you want to be remembered? What would you include or leave out? Perish the thought of being asked to write your own obituary.

Brrr... this is getting a little morbid now, but don't let that put you off exploring. Tread carefully and be respectful of your elders. Their ancestry might leave you with more to query than resolve, but surely all good stories start with curiosity?

*(I haven't made that up, honest! It's the name of a place in Wales. Google it! I suggest you copy and paste though).

Lego Story

Words to a story are like bricks to a house.

When you add words together, you create a story.

When you add people to a house, it becomes a home.

Chocolate Girl

Ok, so today I got stuck... Yes, yes, I know. I've just made this website and started blogging about how to get 'unstuck' - you'd think I would know what to do?! Trouble is, I'm not very good at listening to myself. I've told you what I know, what I've learnt and how it's helped me on my writing journey so far (and hopefully it will help you), but in doing so I've distracted myself - of course! It was inevitable, wasn't it? Like a vicious circle of fate - you write about it, you think about it and... boom! Thoughts spiral away - and in my case boomerang right back to knock me sharp on the forehead. Now I've got a concussion myriad of pictures to deal with in my 'filing cabinet' brain. It's all neatly labelled in there, thank goodness. I can find most things by association, like a sort of human Google machine. So if you say 'garden centre' for example, I instantly see Margeret Meryll Roses, purple Hebes and a Bishop of LLandaff (he's a Dahlia ye'know). See? Weird, isn't it? But that's how my mind works - jumping about like a flea from one thought, idea, song lyric to the next. It's exhausting. I do get respite from the noise in my head at night so I can sleep - and indeed fall asleep quite quickly. Until the nightmares gallop in with their size 9 hobnail hoof-boots and I'm bolt upright and desperately needing to write stuff down.

At Uni, being up at 3am meant I was barfing Ruth and Sheila after a night out, or raiding the fridge for munchies. In the middle ages (ahem) I got up in the night for the children when they were babies and always managed to crash straight back to sleep again - somehow zombie like and often with no recollection of having got up at all (bit like the Uni nights). So how is it now, in middle age plus one (ahem, ahem) I've developed a built in alarm clock that digs like The Ace of Spades in my ears at the most ungodly hours and leaves me with a non-alcoholic hangover? Bewildered yet? There you go, you see - that's exactly how D-D-DISTRACTION happens. In a big, bold sneeze of capital letters; just - like - that. It's not all bad though - honest! If I manage to catch some of those pesky Ds sometimes I can actually read my own midnight handwriting the next day. If I hold the paper up to the light and squint.

So if your nightmares gallop, trot or canter into your dreams and they bother you, try to harness them and put them to work ploughing a sentence or two. You might even have enough for a story. Which might distract you from whatever it was you were supposed to be doing.

Now, where was I when that ramble began? Ah yes, about to begin...