Character Naming

As an Author naming your Character is an important step right after coming up with the plot. I am here to help you choose the right character name for you and your story.

Make sure your character name is Genre Appropriate. Make sure if it's a Historical Fiction novel or takes place in a real time period that the name was used then. Or if it's a fictionalized place then you can be as creative as you wish.

Just have fun with naming your character. It is after all your story.



Thursday, February 11, 2016

Musings of a Lonely Writer! ----- Appearance vs. Personality!

So on this Musings of a Lonely Writer post I am going to discuss the feeling behind a characters physical appearance vs. their personality. I am going to discuss whether a reader wants a beautiful character or a much more normal character or if it even matters. Could perhaps the personality matter more. Or is it a combination of both.

Okay so when I read a novel I read about so many types of characters but I always get the impression that the character is always perfectly perfect in some aspect, either he or she is handsome or beautiful in some way or they are gifted a perfect personality. In real life that is not always the case. But as I’ve said before the rules and aspects of real life and that of the worlds of books aren’t necessarily the same and don’t have to be.

In my writing I have discovered lately that my characters are these ethereal beautiful characters and sometimes that starts to bother me as I want to have a real character who struggles with not only physical but personality limitations. I mean I love characters that are so different then me and are everything I am not but I also want characters that are similar to real people, myself included.

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So I have started writing a story called, “Death of the Heart Song” and my main character has an undesirable first name, Misery, and her physical traits and personality traits are lacking any sort of beauty or desirableness. She is often rude and crude and says what is on her mind and she doesn’t care who you are when she speaks her mind. She lives in a Kingdom that has beautiful musically inclined people and she has no musical abilities and is classified as ugly in her Kingdom. So later she butts heads with the Prince and becomes quite a distraction to him and she has no clue why.

Their relationship as trainer and teacher and as friends and would be lovers (they are about the same age, he has just turned 16 years old and she is about to turn 18 years old) is a fun one to explore and write about but their relationship is not the main part of the story. The Heart Song element is the main part but I won’t get into that long story. The reason I write this at all is to show I have now made a character that is classified as unattractive and I wonder how she would be perceived by a reader. Would her physical lack of beauty or her personality make a reader love or hate her more or would it be a combination of both or would neither matter all that much.

Also I want to point out I didn’t make her unattractive just for the sake of saying to myself or others that I now have an ugly character. She was undesirable and had flaws as she presented herself to me in a dream and I found it fresh and exciting to see a character that is different then most characters I have written about or read about before.

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I wonder if young and old readers alike care more about the physical appearance of a character or the personality or does it matter at all. But I guess it probably varies by each person and by each story and how the author wants to present the said character and how the reader perceives said character.

Also do you think that authors present too perfectly perfect characters or just the right amount of perfect and flawed? I asked my mom and she said she doesn’t think that there are too many perfectly perfect characters. She also said that sometimes attractive traits, like in a romance novel, are sometimes a plus or needed but in other stories it really doesn’t matter.

So in books I wonder if the characters physical or personality traits even matter. I mean they matter a little bit. But I find a book with a much more normal flawed character in many ways is interesting and gives me more in-depth insight into that character and their world or story.

But the writer in me still finds beautiful glorious characters to be fun and intriguing. Personally I still think though that personality means more. My characters are so different personality wise but they are so interesting and funny or sassy or fiery or sweet or crude or bold or brave, ect. I think that what they say and how they say it is much more important and how they react to the good, bad, and ugly themes in their stories brings me closer to them then what they look like.

So beautiful or not or great personality or not I think how they handle themselves and what their story is and how they live it is much more important. And though looks and a good personality often matter I think how they handle themselves makes or breaks a character and makes the reader love or hate or love to hate the character. If an author can get characters to surpass ones ideas about what makes an ideal character then it impresses me and leaves a lasting impression on this lonely reader and makes me want to make the lonely writer in me push the boundaries of my character layouts.

Care to weigh in? Then please leave a comment in the comment section of this post!

Keep Writing! Keep Reading! And Keep Inspiring!

3 comments:

  1. I think the idea of having a beautiful looking character has always been an intriguing one. After all, there are legends such as Helen of Troy whose beauty caused a war, as well as famous and tragic stories like Deirdre and Naoise, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelet and Guinevere- clearly all of these characters were beautiful, standing above all around them. It's not as if anyone would fight for the love of an unattractive or plain-looking woman (or man) and it seems as if the beauty of the hero/heroine reflects their personality: good= beauty and bad= ugly.

    Personally, I prefer the character's personality over appearance. Characters are more interesting when they're flawed and people don't fall in love with them because they're so beautiful or striking to look at- that was one of my main problems with Romeo and Juliet. It was a love at first sight moment and these two very young couple barely knew each other before declaring their undying love for each other. Who's to say that, if they'd gotten a chance to know each other well, they'd find quite a few things about the other to annoy them?

    I really prefer characters who mess up and do stupid things, people who aren't quite sure of their own confidence and sometimes make the wrong choice- but I also like characters who seem put together as well and than put in situations that test that. Beautiful characters don't equal perfection and good characters/heroes don't equal beauty either and the world is full of more than just one type with more interesting descriptions types, forms and shapes. Besides, I think both personality and appearance make an interesting combo- imagine a short stocky woman weighing nearly 200 pounds who's very lively, charismatic, and someone who always makes a splash wherever she goes, and a tall willowy blonde who looks like she could be a movie star who likes visiting cemetaries and reading names and dates, etc... Interesting personalities, interesting appearances...

    Ironically, I have a character who's very beautiful- people notice her at once but her personality is rough to say the least. She's rude, argumentative, temperamental and to get to know her you've got to really stick around because she doesn't make it easy. It's because of her looks that she's this way, as a kind of defense mechanism so that her friends aren't just around because of her looks. Mean, yes, but someone who always comes through for her friends.

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    1. You know I didn’t even think about Legendary / Mythological characters. I mean Gods and Goddesses of Greek / Roman Myths among other cultures as well were portrayed as beautiful, divine and otherworldly. Even sculptures and paintings depict ideal body types, male and female, of that time and the change in desirableness since then down to our era.

      In a way it is true, look at Fairy Tales who always have an ugly step-sister or step-mother who are ugly and evil/ mean to the pretty heroine and the good=beauty bad=ugly mentality does play out in the thoughts of many in such stories.

      I am glad to see someone else taken in more by personality than appearance, or rather often liking a combination of both. It seems more and more people feel the same.

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      Oh thanks for bringing up Romeo and Juliet, I had totally forgotten about them. My last Musings of a Lonely Writer post was about Insta Love or Insta Don’t. Romeo and Juliet are famous examples of Insta Love. Thanks for bringing them up. I may edit and add to Musings of a Lonely Writer ----- Insta Love or Insta Don’t and bring them up because you’re right their meeting and Insta Love were bothersome in a way. Because had they more time they may not have really loved each other or else annoyed each other.

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      I like characters that are in between being so sure of themselves and so unsure. I like to see them tested and see them fall but have the courage and inner strength to stand up for their people, selves, ideals, ect.

      I see where you’re coming from. Each reader / writer comes at a character differently. There are different types of people and characters portrayed sometimes but I find not enough diversity with characters. I heard someone say their boyfriend asked why all male heroes seem to be gorgeous white guys, why wouldn’t there be more diversity. I think now there is more diversity but there still is an ideal in ones head of what makes an ideal hero / heroine but as more writers and readers abound I think more diversity whether nationality, appearance or background will continue to improve in stories.

      A sort of combination between interesting appearance and interesting personality will continue to progress and improve as needed as time goes by. I think I’m just picky on what I see as not diverse enough, but we can’t have everything, lol. And I’m probably not looking at enough of the diverse stories already out there, which is my fault.

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    2. In my story “Death of the Heart Song” one of the quotes before a chapter will be this…
      Anyone can love a rose but it takes a lot to love a leaf. It’s ordinary to the love the beautiful but it’s beautiful to love the ordinary. – Unknown Author
      I think that quote is beautiful for everything it means and fits my story to a T.

      In that story as I mentioned my character Misery is classified ugly in her Kingdom and her personality puts some off as well. But when she comes to train and tutor Prince Camden “Cam” he begins to like her but she realizes and tells him she knows he was trying to bed her as part of a bet but as time goes by he realizes he really does care for her. He has every gorgeous woman in the Kingdom to have in his bed if he wants but he falls in a deeper sort of love with Misery. It’s because he becomes attracted to her personality, her toughness, her cleverness, ect.

      Prince Cam finds that Misery is complicated and closed off because of things that happened and as they unravel to him he sees a beauty in her heart, a beauty that his deceased mother had seen in Misery, as Misery tells him of what his mother had said to her on a few occasions when Misery was a child.

      Prince Cam comes to give up his throne to be with Misery as King Philippe will not allow the marriage because she came there to kill Prince Cam to get back at King Philippe whom she blamed for the death of her Heart Song Companion but as time went by Prince Cam broke through her tough façade she had built over the years and she fell for more than his looks and in the end couldn’t bring herself to kill or even harm him.

      Misery Appearance- stringy dull puddle brown hair, equally dull onyx eyes, a nose that is crooked, lips that are overly paper thin and rough dark skin. Skin isn’t sun kissed and golden as her mothers but instead overly brown from too much sun. Cheeks aren’t plump like some others nor are they pronounced but rather flat. Large untended eye brows and a slight hair above upper lip.

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      That’s funny I’ve had a character similar to yours too that was beautiful and others always pointed it out and it seemed to make her self-conscious and weary of other people’s motives concerning her.


      Thanks so much for weighing in on this topic! I love to hear how others view such writing / reading matters!

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I try to have the most accurate Meanings, Origin and Pronunciations for the names on this blog. It is best though to do research into the names you decide to use for your characters as there can be errors on my blog. Or meanings, origins, and pronunciations I have not seen thus not been able to add to this blog.





Try some of the leading Baby Name Sites and Baby Name or Character Naming books as well.


The baby name sites below are where I collect many of the Names, Origins, and Pronunciations I use on this blog.

Baby Names Sites:

http://www.thinkbabynames.com
http://www.babynamewizard.com
http://www.behindthename.com
http://www.babynamespedia.com