Isabel Roman
My guidelines were: writing related post and if the book was about cooking then I might be asked for recipes.
It’s not about cooking, but I’ll give you a recipe I just tried last week for the first time. Warning: It’s only delicious if you like chocolate, sweet, and Butterfingers!
Writing related posts. That’s harder. I mean how often have you heard about the book of my heart or how I’ve been writing since I could spell (and possibly before that). I love each story separately for different aspects and have been writing since before I could spell, but let’s try for something different.
So what’s new and exciting? I thought about this, and sure I can (well maybe possibly can) make these same questions into something funny, but other than sarcastic one-liners, I don’t really do sustained funny. I’d like to, but I’m just not that funny. I’m sure my family would agree.
Naming your characters after family and friends. Seems simple enough right? You pick a character and name them after dear dad. Or not. It’s easy enough with secondary characters, you can name them pretty much whatever so long as there isn’t a list of requirements given to you by the friend or family.
Don’t believe me? My brother only wanted to be a good guy. A friend wanted to be a lesbian gunslinger who went out in a blaze of glory. Another friend was miffed her name wasn’t spelled exactly the same as she spelled it.
Then there’s the problem with commonality. How many characters can you name Anne? Lisa? Melody? Christine? And there’s yet another problem. Of the Isabels (we’re 2 people) one is Marisa, one is Christine. But Christine’s best friend is also named Christine. Honestly! So then it sounds like I’m naming a character after myself, when really just trying to put in my BFF’s name.
Then there’s the what do these characters do? I can name a throwaway character after anyone, but what if they’re more than that? What if they’re truly a secondary character? What if your friend/family wants to have more than one mention? And what if their name isn’t something you think would go with such a strong secondary character?
Worse, what if it’s a modern name in an historical? Nothing pulls a reader out faster than an anachronism. Historical readers hate it just as much as contemporary readers hate continuity problems with their modern world. It’s a quirk. 
So you have this 1880 character and a friend named something not quite appropriate to the 1880s: Buffy, Melissa, Lena, you get the drift. So then you lie, you tell Buffy she is Elizabeth, you tell Melissa she is Melanie, and you tell Lena to find another friend, heh.
In the end, you really can’t please everyone but with so many characters in various periods through time; eventually you can get everyone’s name in a story. Just be sure you aren’t promising anyone a mention in a specific timeframe. Because if you do not deliver they’ll be coming after you with pitchforks and stakes!
Read Dark Desires of the Druids: Sex & Subterfuge available now in bookstores! And be sure to check out Isabel’s free story!
A master magicker, Morgana Blackthorne has a tenuous hold on her following. When a strange Englishman arrives on her doorstep with news of other druidic magickers, and magicker problems, she’s intrigued but suspicious. There hasn’t been contact between the American and European druids in over a hundred years. Plus she has her own worries and doesn’t need the handsome earl adding to them.
Lucien, Earl of Granville, left England to seek out the Blackthorne Druid line and discover what they’ve been up to since contact was lost. Once he and Morgana meet, their mutual attraction distracts him from his purpose. Embroiled in her problems, he finds himself more concerned with her welfare than is practical for a passing affair.
When I invited you into my bed, it never occurred to me I wouldn’t want you to leave.
There are darker forces at work and the hunger of a weak magicker desperate for power. Will Lucien convince Morgana of his true feelings before things spiral out of control? Or will the surrounding subterfuge tear them apart?
Excerpt:
“Lucien Harrington,” Jacobs, her butler, intoned, “the Earl of Granville.”
Smiling, Morgana swept out of the circle, stepping into the foyer, and greeted her guest. His timing was off, but as the magicker she knew him to be, not suspect.
“Welcome, Lord Granville,” she said, offering a slight curtsy.
He was tall, with dark blond hair, dark blue eyes, and a sharp nose over which he looked down at her. Her eyes traveled over his face, down his body, clothed in immaculately tailored Savile Row, back to his face. Arousal pooled hot in her belly.
She’d never wanted any man. Yet Morgana wanted Lord Granville. Her skin prickled at his nearness, her womb clenched with want.
Forcing her mind off his body, she studied his face. Briefly, want flashed in his eyes and she smiled a truly wicked smile at him. It was gone as fast as it’d shone and she returned to studying him. There was grief hidden deep in his eyes, along with suspicion and weariness. Tilting her head, she wondered what caused those emotions. Suspicion she could easily understand. It’d been more than a hundred and thirty years since their families had any contact. Though, since he’d sought her out, she should be more suspicious of him.
“Mistress Blackthorne,” he bowed over her offered hand. Flicking a glance behind her, he said, “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Not at all,” Morgana smiled. She could all but feel David’s displeasure. Suppressing a giddy smile, she took Lord Granville’s arm and led him into the parlor. “We’re about to begin the New Moon Ritual. Do you still practice it in England?”
Looking up at him with guileless eyes, she waited for his confusion, gratified when it sparked briefly in those bottomless depths. Damn them all. She could be as gracious as she liked, but in the end, resentment bubbled to the surface. They’d abandoned her ancestors to indentured servitude and hadn’t bothered to contact any of them since.
“I’m afraid we lost that custom when we lost the valuable Blackthorne line.”
Morgana raised her eyebrow at him as they entered the parlor. Wasn’t he the diplomat?
“Would you care to join the ritual, Lord Granville?”
He bowed again and smiled. “It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Blackthorne.”
August 5th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Thanks for having me today!
August 5th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Ah, yes. The thinking up of names that are original, stand out and then there’s the whole friend and family thing. I tell those who want their names in my books that I can do that but, for copyright issues, I then have to make them completely unlike who they really are.
Great post!