As most of you probably know, I’ve decided to donate my royalties from 2011 to a different charity every month. This month it’s Habitat for Humanity. If you want to make a difference for someone without a home, you can either buy SECRETS OF THE LOTUS or donate directly. Or both, if you’re feeling especially charitable.

At the same time, I decided to call on my fellow Helpful Outstanding Novelists, Editors and Others in the Writing Profession (HONEOWPs) to join me, either by donating their royalties for a period of their choosing or by blogging about others’ efforts. However, before I’d even announced this initiative, Steve Lowe contacted me and told me he’d like to use my idea of donating royalties to charity. Steve and his wife are foster parents and Steve has decided to donate February’s royalties from the sales of his books MUSCLE MEMORY and WOLVES DRESSED AS MEN to a national not-for-profit charitable organization dedicated to foster care and helping children in need. You can read more about Steve and his effort here: Steve’s Blog. Steve has set a goal of $500 donated to his charity this month, and I hope we can all help him achieve that.

I’m starting a HONEOWP roll call section in my links to the left. Check it out from time to time and let me know if you’d like to join it.

As I said yesterday, A.J.’s choice of the name “Pax” for his unstable zombie killer intrigued me, especially when I looked up the meaning of the name. Does the meaning of “peace” for the name Pax indicate that a character can truly be named anything and still be made to do what we want him to do? Or is there more to the character Pax than just a violent zombie killer? Maybe Pax is trying to restore a peaceful order to the world that has been ripped apart. I don’t know yet as A.J. is still writing the story, but I do know I’ll look forward to reading it when he’s done. Speaking of which, when I asked A.J. for more information about Pax, he was very accommodating, and so I have a little treat here, at least if you’re a zombie fan—which I am.

AJB: Pax is not an emotionally sound guy. He tends to hold things in which causes him to be quite volatile. He has little patience with people, other than the ones he loves. The problem is the ones he loves are all dead, ripped away from him by the living dead. Pax has a bitter hatred seething inside of him and nothing is safe with him around. Not the living and certainly not the dead…

Excerpt from The Dead Reaper

“Alright, boys. Lunchtime is over.”

One by one, the dead fell, parts of their heads missing, until only the man on the base of the statue was left. “Get indoors,” Pax said. “They’ll be coming in droves now.”

Pax walked off, reloaded. He focused on the handfuls of zombies coming out of the alleys and pockets left in empty buildings. “Damn, they’re everywhere.”

From behind him came footsteps, hurried and heavy on the concrete. Pax pivoted, pointed the pistol at the man.

The man ducked, put his arms over his head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t shoot.”

“What do you want?”

The man lowered his arms, stood up straight. “I need help.”

Pax looked around them. The dead were moving in. He shot the two nearest them. “Don’t we all?”

“No, I mean, I need help. Those things… they bit me and—”

“Then I suggest you put a bullet in your head and get it over with.”

Pax hurried away, not quite running. He used the machete on several of the dead, splitting their heads in half, saving on as much ammunition as possible.

“You can’t leave me here,” the man said.

“Sure I can.” Pax rounded the corner, stopped. “Shit.” A wall of undead staggered toward him, moans in their throats, faces without expressions, milky eyes seeing without really seeing.

He searched the area, settled on an alley that led to a side street. With any luck he could circle back and get to the van. He passed the man on his way to the alley, paid him little attention.

“Please, don’t leave me here. I’ve been bitten by one of those things and—”

Pax gritted his teeth, took aim at the man, “You’re a dead man. Understand that. Accept it. I can’t help you. No one can. The only real help for you is to put a bullet in your head or whatever. You’re going to die and I have no time for you.”

Up close Pax could see the fear in the man’s face, see the bloodied close. He was missing two fingers and looked like he hadn’t eaten in a few days.

“But, I’m still alive. I can help you until…”

“You’re not alive, not for long,” Pax glanced around, nodded, “but you can be of a little help to me.”

The man’s eyes lit up as he followed Pax into the alley. “Really? How?”

Pax ignored the question and went to the opposite end of the alley, looked both ways. Only a handful of zombies trolled about, possibly not hearing the many gunshots.

“What’s your name?”

“Joel,” the man said, “How about you? What’s your name?

“It doesn’t matter, Joel. I just wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For slowing them down.” Pax lowered the pistol, squeezed the trigger. The man’s knee shattered and he dropped to the ground, his screams echoing in the confines of the alleyway.

I’m not sure which side of the debate this might come down on, but one of A.J.’s answers to my questions prompted me to do a little digging. Hence, my followup question for A.J.:

BREATHE: Hey A.J. I was reading over your answers to my names questions and one thing in particular that struck me was the description of your character Pax. Are you aware of all the different meanings of Pax? In Latin it means peace, but it also means friendship. The definition that really intrigued me was on this website: http://www.answers.com/topic/pax-1. It’s the second one: “A time of wide-ranging stability when there is only a single dominant power. Used with a Latinized name”.

AJB: Wow, I did not know that. That’s pretty cool to know and considering the type of character he is and the lack of peace he has, that is most interesting. That could possibly even be worked into the story line.

So, does the name Pax fit A.J.’s character because he lacks peace? Is he searching for peace he never really hopes to find? Guess we’ll have to wait for A.J.’s story to find out…

If you’ve read my blog much at all in the past, you’ve probably encountered this author’s name. A.J. Brown writes some truly amazingly horrible stuff. But he writes it so well nobody really minds. I asked A.J. to participate in my blog project because I wanted some insight into how a horror writer chooses names, and if there’s an area of horror whose depths A.J. has not fully explored, I’m not familiar with it.

BREATHE: You write short stories of varying lengths. Some are very nearly novel length. Obviously, the more story a character has, the easier it is to get to know him or her. Does this affect how you name your characters at all?

AJB: Yes and no. I usually have no clue how long one of my stories is going to be. Sometimes I start out intending to write something really short only to have it end up being twelve thousand words and then sometimes I have a long story in mind only to have it played out in five thousand words or even less. So, yes, if I have a feeling the story is going to be long, then I do pick a name for the character(s), but if I’m not sure I may toy with naming them and in other cases I don’t name them at all until I realize the story is going to be much longer than I intended. Then I have to go back and rewrite most of the story to liven it up with the character’s personality.

BREATHE: Does the fact that you write horror affect how you name your characters? (I know writing romance has had a definite effect on the names of my characters!)

AJB: Only when I’m trying to create a particularly nasty character does the genre come into play, and then that is based on the characters themselves. For the most part, I try to write realistic characters with realistic fears and desires with realistic lifestyles. With that in mind, I try to pick normal names for my characters. However, when I want to create a really bad person, I try to get a name that reflects that—or counteracts it, as well. I just created a character named Pax for what I hope becomes a series of short stories. He’s a very bitter man who lost everything and everyone that meant anything to him. He’s not a big talker, but big about action and taking care of business, so when he does talk, it’s usually to speak his mind about something. I toyed with a couple of names, but none of them fit. Then I pictured him with his teeth clenched, gun in hand and staring down his enemy and Pax just fit him.

BREATHE: What’s the most difficulty you’ve ever had coming up with a name for a character?

AJB: That’s a tough one for me—I’m a parent and my wife and I discussed both of our children’s names until we finally settled on their names and both of their names have meaning to us and so sometimes I agonize over a character’s name. Not because that character should be a certain way, but because when I write a story that is of any length, I often see my characters as children and with children their names can either help them or hurt them in their school years. Some would argue that point, but it is as I’ve seen it in my life.

BREATHE: Do you feel a character’s name affects the way you write him or her?

AJB: Yes. Back to the previous question, it all depends on how I view the character. If I see them as a child and if I’m going to use anything from that character’s childhood, then the name becomes significant to me. I know I’m weird to picture my characters as children, but that’s the way I picture folks I don’t know when trying to figure out why they would or would not do something. The past tells so many stories about a person’s, well, personality.

BREATHE: Are there any names you will never use for a character? Why or why not?

AJB: Yes. My children’s names. Since I write a lot about death and misery, I can’t use their names in my stories, simply because of how I view those names.

I asked A.J. to share an excerpt from one of his works in which the names of the characters are particularly significant. He sent me an excerpt from a story called “Always Marilyn”, and it’s perfect in more ways than one. Not only is the name of the character one we can all relate to, its attributes and associations are thoroughly explored. Check it out below.

Excerpt from “ALWAYS MARILYN”:

They call it writer’s block. I call it a fucking wall. One I can’t see over or go around or even scale with some rope so I can at least get back on the other side where creativity awaits me in the form of beautiful words that I liken to Marilyn Monroe—buxom and sexy and wanting to be explored.

Thoughts of Marilyn—my Marilyn, not Monroe—surface and my jaws clench tight. She’s a beauty alright. Blond, like Monroe, big chested, like Monroe, pouty lips begging to kiss or suck, like Monroe. A great lay—probably like Monroe. Not dead, unlike Monroe. No, my Marilyn had the cheating heart and the spreading legs to go with those pouty lips and big breasts. And she was married to me for several years as I cranked out novel after novel and she reaped the benefits of having a writer for a husband, while many other men reaped the benefits of her body.

How long has she been gone, out of my life because of a bigger dick and a bigger paycheck? Three years? Four? I check the calendar and note my last sell—nearly four years ago. It was right after that when the well went dry. She took everything. The money, the house, my car… my reputation. All it took was a few well placed lies and she had written her own book of abuse and cheating and drugs. Most of which were untrue. The drugs… well, that part wasn’t fiction. We both did what we could to stay high, to stay on the track of marriage and popularity, though I think I tried to stay on the marriage train longer than she did.

The divorce I can live with. Other than great sex, we never really had anything in common. She was my trophy wife and I was her sugar daddy, being twelve years older than she was and with money, I guess the allure of fancy cars and a big house and a life in the limelight was enough to get her to stick around for a couple of decades. Thank God there were no kids in the mix or things would have probably ended a lot sooner and I probably wouldn’t have my old PC, even if it was a gift from a relative given to me after the divorce.

What is it in our brains that makes that connection? Recently I’ve been doing crosswords and I’ve felt it when I suddenly understood a clue. “Rubber” =
“Masseuse”. Holy cow, you’re freaking kidding me. But there it is. A light goes on and there’s no doubt and the letters fit and you have the answer.

That’s how I feel when I get the right name for a character. Suddenly a light goes on and it reveals every aspect of his or her personality. Who he is, what she does. How she feels, how he reacts.

But why does it matter? What is it about the name that makes the character? Why is it important to character development?

I’m asking some other writers questions that I hope will reveal some of that to me. These are writers I admire, who I consider much more advanced in their field than me. Already we’ve heard from Joe about his novel NAME. I chose Joe to lead off the series for obvious reasons. His novel has more to do with identity than it does with vampires, although it is the best vampire novel I’ve ever read. Of course, you should understand I was never a Rice fan and I’ve never had enough time to sit down and read Stoker.

I loved Joe’s answers to my questions, but I especially found intriguing his answer to my final query. When I asked if there were any names he’d never consider using for a character, he said, “If a character needs a certain name, whatever that might be, then he or she will likely get it. There aren’t certain names with certain associations that I wouldn’t allow myself to use or anything like that.”

That answer struck me as particularly brave and devoted. It’s an issue I’ve fought with that recently. Am I allowed to use all the names in my repertoire? If I know someone with a name I want to use, can I do that? I cannot tell you how many times I’ve thought of using a name for a character, have built a whole history for this character and suddenly realized I know someone with that name. Crap. My character’s entire life falls like a house of cards. Either I start associating the real-life owner with that character or I worry that the real-life owner will do so.

On Monday we’ll get A.J. Brown’s answers to my personal crossword. I can’t say yet how his words will fit into the puzzle, but I’m hoping for that a-ha moment I love so much.