I started this series because of my own struggles with naming characters. I always feel that if I don’t get the character’s name right, I can’t write him or her correctly. Sometimes the names are easy. The name Josie in SECRETS OF THE LOTUS was incredibly easy. I wanted something unusual, innocent and beautiful and Josie fit the bill perfectly. More recently however named and renamed a character and couldn’t get him to behave or look the way I wanted him to until I settled on the name Liam. Liam is now the main male character in ALWAYS FAITHFUL, which, though finally completed, is still my work-in-progress.

To wind up the series I asked some of my former guests two more questions, with the promise that I would also answer them. They are basic yes or no questions, but I did ask the others to go into some detail if they wanted.

BREATHE: Could you take the name of a person you dislike and create a character you’d consider lovable?
ME: I believe this is possible. Some of the names of people I dislike are actually very beautiful names in themselves.
JOE YOUNG: I don’t think this would be a problem at all. There aren’t many names of people I dislike that I associate only with that single person, and besides, I think it would probably feel good to “rehabilitate” the name of someone I wasn’t fond of by naming a lovable character that.
AJ BROWN: Yes. That would actually be fairly easy. Even folks we don’t like or don’t get along with usually have one or more redeemable traits. The key is finding those traits and focusing on them. Someone may be a jerk as a boss, but a great father to their kids. You can find something redeeming in that, right?
MARYANNE STAHL: Yes. The character takes on a life of her own over time.

BREATHE: Could you take the name of a person you love and create a character you despise?
ME: No. I don’t think I could do that, but it might just be that I wouldn’t want to. To me, a name of someone I love is a part of them and a treasure, so I think this is a boundary I won’t cross.
JOE YOUNG: This might be a sticking point, though probably just for a moment. I’d think, Do I really want to name this nasty character the same as she/he who I love? Well, yeah, why not, she/he would probably find it amusing. In any case, I’m thinking that, for both of these questions, I’m not sure how much they would ever apply to something I’d write. I’ve never thought to myself, well that character is lovable, that one despicable. Even my rather psychotic villain in NAME, Daniel, I kind of like.
AJ BROWN: Yes. Like the first question, even our spouses have things that annoy us from time to time (even if it is only once in a while, it does happen) so, like finding the redeemable qualities in someone you dislike, I think you can harp on the things you don’t like about people you love or admire just as easily, if not easier. I think it’s easier to create a person you don’t like than to create one your readers will have sympathy for.
MARYANNE STAHL: I possibly could, but I don’t think I would.

So what did I learn from all this? I now know that other writers have systems for naming their characters. I know some names are sometimes off limits, but for the most part if a name fits a character, I should go for it. (I’m thinking about writing a novel using only first names of people I went to high school with, so look look out for that BHS!) And I’ve learned that a rose is a rose…except when it’s not.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when Ellen Meister agreed to be my guest for this interview. I’ve admired her writing for several years and I was lucky enough to have her editorial expertise available to me while getting my own novel ready to send out to publishers and agents. Ellen is the author of SECRET CONFESSIONS OF THE APPLEWOOD PTA, THE SMART ONE, and her highly anticipated (by more than me!) upcoming novel THE OTHER LIFE, due out next month.

BREATHE: Are the meanings of your characters’ names important to you or do you just search for a name that fits?

EM: I search for a name that feels right. And of course it’s hard to explain why one name seems to work for a character and another doesn’t. It’s usually a gut reaction.

Sometimes I’ll research the meaning of a character’s name AFTER I’ve selected it, just out of curiosity. Usually they fit. But I’ve never renamed a character because the meaning on some baby name site doesn’t jibe.

BREATHE: Looking back through your first two novels, I find some interesting choices, for women’s names in particular. In your second novel, the names Bev, Clare and Joey perfectly illustrate the differences between the characters, which is essential to the story. Which of your character names (in any of your work) is your favorite?

EM: My favorites are the ones that seem to reflect the personality so perfectly they make my work easier. In my first novel, SECRET CONFESSIONS OF THE APPLEWOOD PTA, I had carefully conceived three main characters and named them Maddie, Ruth and Lisa. Then, as I was writing the first chapter, a best friend showed up at Maddie’s side. Her name was Beryl, which was perfect for this wisecracking woman.

I also like Joey, the nickname for one of the sisters in THE SMART ONE. Before I named her I knew I wanted something more boyish than androgynous, and “Joey” felt so right it instantly defined her.

BREATHE: The name of your main character in THE OTHER LIFE, Quinn Braverman, is very unique. How did you go about selecting it?

EM: Quinn was a tough character to name. When I first conceived the book, I was calling her Marla. But as I struggled with my opening chapters, it hit me that I was using the wrong name. Her mother was an artist and would have chosen something more unusual. Quinn was the first thing that popped into my head, but it was hard to make the mental switch after I’d been calling her Marla for such a long time, so I kept researching names. At last I realized that nothing beat Quinn, and so I rolled up my sleeves, started writing and presto, it all came together. Quinn was the right choice.

The last name, Braverman, was inspired by a next door neighbor.

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

EM: Sometimes. Clearly, my experience with Quinn in THE OTHER LIFE proved that it can be hard to move forward when you have the wrong name.

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

EM: I don’t think any names are off limits, but I’m careful not to give similar names to any characters within the same work. It can be hard enough for a reader to keep track of characters, and I don’t want to make it any more difficult than it has to be. I even try to stay away from using the same first letter for any two characters, unless there’s a point to it. (Anyone remember Goofus and Gallant?)

More about THE OTHER LIFE:

What if you could return to the road not taken?

Quinn Braverman is keeping two secrets from her loving husband, Lewis. One is that the real reason she chose him over Eugene, her neurotic, semi-famous ex-boyfriend, was to prove to her mother that she could have a happy, stable relationship with the guy next door.

The other is that Quinn knows another life exists in which she made the other choice and stayed with Eugene. The two lives run in parallel lines, like highways on opposite sides of a mountain. There, on the other side, the Quinn who stayed with Eugene is speeding through her high-drama, childless life in Manhattan. Here, the Quinn who married Lewis lives in the suburbs, drives a Volvo, and has an adorable young son with another baby on the way.

But the important part of the secret—the part that terrifies and thrills her—is that she knows it’s possible to cross from one life to the other. So far she’s played it safe, never venturing over to see what’s on the other side. Then a shocking turn of events rattles Quinn to her very core, and she makes the reckless choice to finally see what she’s been missing.

There, she not only rediscovers her exciting single life, but meets the one person she thought she’d lost forever. Her mother.

But Quinn can’t have both lives. Soon, she must decide which she really wants—the one she has…or the other life?

Maryanne Stahl is a talented writer and teacher of fiction and poetry with two novels (FORGIVE THE MOON and THE OPPOSITE SHORE) and a chapbook of poetry and flash fiction (ELECTRIC URGENCY) to her credit. Her writing is filled with a lovely Southern grace I’ve seldom found anywhere else so I was thrilled when she agreed to join me for my little experiment.

BREATHE: I am a big fan of The Opposite Shore, your second novel. In the acknowledgments, you say it was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Shakespeare was actually a master at playing with the symbolism of names and their meanings. Do you often look for symbolic names for your characters?

MAS: First, thank you. This is a fun topic.

Yes, I am very interested in what names mean and suggest, though that’s only one element to naming characters, for me. The way a name sounds or the associations it evokes are other considerations. And sometimes a character will just kind of develop a name and I won’t really know why. There have also been times I have named characters in light-hearted hommage to people I know–friends, family–just for fun. Each story, each character is different. But yes, the names in The Opposite Shore were all quite deliberate.

BREATHE: I love that you named the sailboat after Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. How important do you think the names of inanimate objects are as opposed to the names of characters?

MAS: In the case of the Ariel, the name is pretty important. It’s a nod to the character in the play, of course, and also seemed to fit a beautiful, sometimes temperamental vessel that “flies” over the sea. I wanted the boat to be a kind of character. She plays a fairly significant role in the lives of the other characters.

BREATHE: Is the selection of a character’s name a difficult process for you? How do you go about it?

MAS: It depends. I don’t have a consistent process (in anything I do). In the case of TOS, it was fun. I knew from the beginning I wanted to make reference to the play. So in addition to Ariel there was Miranda, Rose for Prospero, Cannibal for Caliban; William Campbell is a combined nod to William Shakespeare and Joseph Campbell.

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

MAS: Yes…and I think names affect the way people relate to people in life. (Despite what Shakespeare said about a rose by any other name. )

When I use a friend’s name, usually for a minor character, I am always reminded of the person as I write that character. Not that the character resembles the namesake in any way; usually that is not the case. That’s why I use friends’ names only for very minor characters.

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

MAS: That’s an interesting question. I don’t think so. I mean there may be some I would never use, but I am not aware of them.

I don’t mind ordinary character names. Sometimes a character just has a name, and it isn’t one I like or that means anything particularly relevant, or is interesting in any way . It just is. Currently I am working (<–I say that loosely) on a novel set in Savannah and Italy in which the main character's name is Jane Bernardi, meant to embody her hybrid, Italian/American heritage.

To read an excerpt from THE OPPOSITE SHORE click here: Maryanne Stahl’s THE OPPOSITE SHORE.

When I first heard my friend Joe Young had written a vampire novel, my first thought was, “Seriously?” It wasn’t something I’d ever have considered as something Joe would do. First of all, the longest work I’d ever read by Joe was his excellent collection of microfictions, EASTER RABBIT. Joe writing a novel wasn’t something I could comprehend. After I got over the astonishment, however, I was totally jealous. I knew if Joe had written a vampire novel it would be terrific, and that’s something I’ve never been able to accomplish.

It was NAME’s unique take on identity that prompted me to ask Joe to join me in my quest for answers about naming characters.

BREATHE: Obviously, the concept of identity is very central to your book. Is this something you have explored before in your writing, or is it something that emerged in this longer work?

JOE: I answered this first question after answering your second, and I think I kind of talk about this there: the non-naming of my characters in my microfiction is a sort of playing with identity, both the fixedness and the fluidity of it. So, yes, I have explored it before. Of course, in NAME the concept is more central and more overt. In the novel, your identity is attached to your name, and this attachment allows someone (in this case, vampires) access to who you are; by finding out a victim’s name, the vampires gain power over him or her. Also, having a name seems to stabilize a character in the book, and those characters with more than one name, Daniel and, in a way, John (who is misnamed when we first meet him), are the more volatile and even unstable of characters

BREATHE: Looking through your microfictions, I find a lot of pronouns and few names except sometimes in titles. Do the characters in your microfictions have names, even if they’re never stated?

JOE: They don’t have names that I ever think about. I don’t say to myself, This is Michelle and Pete, but I’m just not going to call them that. Therefore I guess the answer is no, they have no names. I think most of the time the he’s and she’s of my microfictions are the same people, even if they change ages or life situations or whatever. So, maybe not naming them lets me have fluidity over their identities in certain ways even while keeping them as the same basic people in my imagination—they are both fixed and fluid people.

BREATHE: Was it difficult to name characters in your first novel? If so, how did you overcome this? If not, why do you think it wasn’t?

JOE: No, it wasn’t difficult at all, the names came to me and I wrote them down as the characters appeared in the story. I didn’t plan them out ahead of time or change them at all. For instance, I came up with “the rabbit” earlier in the book and didn’t know his real name was Daniel until Robert encountered him later on. I don’t think it was difficult because I didn’t put much stock in names in particular, not consciously anyway. The fact that they had names, that they were identified by them, and that the vampires used those names to seduce them, was more important than the names themselves. It occurred to me much later on though that Lena was several times associated with ducks and swans in the book, and I think that perhaps I had unconsciously associated her with Leda, the woman who was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan and who then gave birth to Helen of Troy. Those who read the book might notice when the character of Helen appears. Some of the other names, John and Daniel, for example, have Biblical associations that perhaps were working subconsciously for me as well.

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

JOE: I think so. Something about who a character is suggests a name, even if, as above, that suggestion is less than conscious, and then once they have that name it becomes part of their identity, influencing who they are and what they do. It could be an interesting experiment that when you revise a story you change the protagonist’s name and see what changes you make to his or her character as a result.

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

JOE: I can’t imagine there are. 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.

Here’s a taste of Joe’s novel NAME to whet your appetite:

Robert, a vampire, the novel’s protagonist, and Lena, his vampire love interest, go out hunting together for their victims. They come upon a pair of young lovers, about 14 years old.

Robert led them toward the woods, the pair of them, Lena and he. The other pair was up ahead, holding hands as they went. The girl and boy walked awhile, and then they stopped, a wide spot in the path, and put matches to their cigarettes. The boy propped one foot on a log, the girl’s hand on his knee. She said something at which he smiled, small and ironic at first and then opening out, into joy. He took his cigarette from his mouth, put it in the girl’s lips, took her cigarette and put it into his. She leant against him and exhaled, long and noisy, eyes closed.

Robert looked and it was so near the surface. It was clear and bright, at the bright surface of her thoughts. It was there, her name, as unclouded as her eyes, as if she’d just spoken it aloud. It was as if the boy had said it to her and she’d taken it into herself, her own name, like a gift. It was a small package, dressed in blue light and clear water.

“Maggie,” he called, and the girl looked up. And from Lena, “Ryan.”