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I was determined to keep on schedule as much as possible before husband’s surgery, so my goal for this week was to make it to 120,000 words. Which I did. Today I went back to an unfinished chapter (it had stopped in a sort of lurch awhile back) and it took off a bit. A certain teary widow has pulled up her socks and had an idea I certainly had not anticipated when I quit on that chapter. I’m impressed. Kieri’s impressed.
I’d done a bit of poking around in a few other chapters as well, probably not more than 50 words in each, and discovered that I’d misspelled a character’s name in a way that made it a real word, so no little pink underline to warn me. But it leapt off the screen at me, screaming NOT MY NAME! Helped that the correct name was visible on the same screen. Even so, why hadn’t I noticed that before?
The name file (in which I store names of characters, towns, etc.) saved me again today when I couldn’t remember the widow’s husband’s first name. Some of you have even commented that there are a lot of names in these books. Big books, big cast, and…lots of names. I can’t remember them all. (Who is Marshal of Seameadow Grange, a name from the original Paks books that I might need to reference? Um…it’s in the name file, thank goodness. )
Besides being a convenience for the writer, copy editors appreciate having a name file, even in books where the people have ordinary names with ordinary spelling, but more in those where the names are exotic. Otherwise they won’t know that Regar and Regal are not two different people, but that Regal is a typo.
It can be difficult to impossible, when writing flat out, to put all the new names into the name file. Sometimes I can’t come up with a new name when I need one. I often use square brackets for notes to myself during writing–including things like [childname], [needaname], [2ndthiefname] as well as [check timing for day king can learn this.] It’s easy to do a “find” on square brackets, and anyway, they catch my eye when I’m re-reading. If I’ve made up new names during a writing session and haven’t stopped to put them in, I’ll spend some time going back over the day’s work and putting them in that day. Otherwise…otherwise I forget to. And then, if I need the name of some obscure person in a later chapter, I have to go hunting through the manuscript for it.
Comment by L Frank Turovich — July 22, 2011 @ 11:57 am
Am in the process of writing my first fantasy fiction novel and decided early on to consolidate my years of background notes into a wiki program. Wiki’s provide a way to link different pages together using a simple markup language. For example, anytime I mention a characters name in an entry, the name itself becomes a link to the entry for that character automatically. Makes it very easy to keep things straight. At least for me.
Anyway, since I’m on a Mac I use a program called VoodooPad, but a good one for Win PCs is called wikidpad, as mentioned in the Writing Excuses podcast Episode 5.34, Story Bibles.
Anyway, can’t wait for the next Pak story.
Comment by Jenn — July 22, 2011 @ 1:58 pm
Do you ever accidentally resurrect some one? You have a horrible but realistic tendency to kill your characters off quite frequently.
Comment by David Watson — July 22, 2011 @ 1:58 pm
When I can’t come up with a name in the midst of creating a scene, I just key in the word “Krakatoa”. It pops up very nicely when I’m proof-reading, and if not a simple ‘find’ will turn it up right away. DRW
Comment by Dave Ring — July 22, 2011 @ 3:33 pm
I’d guess one reason proof-reading is hard is that it’s done using a single arrangement of words on a page. Our eyes input all the text at a low level, but our brains probably use only key fragments of some words and interpolate or synthesize the rest. A particular formatted arrangement of words will make some errors easy to spot and effectively hide others.
Seems to me a good spellchecker should be able to catch most errors that change a character name to a dictionary word by looking at capitalization. Wouldn’t, of course, if the name loses its capital or the dictionary word is a proper noun or first of sentence.
Comment by elizabeth — July 22, 2011 @ 4:52 pm
Jenn…yes, it did once. In DIVIDED ALLEGIANCE, my husband pointed out that someone killed in one chapter was holding other peoples’ horses in the next. Now I consult the name list more often, and also make a note when a character dies (and in which book.) Since some common names recur, as in real life, a first name may show up more than once in the course of all the books, esp. for a very minor character, but context should make it clear that this one isn’t that one. (That one was a 35 yo soldier killed in battle; this one is a child in another kingdom.
Comment by elizabeth — July 22, 2011 @ 7:52 pm
Good luck with your first novel!
Comment by elizabeth — July 22, 2011 @ 7:59 pm
That’s the problem spellcheckers have: they’re expected to recognize a word as OK even if it starts with a capital letter, because any word could be used as the first word in a sentence. There may be a spellchecker that’s written to include that other test, but I don’t know of it.
Comment by Leo — July 23, 2011 @ 7:59 am
The cover for your next book is up on Amazon now – and i must say that i really like it. If anyone hasn’t read the 2nd book yet – this cover will definitely be a spoiler then. LOL. Hope the surgery went well and that everyone is recovering and resting like they should be.
Comment by elizabeth — July 23, 2011 @ 9:51 am
Leo: the surgery’s Monday. This past week was the pre-surgery consults and other preparations. Unless there’s bad news, I will be scarce around here next week…it’s why I was pushing to clear 120,000 words this week.
Comment by Hugo Fuchs — July 23, 2011 @ 10:20 am
RE: spell-checkers. I’ll try to see if Whitesmoke covers any of this as it’s on my ‘to buy’ list for later this year.
Comment by Adam Baker — July 23, 2011 @ 1:21 pm
Good luck to your husband on his surgery. I will make sure to keep him & the doctors in my prayers.
Comment by Jenn — July 23, 2011 @ 1:27 pm
Will be remembering you and your husband on Monday.
Comment by arthur Piantadosi — July 23, 2011 @ 4:50 pm
how about you use my heart name for one of Arvids fellow thieves? I will tell you it, because you helped me to understand my mother. And I NEEDED to understand my mother.
Comment by Jonathan Schor — July 23, 2011 @ 5:40 pm
Good luck on your husband’s surgery.
Comment by Rolv — July 24, 2011 @ 7:00 am
Praying for your husband, and hoping his surgery will be as successful as mine were.
Rolv
Comment by Dave Ring — July 24, 2011 @ 7:46 am
I’ll be thinking about you and your family during your husband’s surgery tomorrow. My new Parkinson’s med is continuing to help with sleep and walking, and I thank everyone for their prayers and concern.
Comment by Kathleen — July 24, 2011 @ 2:16 pm
Thinking about you and yours here too. -Kathleen
Comment by Kip Colegrove — July 24, 2011 @ 6:28 pm
Prayers for your household are being ratcheted up several notches.
The news that Borders stores will all close has me truly [insert appropriate word or phrase for truly annoyed and disappointed]. I’ll never forget discovering John Hemry’s JAG-in-space novels in a Borders in Omaha, or seeing The Speed of Dark on the new releases table (same store). It’s a problem for writers, publishers and readers that outlets for the printed word have become as consolidated as they have.
Comment by Daniel Glover — July 25, 2011 @ 6:30 am
Prayers speeding across the aether.
Comment by Jenn — July 25, 2011 @ 7:13 am
Remembering you today.