Wednesday, 13 June 2018

#IWSG - Book Titles vs. Character Names: A Creative Conundrum | Renee Scattergood

Originally posted by Renee Scattergood:


For those who don’t know, the Insecure Writers Support Group is open to all writers to share their fears, doubts, and concerns, as well as triumphs. So if you have something to share, visit the link at the end of this post!

My Writing Process…
It’s now been three months since I implemented my new writing process, and it’s working out better than I had hoped. I’m still working out some of the kinks, but I’ve gotten more writing done in the last few months than I did last year during the same time frame. In fact, I’ve done more than ten times the amount of writing.
This time of the year is usually hard for me because my brain fog always seems to be worse than other times of the year. Then once the weather cools down, I can concentrate again, but I get sick constantly. Makes writing hard, but my new writing process has changed that because I’ve broken it down into smaller jobs that don’t require a large amount of concentration at any one time.
Aside from that, I work on more than one project at a time, so the jobs are even smaller for each project. It actually helps me to focus better when I spend less than an hour each day on each project.
If you’re interested in checking out my new writing process, I’ve been blogging about it. You can check it out here!
By the end of June, I should be on…
  • Step 15 for A God’s Deception Book 2, which is writing the first draft
  • Step 15 for Emergence Season 1, my new serial
  • Step 17 for Shadow Stalker Episode 24, which is the first round of edits
  • Step 16 or 17 for the new short story
  • Step 12 for Book 2 of the middle-grade series I’m working on
I’ll also have June’s short story for the 12 Short Stories Challenge to work on!

What’s harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names?
That’s kind of hard to answer. Both of those things have been hard for me in the past, but I’ve done things to make them simpler.
As far as book titles, sometimes they just come to me. When that happens, it’s obviously easy for me. If that doesn’t happen, I generally will work my story down to one sentence and come up with a title from that, using keywords that sum up that sentence.
Before, that was quite a process for me, but now, with my new writing process, doing that is part of the whole process and it’s not as hard. In fact, it’s quite simple.
I could never come up with character names on my own. I’ve always used name generators for that. I found one called Fantasy Name Generators that I use for that now. If you haven’t used it, you’ll definitely want to check it out.
The hardest part is deciding which generator to use. I pick one that has names that sound like they’d come from the culture (or cultures) I’m creating. I have to keep tabs on which ones I’m using for each culture so I can keep it consistent if new characters come into the story through the writing process.
Once I’ve worked that out, it’s just a matter of going through names until one stands out to me. I won’t use a name unless it feels right to me.
So really, neither is hard for me. It’s more time consuming than anything. Coming up with names tends to be more time consuming, especially when I have a lot of characters. So I’ll have to go with naming the characters.
What about you? Which is hardest for you?
Hope you all have a great month! Happy Writing!

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

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Co-hosts this month are Beverly Stowe McClure,Tyrean Martinson, and Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor! Please visit their blogs and show your support!

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