Hello guys ;)
Before I start, I wanted to apologize for being late again for blog
Thursday. I don’t even know myself why I can’t manage to stick to my own
schedule, but I guess I just lacked inspiration and ideas for a thoughtful
post.
Anyway, as you probably know my last post was about useful writing tools
and I already introduced you to a few of my favorite. However, there are a lot
more of similar resources that I collected over the last few years and that I
wanted to share with the writers among you.
If you like to write fiction like I do you have probably already
encountered this type of problem at some point, at least I do all the time. You
have this great idea about a character and most likely have planned all the
important details out perfectly but still one thing is missing - his or her
name. Of course you need to feel comfortable with the name and you want it to
have an appropriate meaning connected to your characters traits or even flaws.
So in order to find the perfect one there are some helpful websites out there
on the internet:
The first and most important one to me is the random name generator on http://www.behindthename.com/random/.
It looks like this:
Basically, you can get a random name without selecting any of the
categories given and just try your luck or you can narrow down your search.
Apart from the gender and origin of the name you can also select whether or not
you want to get a full name including a middle name as well or a first name
plus surname or simply a first name.
If you just need a common American last name this page is perfect for
you:
It’s called mongabay.com and lists their names by frequency.
Here is the link: http://names.mongabay.com/most_common_surnames.htm
In addition, this website also lists typical male and female first names
of the US
Another type of name you might search for is for a location or city
where your story takes place. If you choose to develop your storyline in a
fictional universe at a made up place there is a website that helps you find a
name for it.
To find it just click this link: http://www.namegenerator.biz/place-name-generator.php
This page is really easy to use, you just need to press the button
generate place names in the middle of the site.
I have one last useful website about character names that I want to show
you and then I’ll go on to another important aspect of creating your character.
If you care a lot about the meaning of your personality’s name here is
the address to a valuable website: http://www.meaning-of-names.com/
It does not only give you the meaning if you type in a name but also
tells you a short history of it such as where it comes from. In addition, you
can also find a name through it’s meaning which is especially useful if you
want to choose a name after character traits.
As mentioned above I want to give you some help with another important
aspect of developing your protagonist: knowing all about him or her such as his or her likes/dislikes, traits/weaknesses, background and so on.
For a chart that includes all the necessary features you should keep in
mind when creating your character have a look at this link: http://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.html
Concerning writing about emotions, this chart includes some valuable expressions to best describe the feelings of your protagonist:
I even came across a compilation of useful writing resources on this
website:
They are all free and help you improve your grammar as well as your
general writing skills and lend you a hand to avoid common mistakes when
writing.
I could probably ramble on about this topic for hours but I don’t want
to bore you or annoy you with a too long post so I’m going to stop now.
Just one last thing for all the ones of you who’d like some advice on
writing: here is a short video from an English-born author and journalist who
gives a few tips on writing in general:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTyxpaXOAIE
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