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Joe G's avatar

Your order of importance with the DOES > SAYS >THINKS > NAME is fascinating to me. Does that mean you can depict a nameless character with little dialogue and thinking, as long as they are doing something clear and compelling?

And when you say THINKS...is that introspection? Hmmm, I always believed it was a good thing to include introspection to build a character's voice.

You definitely speak to me with this. I hate choosing names for characters. And I even got a baby book of my own with 100,000 names. Should I throw it away? Haha

To me, it always feels like choosing a name is done out of obligation because...everybody's gotta have a name, right? It's even more complicated when you want to choose a name with a meaning that relates to the lesson they have to learn or the theme of the story.

Eh screw it, I'm naming all my male characters Jean-Luc.

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Tom Vandel's avatar

I had a drink with Truman Capote one time at the Mansion Bar in Missoula, MT. He was there for a book tour. Told a VERY funny story about a party in Beverly Hills where they had a scavenger hunt. One item was an Oscar statuette. They went to Walter Matthau's house and he gave them his. Johnny Carson was on his team and never left the car cause he was so blitzed. I tried to come up with an original, show-off question to ask Truman and finally said, "So, how did you meet Bianca Jagger" So lame. I still kick myself. And I think it made him mad that I was more interested in her than him. I'm including the anecdote in a new book I'm working on.

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