Search
There is a great great great resource for naming characters. It is a random name generator you can choose the influences and the origin of the name and each name has a meaning when it is generated....
If setting your story in the real world, be careful of the social connotations of choosing foreign names. In the US, Billy Bob and Chuck carry certain connotations (southern and down-to-earth resp...
I wish there was a single reference book for given names from around the world, but I haven't been able to find one. I have a couple of books on my shelves that have been quite helpful: Concise Di...
I either use an existing name and change something like adding a letter or swapping two: Boris -> Borsi. Ken -> Kan. If that fails, I pay this site a visit: http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/...
If the characters are strong, the name gets molded to the character; if they're weak, it's the other way around. "The World According to Garp" makes a pretty big deal about Garp's name - both the ...
Another writer friend of mine went through NaNoWriMo last year, writing furiously to make her 50,000 words, without naming her characters at all. Naming isn't easy. Sometimes a character will hav...
I find much easier to first imagine the character, see it wading through the planned story-line, get emotionally involved with its (mis)adventures, then I can think a name that matches that stronge...
So Sméagol, Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins do not sound silly? Honestly, don't care too much, if they sound silly or not. First, you can change them, second, I've read some great stories with very sill...
I think languages are very different in a lot of subtle things, so I wouldn't trust a third party to translate my thoughts, the way I write, and my subtle hints and intentions into another language...
Sometimes it can be helpful to use your plot to extrapolate what the characters who are involved in it are like. Let's say you're writing a story about a long sea voyage. Right away, that tells you...
Looking fake isn't a factor of too much character development, it's a factor of bad character development. Use as much as you need to show every facet of the character that you deem important. The ...
You should probably have a map for your own reference, so that your narration of travel times is consistent for the distances and modes of transportation. Once that is done, then whether you have ...
I believe every little bit helps. My skill with world and place description is not what I like and I don't feel I can do much about it, so my solution is to add images to make it easier for readers...
It often helps because fantasy books often involve quite a bit of travel. It is not strictly necessary for the novel to be coherent, but I have found the ones that I've read that lacked maps to be...
William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride and the script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, wrote Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell, both of which are essentially mem...
I think 'Screenplay - the Foundations of Screenwriting' by Syd Field is considered to be "The Bible" in this area. Great book.
I doubt anyone knows what you wanted to say better than yourself. Even the most skilled translator can miss some fine points you wanted to express. As someone who has seen quite a number of bad tra...
I think that translation is an art in itself, not unlike writing in that it's also a creative endeavor. If you want to do it because you think you'll get something out of the creative experience, I...
I'm going through the same thing now. I've had excellent responses from readers and negative responses from my editors. My editors want me to use the traditional section break or just write from o...
I read this really good definition by Chris Sunami: Genre should be seen largely as a way of connecting a writer with the audience most likely to enjoy his or her book based on elements shared wit...
If you have the time to do so, and there is a want for the translation, I say it wouldn't be a bad idea. By being able to do the first translation yourself you can be sure all the little things tha...
Three words: Bridge to Terabithia. Every single time I have heard someone mention this book (or the film based on it), it's been in the context of how much they were traumatised by its ending as a ...
There a series of children's books about Mog the cat and the last book is called "Goodbye Mog". It has Mog happily and peacefully going off to sleep. Despite being a bit too old for the books by th...
I see someone recommends Rhymezone. I've been using it since my copy of Wood's fell apart and it's no substitute: it has multipe repetitions, vast numbers of words that sound as though they were in...
Webster's New World Rhyming Dictionary: Clement Wood's Updated This is the rhyming dictionary I turn to first. It's an update to Clement Wood's classic 1943 reference. The phonetic distribution of...
