Guest Post

Guest Chick: Liz Milliron

The Chicks are over the moon to welcome back FOTB (Friend of the Blog) and author extraordinaire Liz Milliron. The author of two series and multiple short stories, Liz has made a name for herself with compelling characters, wonderful writing, and a dedication to community and craft. Speaking of names, Liz has a few words about that, as well. Take it away, Liz!

What’s in a name?

Thanks to all the Chicks for having me back. It’s great to be a guest.

When I had my children – lo these many moons ago – picking the name was relatively easy. I knew The Girl would be named after my mother and my husband’s mother. For The Boy, I had a favorite name. All I had to do was let The Hubby pick the middle name – and he went straight for his father’s.

Easy. No drama.

But I know many people who stressed over the names of their children for months. Should they use great-grandma Irene’s name? What about Uncle Bill? Do people name their kids Clarence these days? Or what about something trendy, like Emma or Liam? What are the most popular names according to Social Security? Should we use something unique, so Baby isn’t the fifth Matthew in his class?

I’m here to tell you: expectant parents have nothing, I repeat nothing, on authors.

First off, the name has to fit the character. When I say a person’s name is Sally, you get an instant mental picture, right? What about Vivien? Or Frank? Or Tyler? If the character is supposed to be a sultry vixen or a dark and handsome hottie, you can’t give him or her a wholesome name. Unless you’re going for irony.

You don’t want names that have the same ending sound: Sally, Frankie, Johnny, and Millie. Too sing-songy. Don’t pick names that sound too much alike: Ellen and Helen. Again, the sound is repetitive, especially if they are in the same scene.

Double-barreled names? Use with care. Yes, it occurs in real life. (I’m looking at you, Meghan Markle.) But I once read a book that used three of them and yes, it really does make a difference. The prose sounds little less polished.

You don’t want names to all start with the same first letter, whether first or last. Amy, Andrew, Ava, and Avery. It’s very confusing for readers because they have difficulty keeping them straight. And you don’t want to confuse your reader. Maybe you can skirt it a little with surnames. After all, how often do people say, “Hello, Andrew McLaren, how are you?” But again, if you have a scene where you have McLaren, Michaels, and Morgan, well, it’s a little much.

Don’t forget non-person names. In my work in progress, I have Harris (first name), Hicks (last name), and Howard (university name). That won’t work at all.

How do authors keep track of all this? In my series bible, I have a spreadsheet of characters. I can sort by first name and last name, diligently searching for all those no-nos. But my critique partners still find them. In the last book, I had Lise (a new character who was in one scene) and Lisa (the wife of another character). Lisa had already been named, so Lise became Vivien. In this summer’s Saving the Guilty, almost every new character was renamed. Talk about a challenging search and replace.

And yet, even with all that, those face-palm moments still happen. Jim Duncan is the protagonist of the Laurel Highlands Mysteries. I gave him a partner named – wait for it – Jenny Cavendish. It didn’t hit my radar because Jim refers to most people by surname. But the first time I wrote a scene from Sally Castle’s point of view, and all three of them were in it (in the book after Jenny Cavendish was introduced), the double “J” hit me between the eyes. Because Sally uses first names.

In Saving the Guilty, I’m borrowing some locations and characters from Annette Dashofy’s Zoe Chambers series, including Parson’s Roadhouse. What’s Sally’s law partner’s name? Tanelsa Parson.

Sigh. I made a joke about it and moved on.

Names. The only thing more frustrating is timelines.

But that’s a post for a different day.

Readers, do characters with similar names confuse you in books? What about people in real life? If you’re a writer, how do you keep track of your character names?

About Liz:

Liz Milliron is the author of the Laurel Highlands mystery series, starring a Pennsylvania State Trooper and a Fayette County public defender in the scenic Laurel Highlands of southwest Pennsylvania. She is also the author of the Homefront Mysteries, set in Buffalo, NY in the early years of WWII. The series features Betty Ahern, a Rosie the Riveter turned Sam Spade. Her short fiction has been published in multiple anthologies including Murder Most International, Blood on the Bayou, and Murder Most Historical. Liz is a past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the current Vice President, as well as the Education Liaison for the National Board of Sisters in Crime. She is a member of International Thriller Writers, Pennwriters and the Historical Novel Society. Liz splits her time between homes in Pittsburgh and the Laurel Highlands, where she lives with her husband and a very spoiled retired-racer greyhound.

Mary Sutton (writing as Liz Milliron)
www.lizmilliron.com

Get my newsletter: https://www.subscribepage.com/newsletteridyllic

Now Available:

The Secrets We Keep (Homefront Mysteries #5) – “Tough, big-hearted sleuth Betty Ahearn will have you cheering her courage and smarts as she searches for a soldier’s mother in WWII-era Buffalo. With Betty’s growing confidence and the hint of a troubling new romance on the horizon, this may just be the best entry yet in Liz Milliron’s fantastic WWII Homefront mystery series. A great read, fast-paced, dialogue-driven, and a moving exploration of the price paid by those who hide family secrets.” ~ Mally Becker, Agatha Award-nominated author of the The Turncoat’s Widow.

Thicker Than Water (Laurel Highlands Mysteries #6) – “A pitch-perfect procedural with excellent pacing and crisp dialogue. It’s the relationships that had me speeding through the pages. This is one where I didn’t see the ending, and where a crime was a crime, but I sympathized with the motivation. Brava!” – Gabriel Valjan, Agatha, Anthony, and Shamus-nominated author of the Shane Cleary Mysteries

26 thoughts on “Guest Chick: Liz Milliron”

  1. Excellent tips, Liz! As for capturing unique names, I keep a journal handy when watching TV and films. The credits offer a treasure chest of unusual but catchy names. I have a weakness for names, four letters or fewer. I’m up to several dozen now. Put in alphabetical order in a spreadsheet makes it easy to select the ones that won’t conflict with other characters. I know not everyone uses Scrivener to write novels, but for those who do, the app makes it a snap to organize the character profiles under Binder headings like Protagonists, Antagonists, and Supporting Cast. This helps writers avoid the dreaded changed name or any of the errors (e.g., husband’s name, hometown, etc.) picky readers always find and broadcast in negative comments on Amazon.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

      1. I understand, Liz. It’s difficult keeping all the characters in the current book when there are a bazillion in the series. With that in mind, I created a separate Scrivener file. It goes by many names, but I call mine ‘Character Inventory.scriv.’ My wide monitor makes it a snap to have the current book on one side of the screen and the inventory open on the other side. Then Scrivener allows me to drag and drop the character profiles as a copy to or from either the book or inventory. It works so well, a gift that keeps on giving for the time spent on the learning curve!

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  2. You are SO right about all of this, Liz! As a reader, character names that are too much alike make it hard to remember who is who. For my writing, I keep a master character list for each of my series. I refer to it all the time when I’m drafting.

    The one exception is for my upcoming Elmo Simpson Mysteries. I have a set of triplets names Beryl, Cheryl, and Meryl Farrell named that way for comic relief.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    3. I think that’s genius, JC … mainly because I do it too! ha! But seriously, when there are a lot of characters to keep track of, if you can group them some memorable way, I think that’s truly the way to go. And it is so much easier when we write cozies because they can be humorous.

      And Liz, ohmygoodness, character naming is some of the most fun and most horrible times an author can have. And like you, my kids were simple. My characters on the other hand …. oof.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. Liz, we’re so happy to chat with you as a guest today! Love your smart, fabulous books–Betty is one of my favorite characters. My 3 kids’ names sound different–but they all end in “y” or “ie.” Oops. In elementary school, our teachers had us make up pen names for our creative writing works. Unlike my classmates’ elaborate, clever names, mine was simply Amy Maxwell (for Amy in Little Women and the coffee can on our kitchen counter at home). Later I actually changed it to Amy Matthews (Note: 2 “T”s, not my current one!) In my new series, I have the added challenge of not reusing Irish names. I’m writing Book 2 now, and I do my best, but after I finished The JIG IS UP, I hired a freelancer to create a working series bible in One Note. Having a backup is money well spent, at least for me. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  4. Ooof, you are so right, Liz! Names are one of the trickiest parts of writing a novel. But it’s also a lot of fun, going through lists of baby names online and then finding that perfect one. It’s been especially tricky for my new Orchid Isle series, though, as SO many Hawaiian names begin with either K or L.

    Thanks so much for visiting the Chicks today, and yippee for your new books!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. Happy to have you on the blog, Liz! Congrats on all your writing successes! I totally agree with you about creating names as an author. Although now I feel like I need to go back and check last names and first names…eek.

    I’ve also had a little crossover with names across series, but I try to make that more of a nice homage.

    P.S. I think Jim & Jenny work because it’s a pairing.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Jen. Just when you think you’ve got it down, boom. You find one.

      There was the book that almost went to print with three separate waitresses named Judy. I think I blogged about that here once.

      Pairing, yeah, that’s it!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  6. This is a fun topic. Yes, as a reader, I can find it confusing when many characters in a book have names that start with the same letter. I have actually made lists of characters with little blurbs about each of them for certain books with large casts of characters. It really does help and impressed the members of the general fiction book club I used to belong to.

    My main complaint, as one of those picky readers, is names that don’t fit the character. It drove me crazy that a potential love interest for a cozy protagonist had what I considered a wimpy name. I asked my sister and she agreed that the name was a poor fit for the type of character he was supposed to be. And even one of my favorite cozy authors drove me crazy by giving a name to an important member of the supporting cast that simply did not fit. The name didn’t match the character’s ethnicity and actually represented a different one. But you will all be happy to know I kept my thoughts to myself and didn’t ever post about it in a review or tell the authors privately what I thought. Because, after all, naming a child or a character isn’t really my business.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Sue – your own character list? That’s impressive. I know some books have a list of characters at the beginning. I’ve never had to do that.

      Yes, character names have to fit the character! I’ve named characters and their personalities turn out to be quite different than what I originally envisioned, so I have to find them a better name, one that fits.

      It may not be your business, but we’re always happy when we make our readers happy. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  7. Liz, thank you so much for guesting! OOOH, the name game. I’m so impressed you have a spreadsheet. When I’m creating a new series, I type out the alphabet horizontally and delete letters when I’ve used them in a name. I do the same thing when I’m creating new characters for a specific book in the series. But I made the biggest mistake of all… I named three protagonists in three series names that start with “M.” Guess who got out of bed on page one of HERE COMES THE BODY? Maggie, not Mia. And none of us caught it. And you see I said three series? I was proud of myself for giving the protag in my Vintage Cookbook Mysteries the nickname Ricki. Then a friend pointed out it was short for… Miracle.

    BTW, I was supposed to be named after a distant relative on my dad’s side: Edna. My mother said, no way am I naming a kid Edna! So she just used the first initial.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. I remember you telling that story, Ellen. Yes, when you have multiple series, it makes things even harder. I got stuck on J names for men once (novels and short fiction). Fortunately, I caught that pretty quickly and was able to change it up.

      Good for your mom! My grandfather told my father if he ever named one of his kids Clarence, Papa would disinherit him. LOL

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. I appreciate all the work you (and other authors) do to try to keep us from being confused by characters with too similar sounding names. Yes, it still happens, but the less it happens, the better. Because I will struggle with keeping characters straight, especially if they are in scenes together or don’t have much page time.

    I did read a mystery once where a clue to the killer pointed to someone with the name A. Yep, all the suspects started with that name. It was a bit confusing, but the author did a good job of helping us keep the suspects straight. Not recommended as a regular practice, however, so don’t get any ideas. 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. So happy to have you as a guest, Liz!

    This is fantastic!! I tend to have distinct character names, but I did end up changing a character name after I had completed my manuscript when I realized that someone in my life shared that name and might feel that I was making some kind of comparison with the character. (I wasn’t.) I ended up making a mess of things when I didn’t select “change whole words” when I ran Search and Replace!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Oh, the dreaded “Change whole words.” Been there, done that. Quite a mess.

      I once used the name of someone at her request. She said she was okay with whatever kind of character she ended up as (I did warn her she might turn out to be a murderer), but I don’t think she did.

      Well, I did warn her.

      Like

      Reply

  10. I think I broke the rules in the Liv & Di series. I deliberately used the same first letter for the first names of Liv and Di’s significant others. Liv’s husband is Larry Joe and Di’s boyfriend is Dave. I thought it might help readers match them up that way. Was it the right call? I don’t know. I have to hope so at this point.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a comment