I meant to do this earlier in the day. Megan could not do the blog today so I volunteered but then I spent the day FINALLY finishing the revisions to The Vanishing Viscountess.

I promised my system for naming characters.

The Regency period was a more formal time than nowadays when everyone from salesclerks to telemarketers want to use your first name. First names were rarely used in the Regency era, except among family or schoolmates. Even so, a little boy with a title would be called by his title, even if he was a mere toddler. Think of it, in Pride & Prejudice no one ever called Darcy Fitzwilliam! and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet addressed themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

I’ve tried to adapt to this style in my books, so I pay attention first to title names and surnames. I make sure my male characters have title names or surnames that will sound comfortable as what we modern folk would think of as given names. So in my March book, Innocence & Impropriety, the hero is Jameson Flynn, but he is “Flynn” throughout the book. His employer is the Marquess of Tannerton or “Tanner” to everyone. (Tanner is the hero of The Vanishing Viscountess)

I often create title names by using The Incomplete Peerage . But I mix up the title names, taking the stem from one of them and putting on a different ending, so “Cornwall” may become “Cornworth.” Then I google “Lord Cornworth” to make certain there isn’t a real one.

My heroines are much more apt to get a first name. Have you noticed how my heroine names mostly start with “M”? My daughter’s name starts with M.

For first names I go to a baby naming site and look up English or Scottish or Irish or Welsh first names, whatever I need. Or I go to a census of the time period and see what names are there. I do this for surnames as well.

I try not to repeat a letter of the alphabet in the book, so if the hero is Tanner, then his butler would not be Turner.

That’s it. That’s my naming style. And if that doesn’t work, I just take a name from a reader–Right Mallory? Mallory Pickerloy is my heroine in The Vanishing Viscountess.

Diane

A month or so ago I blogged about the agony and ecstasy of finding a title.

Little did I know then, but the title search was to go on… and on. Because the marketing department changed its mind about the one they’d chosen, and took it upon themselves to find one. I was all titled out and happy to turn it over to them. And today, we finally settled on one–Pride and Prejudice. No, just kidding. It’s The Rules of Gentility. Long ago I suggested Gentility Rules, which might be the sort of thing you’d find spray-painted on a wall in Highbury. (Another favorite was The Lady Vanquishes, apparently lost on a generation who didn’t grow up watching Hitchcock.)

In all of this long, long process, I discovered I knew virtually nothing about how books are titled and the relationship of cover to contents, and now I think I know even less. I thought, for instance, that the cover had to reflect what was inside. Well, yes, sort of. I pulled some Jane Austen covers off the web to illustrate what may or may not be my point. Above left, Penguin Classics. The portrait is a detail of Double Portraits of the Fullerton Sisters by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and very nice too. The period is correct, but…wait. Aren’t there six sisters? And if the one on the left is holding a drawing board, I thought the Bennett sisters were remarkably unaccomplished by Miss Bingley’s or Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s high standards.

Our next entry is the movie tie in edition. Or, the book of the film. You mean, there was a book first? You could read the whole thing before getting to the scene where Mr. Darcy appears with, gasp, coat unbuttoned and cravat discarded. In fact, that scene is missing from every edition I’ve ever owned.
The next two I found are even more puzzling. At left, I believe the original is a painting by Degas. Only about a century too late, and which one is supposed to be Elizabeth? Is the other one Miss Bingley? Is there a scene where they sat at a balcony together?

And the final one is of an interior with two characters in Victorian dress. Inexplicably, the gentleman is sitting while the woman is standing. My first thought, when looking at this, was that they were servants. It certainly doesn’t look like any sort of courtship scene. It rather looks as though the woman is receiving a scolding. “Rats in the soup again, Cook, and not nearly enough of them…”

One thing I did learn from my experience was that the cover does not necessarily relate to the contents. The other realization was that we, as book buyers, are fooled and deceived when buying a book. The marketing strategy seems to be that if a sort of book cover has worked well, it will continue to do so until…look at all the trends we’ve seen in romance–clinches, Fabio, mantitty, cartoons, more mantitty, pink and shiny, bumpy bits (those last two are not related to mantitty), photos. Why does the public fall out of love with a particular style? I’ve no idea. My book is a funny book but its cover will not suggest that because readers of historicals don’t like funny. The back cover copy will suggest it’s funny, but probably will not declare A laugh on every page! The first Regency-set with a fart joke! So the buyer, fooled into thinking they’re on familiar territory, will buy it.

None of the Jane Austen covers suggest that P&P is one of the wittiest books in the English language either. So it’s a mystery of the publishing business.

What makes you buy a book? And have you ever chosen one based entirely on the cover and been bitterly disappointed? Or found a gem with a totally unsuitable cover?

Janet

I probably have more trouble deciding what to name my characters than most Georgians did naming their babies. Just yesterday I was working on the second draft of my work-in-progress and wasted a good ten minutes figuring out a name for a maid-of-all-work. Becky. Earth-shattering or what?????

Although I use lots of placeholders like (valet) or (aunt) in my first drafts, my heroes and heroines won’t cooperate until I’ve named them correctly. I used to be thoroughly enamored of lovely and unusual heroines’ names such as Georgette Heyer used (Venetia, Ancilla, Anthea) and wanted to do the same for the heroine of my first Regency, LORD LANGDON’S KISS. I decided her scholarly father would choose an obscure Greek name for her and came up with Melinna. Then a critique partner said it sounded African American. Ack! That spoiled it but it was a good thing as the name really didn’t suit her. I renamed her Nell and the story just opened up after that.

Many of the Georgians also limited themselves to a small group of fairly traditional names. I’ve searched in vain for the original article but I know I’ve read that some very high percentage of men during the Regency had one of 5-6 royal names including George and Charles. Jane Austen had 5 guys named Charles in PERSUASION alone. Jo Beverley has an article on Regency names on her website. I totally agree when she says that to use an unusual name, one must consider why the parents would have chosen it.

I try to find something that evokes the character, something that is historically plausible and not too much of cliche. I avoid names for heroes that evoke “devil” and “demon”: Damon, Devlin, that sort of thing, also names including elements of “hawk” and “wolf”. I wouldn’t fling a book with such names but they don’t feel right in my own books. I no longer strive for very original names either. I’d rather use a common name and strive for originality in the characterization.

It does bother me when I see historical romance heroines with names that are gender neutral or historically masculine. While the heroine’s name in WHITNEY, MY LOVE by Judith McNaught, isn’t what has prevented me from reading it, it niggles. It seems like Courtney and Chelsea are not far behind.

Going sort of off-Regency, I’ve heard one parent say she named her daughter Courtney because she didn’t want to limit her chances with an obviously feminine name. I have my doubts about that strategy, since once girls are given a certain name, people start avoiding using it for boys and it assumes a feminine connotation.

I suspect many readers of historical romance would be confused to read about a hero named Courtenay (the older spelling) or Evelyn. Georgette Heyer used both of these for male characters in her books but I doubt editors would permit such a thing now. I’m also not sure I’d ever name a character Fanny. It’s historically accurate and quite pretty but I just don’t know if readers can get over its various slang usages.

For surnames, I often go to a map of England and look for minor place-names that sound good. Sometimes I’ll mash the beginning of one with the end of another (things like -wood, -hurst, -ton, etc…) until it feels right.

So for my fellow writers, how do you come up with names?

As readers, what are some of your favorite character names? What sorts would you like to see more of? Are there any you find off-putting?

And what do you think of modern day naming trends?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

I promised my editor I would have my revisions to The Vanishing Viscountess to her today and I really slacked off over the weekend. So no time to give you one of my brilliant, exquisitely planned and executed blogs (Who’s laughing?????). I am, therefore going to give you a stream of consciousness blog–don’t look for any unifying theme!

Did you know we authors love to know readers enjoyed our books? Now is your chance to tell us!

EHarlequin is in the nomination stage for its 2006 Readers Choice Awards. Click Here to nominate your favorites. I’m honored to say that my A Reputable Rake by Diane Gaston is mentioned under Favorite Historical and under Sexiest Hero on a Cover. Eventually there will be voting, I think, so keep watching.

All About Romance is also tabulating Reader Favorites and this time you can vote! Reputable Rake is there too, under Best Buried Treasure. Titles are starting to be eliminated and I’d LOVE for Reputable Rake to make it to the final round. So please vote for Reputable Rake for Best Buried Treasure and vote for your other favorites, too. There are plenty of Regencies to choose from and I think you can still add additional choices.
Start here to see who’s been nominated and eliminated so far.
http://www.likesbooks.com/interim2006.html#secondinterim
Go here to vote:
http://www.likesbooks.com/ballotannualpoll.html

Do you know of any other sites doing Reader Favorites?

Speaking of EHarlequin, my friend Melissa James has an online read there now, called The Homecoming. It isn’t Regency but it is a fun read. Melissa writes for the new Harlequin Romance line, the merge of the Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Romance lines. You’ll find Melissa’s story HERE

Speaking of The Vanishing Viscountess, the book of my revisions. It is scheduled for release in early 2008. I believe I have lamented before about this being a “road story.” The coolest thing, though. My son who is studying Geography and Mapping in college is going to do an online map of the places in this book! I’m not exactly sure how he’ll do it, but I’ll have it on my website eventually!

In my husband’s channel surfing he came upon a Japanese film with this premise: “A noblewoman agrees to sleep with a cassanova if he succeeds in seducing a chaste widow.” Wow, I thought. What a great premise. Then I realized it was the premise for Dangerous Liaisons. A day or so later, more channel surfing and he discovers the movie, Valmont also based on the same book as Dangerous Liaisons and released only one year later. It is pre-French Revolution, not Regency, but Valmont stars a young and almost impossibly handsome Colin Firth. Naturally I had to watch it. How’s that for synergy?

Have any of you seen Valmont?

Speaking of impossibly handsome men, it is only 44 more days until the release of the movie 300!

Cheers!
Diane