I can hold my head still

[greygirlbeast]

Yesterday earned the first L to stain my engagement calendar since December 31st. The less said, the better.

Anyway, because a number of people expressed interest in seeing it, here's the proposal that sold Daughter of Hounds. If you've not yet read the novel and intend to, there's enough similarity between the proposal and the actual novel that

Comments

[sovay]

Probably, when I was in Providence that summer, I found the name "Saben White" on a tombstone.

"Saben White" is definitely a better name for her than "Abalyn Gray." Even if it reminds me of Gordon Bok's "Saben, The Woodfitter," which is a very different kind of story.

One bell, two bells, don't go grieving . . .

[unknownbinaries]

I'm not entirely certain when or why Abalyn Gray became Saben White. Probably, when I was in Providence that summer, I found the name "Saben White" on a tombstone.

Actually, this brings up a question I've been trying to figure out how to word properly, so as not to have it simply be a variation on the 'Where do you get your ideas?' thing...

I think that part of the endeavour's impossible, but here goes anyway...

Where do you get names from? I write occasionally, and find it hard to come up with names for characters that seem...solid. Real. It always feels either overblown like someone on a soap opera, or like I pulled it out of my ass. Which, often, I do. ^_^;

[greygirlbeast]

Where do you get names from?

For me, there's no one way. A lot of them come off tombstones ("Narcissa Snow"). Sometimes place names ("Dancy"). Sometimes I just run across a name I find in something I'm reading ("Flammarion") and hang onto it until I find a suitable character. The telephone book can be useful. I steadfastly ignore names that are currently popular baby names. It's a lot like dressing well, in that a character should wear his or her or its name; the name should never wear them. Every now and then, the name is just there waiting for me ("Sadie Jasper") when I need it. So, lots of ways. But it's an extremely important thing, naming characters, and a thing to which many authors pay too little heed.

[unknownbinaries]

'The telephone book can be useful. '

Oooh. Good one. The more that spins around my head, the more it looks like a 'Well, DUH. Why didn't you think of that?.'...

Thanks!

Oh, and here: Have a video of a baby coelacanth. I meant to pass this on to you yesterday, and promptly forgot.

[sovay]

Sometimes I just run across a name I find in something I'm reading ("Flammarion") and hang onto it until I find a suitable character.

That has happened to me with several characters-Vetiver Lawrey, Aster Linneman; I think even Pelle Fisher. "Another Coming" was originally started because the names Leo, Acacia, and Quince showed up in my head as a triad and I needed somewhere to put them. I tried thematically naming characters once (Dylan and Mariana in "Till Human Voices Wake Us") and promptly realized I was not Nabokov and should knock it off.

[reverendcrofoot]

Appreciate the proposal. That's a very different story then what was written and could have been very good, a different path.

Oh and I forgot to mention it when I made some of my comments for DOH.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for not treating your readers as idiots. My one hate in reading interconnected books is that a lot of the time the writer assumes you haven't read the previous books and recycles information a constant reader would already know. You do not do this, or if you do, ya keep it to the minimum.

And Happy William S. Burroughs day... If that is a sort of thing you celebrate.

[greygirlbeast]

And Happy William S. Burroughs day... If that is a sort of thing you celebrate.

Oh, indeed.

My one hate in reading interconnected books is that a lot of the time the writer assumes you haven't read the previous books and recycles information a constant reader would already know. You do not do this, or if you do, ya keep it to the minimum.

Well, I think it helps that I've never thought of these as books in a series. I want them to stand alone, and for that to work, you can't really do any sort of info-dump recapping. Though I enjoyed the books a lot, this sort of thing drove me nuts in J.K. Rowling's novels.

[stsisyphus]

...here's the proposal that sold Daughter of Hounds.

You realize, of course, that this will be the synposis for the movie should it ever have the resounding misfortune (i.e. Greek-Tragedy-Level "misfortune") to be raped by a mainstream producer and director. Yea, I shall even endeavor to channel a film critic from the year 2021 to comment further on this.

...

No, that was just too awful. There are some things I cannot inflict on humanity. Suffice it to say that there were mentions of Ashton Kutcher as Deacon, Dancy as a Secret Agent, and...(shudder) Gun Kata.

Brian DePalma would just make everything needlessly Freudian. I've seen a review of The Black Dahlia which was evenly tempered between scathing and insightful. They pretty much washed the movie as any sort of narrative but instead, in typical DePalma fashion, focused on the film production as some kind of analogy to DePalma's vision of Noir and Hollywood history in general. In fact, several aspects of the film were reviewed to have been intentionally sabotaged (Josh

[galateadia]

A friend of mine has loaned me Daughter of Hounds to read. So far I'm about half way in. I keep meaning to email you about the strange coincidence in a certain character's name, as it is my last name also, and a not too common family name either. I know it would be too much to ask, but I wonder who the character is based on, and/or who you know that is related to me.

[greygirlbeast]

I know it would be too much to ask, but I wonder who the character is based on, and/or who you know that is related to me.

It's not too much to ask. Which character?