Like many things in life, the act of creation that we call writing comes in many forms. The most notable definitions are plotter and pantser. As you’d expect, a plotter is someone who plots their stories before they write. A pantser is someone who doesn’t plot, but makes it up as they write. Many Plotters write linearly, starting at chapter one and stopping at “The End”.

Many pantsers jump around within the story, incorporating plot points or detail as they go. Sometimes there’s a logic to this process, even if it’s not linear or plotting. For example, I like to write counterpoint scenes together (Scene one starts a story arc, Scene two gives the pay-off) even if those scenes aren’t in the same book, never mind the same chapter.

Of course plotting and pantsing aren’t mutually exclusive methods. Most writers are a mix of both, but lean heavily one way or the other. I would say I’m about 80% pantser and 20% plotter, or maybe 90/10. Whichever, I’m heavily on the pantser side.

I thought I’d share a bit about the evolution of a few story ideas from a pantser’s perspective to give you plotters out there some insight into how our (or at least my) minds work.

I had a number of story ideas back in the mid-1980s that have evolved substantially from where they started.

The one that’s evolved the least, and the first novel that I ever wrote, is a 135,000 space opera with military sci-fi leanings. If I ever want to publish it, I’ll need to do a rewrite, as it doesn’t reflect the quality of my writing now, and I wouldn’t want it out there as is. (I also have a cool idea for an alternative edit of it, so you can read it twice, the second time from a different perspective).

Then there was the story that I called The Key to Alexandria. It was about three gems and the various elements trying to control and unite them. The lead character, a modern-day man, must learn how to travel through time to control them and save the Earth from the demons that would be released if someone else gets control. The story ended with the destruction of the library in ancient Alexandria and the simultaneous destruction of the Moon, dooming all life on Earth.

The sequel, The Legacy of Alexandria, would follow the protagonist’s attempts to set things right – keep the destruction of the library, but save the Moon and thus Earth. Notably these two stories never left Earth, but played with time travel.

How they’ve evolved.

There are no more crystals. There are no more demons. The story barely touches on Earth, instead dealing with a close encounter in deep space and the repercussions that arise from it. There’s a huge time jump between book 1 and book 2 (about 300 years). The second book does deal with Earth a lot more, but is still space opera in its execution and tropes.

What’s stayed the same? The (human) characters and the themes.

The third idea that I’d developed the most was tentatively called Hawke, Inc. It was an episodic series that dealt with a far future society scattered among many stars. (It was ‘my Star Trek’ so to speak). In this universe, a very rich recluse named Hawke was spending his fortune to disrupt powerful corrupt governments by funding a series of ships and their counterinsurgency crews. These professional troublemakers would try to level the playing field for the less powerful.

In some ways the bones of this structure are still here, although less polemic. Hawke has been demoted to ship’s captain. His ship, name not finalized yet, was a mid-tier diplomatic ship from the local equivalent of the UN. But in this universe, the UN is being defunded by the superpowers, and losing all authority (so nothing like Star Trek’s Federation). In fact this UN has fallen so far from grace that they can’t completely crew their vessels with recruits. So they’ve started press-ganging some classes of criminals into serving on the vessels. The five-book story follows one such ship as it press-gangs a smuggler and gets into crazy adventures.

This story keeps evolving. As I’ve been writing it, I decided that I needed more layers. I’ve borrowed characters from a short story that I wrote a few years ago, and put them front and centre in this universe. Hawke isn’t in the story for very long now. The ‘love interest’ is a much more fleshed out character, and has a pretty cool story arc now that includes not just how she got disowned by her parents, and also her redemption (the plotter in me knows her whole path). She didn’t exist a year ago. Now, she’s the emotional core of the (over 30 year old) story.

And just today, I realized that the story works better if the ship isn’t “a mid-tier diplomatic ship” but a cadet training vessel being pressed into more and more dangerous service due to budget and crew shortfalls. This allows me to have a logical reason for scenes of conflict among the command crew and department heads. It allows me to incorporate minor info dumps as cadets are being taught on the job. This also sets up a cool set of scenes in book 3 when the remnants of the crew merges with three other crews to form a new one.

This is pantsing, in its purest form.

How exactly a writer names their characters and who the characters are is a process that is personal and almost unique to each writer, however there are some over-simplifications we can state: There are writers who draw from people in their lives, and there are writers who draw from what the story demands.

I fall into the latter category. I’m not one of those, “you’d better be nice to me or I’ll kill you off in my next book,” types. And I have my own rules for how I name characters.

My characters are very much driven by the demands of the story and what I discover about them as I write it. This doesn’t mean that I don’t see things in my life and things, ‘hey, that’d work well in my story.’ I do, but I don’t model whole characters after whole people, and my characters are largely undefined until needed.For example, in early drafts of the Deacon Carver stories, Char Osbaldistan was a man. I recently discovered that the character works better as a woman (not for some romantic subplot, but to explore a glass-ceiling military scenario). I’m still contemplating renaming her Chard Osbaldistan. The implied “shard” and all that can evoke in the reader appeals to me. You can read about Char(d) here.

I write very slowly, and sometimes life catches up to me, forcing me to make changes to a character. I had a character named Susan in early drafts of Tau Ceti. She met a very gruesome, untimely end. I met and married a Susan (3rd anniversary last week!). Obviously I couldn’t have her name applied to a character who suffered so much. It just wouldn’t feel right. So two changes happened. The fate of Susan was applied to another character (actually making the story stronger, as this was now a loss of a leader) and the name of Susan changed to Sumin – a common Korean girl’s name.

But you can’t let the world dictate your character names. If you could never name a character after someone you’ve met, you’d be very frustrated.

As a teacher who’s taught students from almost every nation (I’m not kidding, I’ve even had students from North Korea. My one gap is central America — basically the countries between Mexico and Venezuela — and the Caribbean) I’ve known too many people with too many names to never use the name of someone I’ve known. So I have a different strategy. I won’t use a name if I’ve only known one person by that name. I’ve known many Jennifers, for example, too many, really (Sorry Jenn, Jen & Jeni*) so that name is fair game, and taught at least two Sumins.

Going through an old draft of a story I’m revamping, I realised that along the way I’ve edited out a character who could be a powerful element in the plot, both foreshadowing the fate fo the main character and giving stakes to the team. The character’s name is Hawke. Which is fine, I don’t know anyone named… shoot … I do, only one. The writer Sam Hawke, author of The City of Lies. (I don’t know her well, she’s a Twitter friend. We joke about accents and pronunciation occasionally.) I’ve rationalised not changing the name three ways: First, the character is a different gender than the author; Second they only share a family name (the character has a rank and is never referred to by first name) and third (and weakest), I don’t actually know the author that well. We’ve never been in the same room.

I also have a precedent. I have a character named Haskins in a novel that might get pulled out of the drawer and rewritten some day. When I wrote it (1990s), I didn’t know anyone by that name. Now I do. I won’t be changing it for the same reasons as above.

Where can writers find names?

Many writers consult baby name lists. That’s fine, but I don’t.

I’ll generally use placeholder names until I have a sense of the character, then I’ll look around for a name that fits. One place that I look for names is International sporting tournaments. Ice Hockey is great for Eastern European names, Cricket is great for Indian and South African names, likewise rugby for Pacific Islander names. Historical videos on YouTube are great for learning names that have fallen out of fashion.

Sometimes you have a specific need. I needed a Peruvian name (not a Spanish-origin name) that had a specific meaning. Googling and following leads beyond that, I eventually found the name. I’m not going to share it or the meaning I was searching for, as the meaning is a plot spoiler for Tau Ceti.

Some final advice on names: Never take a complete name (first and last) and avoid names of the most famous people in a setting (so no Beckham, Ronaldo, or Rooney, please).

Happy hunting!

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Notes:
I refer to Tau Ceti in this story. The novel should be complete and available for purchase by the end of 2021.
I refer to the Deacon Carver stories. They started with the short story ‘Dee, For The Win’ previously on Wattpad, now to be in included in my short story anthology due out in October 2021. The sequence will continue in a series of novellas shortly thereafter.
“Sorry Jenn, Jen & Jeni” I’ve known multiple women with each of these variations (also Jennie and Jenny) so even I don’t know to whom I’m apologizing.