The HEA Cafe

Having checked out my website and read a couple of my book excerpts, a work colleague asked me “how do you decide on your characters’ names?”  While I’m always prepared for the old chestnut “where do you get your ideas from”, this one sort of left me flummoxed. 

How exactly do I decide on my characters’ names?  Other writers will understand when I say the characters tell me their names, but I couldn’t confess that to my colleague for fear of providing my workmates with final confirmation that “oh yeah, she really is a nutcase”.  But character names do just seem to come to me, usually after I’ve completed the character chart, know their GMC and had a little ‘chat’ with them about their background and what makes them tick.

That conversation about character names led into a general discussion about romance writing in general. Now I’m very lucky and have the most amazing support from my colleagues, who always seem genuinely interested in what I do and the process involved. But I stopped short of confessing that not only do I have little chats with my characters in order to write their story, I also have this need to know what sort of future awaits them after I write The End. Will they still be burning up the sheets for years to come? Err, yes, always. Will they have children? Yes, most of them will.  How many?  Crikey, I sometimes even know how many grandchildren they’ll have. Now does that make me a crazy woman?  Or just a normal romance writer?  

Answers on a postcard please …..

Tricia
… softly sensual romance
http://www.tricia-jones.com