Monday, November 05, 2007

Renaming a major character

I'm 17,500 words in, and suddenly realized that I hated one of my main character's names. I mean, really hated it. Not that it was a bad name, I just didn't like it for this character.

So, even though it's being read as I type (I post the day's progress in a locked journal post for a limited audience), I changed his name. And I like the one I chose.

I also did a nice jerking redirection of the scene's action, because I was BORED.

This is one of the greatest things I have learned from NaNoWRiMo. When things aren't working? CHANGE THEM. So what if it's a complete 360 from the previous paragraph. You can fix it when the first draft is done.

So, my story just got a wrenching change. And I feel motivated all of a sudden.

NOw, I've got less than three hours before Heroes, so I'd better get writing.

3 comments:

LoveRundle said...

The idea for my NaNoWriMo project didn't end up being as great of an idea as I thought it would be. It's one of those projects that will need a lot of work when this is over.

Happy Writing

Kerryn Angell said...

Did you hate the name so much that you couldn't make yourself type it again? I had that with my MC, luckily it was during my short planning phase before NaNoWriMo.

Antonia is now Brigid and it's made all the difference!

Heather Dudley said...

Kerryn... that's pretty much what happened. It just... sucked. I hated it so much I couldn't imagine calling him that a single second more.

I like the new name much better.