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About a month ago I wrote about figuring out names for my new series, something I always struggle with. But these aren’t the only names I need to work on. Stories use names all the time—for characters, for places, for companies and businesses, and (especially in tales that don’t take place in our contemporary world) for different objects. These names need to work in the story-setting, too. They can’t be so outlandish that they’re hard to read (unless that’s the point of them, in which case the reader will most likely skim over them). But make them too ordinary, too familiar, and there’s the risk of having thIn my day job it’s easy to tell if I’m working—I’m doing stuff. Most jobs are like this. If you’re sitting around staring into space, you’re not working. If you’re wandering around aimlessly, you’re not working. If you’re not at your desk or work-station, if you’re not in the building, guess what?
I used to think writing was like this. If I wasn’t at my laptop, fingers tapping away, then I wasn’t writing. If I was reading through a draft, I’d have my phone with me, and I’d be making notes—still working. But if I caught myself staring into space, I was procrastinating.
I’ve changed my mind on this. Things aren’t that clear-cut now.
Writing is a creative activity, and as such it involves perspiration and inspiration. There’s an active component—typing words, be that in planning, drafting or editing. There are all the admin and marketing tasks, which again involve me tapping away at my laptop. But there’s also a less physical component. To type those words, I have to come up with the words. The external presentation of the story has to follow the internal preparation.
When I look up from my laptop, gazing vacantly through the window, it’s because I’m thinking. Staring into space is what my body does while my mind is planning the next sentence, or trying to solve a plot issue, or working out how a particular character would react to a specific situation.
But it goes deeper than this.
Ideas—especially big ideas, the kind that solve taxing problems—always seem to come at the strangest moments. In the shower, as you’re about to drop off to sleep, when you’re out for a walk or washing up. The solutions come not when you’re actively thinking of the problem, but when your mind isn’t doing anything in particular. It’s almost as if all that conscious struggle was getting in the way. It’s almost as if the way to solve a problem is to stop thinking about it.
To a degree, this is true. We can’t sit back and expect great ideas to emerge on their own. We have to ponder problems. We have to actively seek solutions. We should investigate and research. But if the answer doesn’t come easily, then it is very likely we need to step back, to take a break and switch off.
The way I understand it, our subconscious mind is always working, deep in the background. Most of the time we’re unaware of it—it’s drowned out by our conscious thoughts. It’s only when we switch off that we become aware of our subconscious. Or it’s only when we stop thinking that our subconscious has the opportunity to be heard.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.
Writing and storytelling are creative activities. Yes, there are mechanical skills involved. Yes, story can be analysed, and we can use that analysis to structure better stories. Yes, there are concrete craft skills we can learn and develop. But ultimately it’s creativity that drives writing. Creativity has to be nurtured as much as it can be taught. It comes from deep inside. We take in content—examples of story through books and films, videos on the craft of writing, books on story structure—and the creative side of us uses this to do its magic. Which it does very effectively in our subconscious, working away while we’re otherwise occupied. Or while we’re doing ‘nothing’.
This means that the ‘work’ of writing is far more than sitting at the laptop, or reading previously written drafts. It’s more than sitting and thinking. The ‘work’ of writing is going on all the time, and it’s important to ‘switch off’ so we can listen to that deeper, creative side.
It’s also important to let the subconscious do its stuff. If we’re constantly consciously working, that’s taking resources away from our subconscious. It’s why so many writers extol the benefits of taking regular walks. This goes beyond the benefits to our minds of having a healthy body. Heading outside for a walk detaches our conscious mind from the writing, and gives us an opportunity to listen to our subconscious mind.
I’m currently editing the first draft of the first Unity book, I’m treating it as three separate stories at the moment, dealing with each in turn. But my subconscious mind is bouncing all kinds of ideas around. So as I read through one section, making notes on things needing changing, I ‘suddenly’ had an idea about a different section—my subconscious mind throwing its idea at me. I saw how a simple change in motivation could make this different section more relevant to the rest of the book.
It was a problem I’d noticed some time ago, and had been putting off actively working on it because I didn’t feel up to it yet (or maybe I was trying to avoid the hard work). But I knew about the problem, so my subconscious mind worked on it. And something—probably a turn of phrase in the section I was editing—triggered a potential solution. That input was exactly what my subconscious mind needed.
Another example of the subconscious mind in action—I’ve been revisiting loads of old short stories recently, from when I posted a story every two weeks on my website, and I was struck by how many of these stories had been drafted either on holidays or after coming home from holidays.
Why should this be?
Part of it is surely down to stimuli. When away from home we’re exposed to new locations, maybe different cultures and languages, different food and smells, an unfamiliar climate. These new stimuli can spark creativity. This could explain the origins of a story on virtual holidays, or a post-apocalyptic take on a seaside resort.
Then there’s the travel involved in holidays. New stimuli can become old very fast. Being stuck in a plane for a few hours, there’s only so much to do. So it’s not too surprising that the mind wanders. It starts to ask questions—what’s the deal with that lone passenger two rows in front? What if that family across the aisle are spies? What would an alien race think if they saw rows of people sitting in a tin can hurtling through the air? People-watching becomes a game of ‘what if…?’
But there’s another aspect to consider. Holidays are when we switch off. While I’ll still do something writing-related on holiday, I usually try to arrange things so that I’m not in the middle of drafting or a big editing phase when I’m on holiday. It means I don’t have to think about those big projects. It means I’m not under pressure to finish the draft or the edit.
And in switching off, I give my subconscious mind the opportunity to let me know what it’s been working on. I can consider all those ideas that have been bubbling away in the depths of my mind. I’m relaxed sufficiently to allow solutions to ‘appear’.
As I continue writing, as I continue working on new projects, new books, new series, I need to bear this in mind. I need to remember that the work of writing continues even when I’m not tapping away at a keyboard. I need to remember that the creative side of story-telling pulls from both my conscious and subconscious mind. So I should give it time. I should force myself to step back, maybe take more walks, alone with my thoughts.
Sometimes, the most important work we do happens when we’re doing nothing.
This post is the latest in a series I’m running on Substack, chronicling my work on this new project. If you’d like to read these posts as they appear, please consider subscribing for free.
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About a month ago I wrote about figuring out names for my new series, something I always struggle with. But these aren’t the only names I need to work on. Stories use names all the time—for characters, for places, for companies and businesses, and (especially in tales that don’t take place in our contemporary world) for different objects. These names need to work in the story-setting, too. They can’t be so outlandish that they’re hard to read (unless that’s the point of them, in which case the reader will most likely skim over them). But make them too ordinary, too familiar, and there’s the risk of having the setting feel flat.
I try to come up with names when I’m planning. But as I write the first draft I introduce different characters and places, and have characters interacting with devices that need names. I don’t want to stop the writing flow, so I use placeholders, then work on names in the edit. It’s why my first drafts have characters labelled as [**BulkyThug**] and places called [**HomePlanet**]. The symbols around the words? They make it easier to spot what needs changing later.
But how do I come up with names? I use a few different techniques.
I write in Scrivener, and it has a very handy Name Generator. This, as the name suggests, spits out lists of potential character names. The results can be tightened by sex, start and end letters, and first and last name origins. So I can select names for a female character with a French first name and Aboriginal last name, starting with the letter ‘E’.
This Name Generator also has a ‘First Name Meaning’ tool, which I’ve used quite a bit. I’ll type in a characteristic (’strong’, ‘fair’), and it will throw out names that have some connection to the word. For instance, the Indian name ‘Baldev’ means ‘Strong god’. I’ll take this as inspiration—if I have a strong character, or one others look up to, I might call them something like Badev or Balde.
Having a particular group of people with ‘similar’ names can help give the illusion of shared identity, too. In my Shadows and ShadowTech series many of the names came from the Name Generator, and I’d specify Celtic first names and Greek second names. From the list provided I then chose names I didn’t think were too common. So I ended up with names like Piran Remis, Brice Carras and Keelin Ziko.
I sometimes use mythology for inspiration. I’ll search for characters and places related to a particular mythology, then use them as a basis for places or objects. The various craft names in Shadows and ShadowTech all come from Greek mythology. So my bulky cargo craft are Hermes, after the Greek god messenger. I also have the Proteus, named after another Greek god. Weapon names were similarly inspired. The flamethrower weapon in the books is a Charon. Charon transported dead souls into Hades on his ferry, but the word can also mean ‘fierce brightness’.
I’ve started using Google Translate more often now, translating words that have some meaning to the character or place into various languages, and taking inspiration from the resulting words. I find that using less Western European languages gives less familiar words, which adds a certain ‘alien’ feel—handy when writing sci-fi. And by sticking to one particular language for related names or places helps give a sense of connection—the names sound less random.
I’ve recently been naming planets and moons in one of the solar systems in my new series. After a bit of playing about I settled on Russian as the language I’d use for these. This star system is the home system to one of the characters, and the Russian for ‘home’ is ‘dom’. But this system is politically divided, with a great deal of friction. The Russian for ‘splintered’ is ‘raskolotyy’. I combined these two words in different ways, and eventually settled on the system being called ‘Raskodom’.
The terraforming of one of the planets in Raskodom has been a great success, and this character enjoys walking in nature, enjoying the open skies, at peace with himself. Russian for ‘open’ is ‘otkryt’, and ‘paradise’ translates as ‘ray’. So this planet is ‘Oktray’.
Are these translations accurate? I’ve got no idea. And it doesn’t matter—the ‘meanings’ behind these names are purely for me as I write these stories. The translations, accurate or not, are only for inspiration.
In this new series I’m exploring different naming conventions for characters too. I have a natural bias towards ‘first name/middle name/surname’, with the surname being used in more formal settings—a result of the culture in which I was brought up. But different cultures have different naming conventions. And in the distant future, when humans have spread throughout the galaxy, why would names all revert to ‘first name/middle name/surname’?
One of my characters is normally referred to as Hastaff, but his full name is Ekala Hastaff Bodesa. How did I get this name? Bodesa comes from ‘Boseda’, an African name (meaning ‘child born on Sunday’, although that’s not relevant to the character). Hastaff is an alteration of Harstad, a Norwegian surname (according to Scrivener’s Name Generator). And Ekala comes from ‘kuqala’, a Zulu word meaning ‘first’. Hastaff is the first child of his parents.
I decided that Hastaff is his ‘family name’—it is his lineage, and in the culture he comes from bloodlines and families are important. Bodesa is his intimate name, used only by those close to him—it would be an affront if someone were to refer to him as ‘Bodesa’ in a business or professional setting. And ‘Ekala’ is more of a title (remember it means ‘first’, so it is almost a description given by the parents). Most of the time this character is referred to as ‘Hastaff’, although in formal settings, or where there are other Hastaffs, he is Ekala Hastaff.
Having sorted that out, I can then use this naming framework for other characters coming from the same planet or star system.
Let’s have another example. This character is known as Prav, but his full name is Djar-kah Prav Dorsan. All parts of the name were inspired by Hindi words—Djar from ‘darjee’ (meaning ‘tailor’), kah from ‘kaala’ (meaning black), Prav from ‘parva’ (meaning ‘festival’), and Dorsan from ‘do’ (meaning ‘two’). And the naming convention? The lineage name (family name) is Djar-kah—black tailors (the ‘black’ part could refer to colour, or possibly means that the family were cast out at one time). Dorsan (from ‘do’, meaning ‘two’) simply says that Prav was his mother’s second child. And Prav was the name his mother chose (because in this culture it is the mother who has ultimate say over the name—and a great deal more—of her offspring). In this case, her second child came during a festival (which annoyed her, because she had to miss so many of the festivities!).
This name also fits the character. He’s something of a chameleon, at home in all kinds of situations. People warm to him naturally. You know the phrase ‘the life and soul of the party’? This would be Prav.
So, a few ways I work on names. It takes time and effort, but I enjoy it. And in exploring similar roots for related names, as well as using different naming conventions for different characters, I’m able to build a more cohesive story-world.
Although I wish names came easier to me. Then I wouldn’t have to go through my drafts, changing all those [**FrustratedWriter**] placeholders.
This post is the latest in a series I’m running on Substack, chronicling my work on this new project. If you’d like to read these posts as they appear, please consider subscribing for free.
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What is editing? Ask someone unfamiliar with writing, and they’ll likely say something about correcting grammar and spelling. But editing is so much more. Grammar and spelling checks come right at the end of the process. Before that, we have developmental editing. This deals with the story, with the pacing and the character arcs. It looks at the big picture. There’s no point worrying about commas if the story itself doesn’t yet ‘work’.
I’ve started this stage of editing on my first draft now (the first draft of the main series novel, not the side-story). I’ve read through the draft, making notes along the way—what works well, and more importantly what doesn’t.
Even with a plan, the first draft is where the writer finds the story. Characters come alive as words appear on the page, and they do things we don’t always predict. The story can veer from that original plan in all kinds of ways.
There is also a great deal of ‘explaining’. When I write a first draft, I’m discovering my story, my characters and the world they inhabit. To make this all appear realistic, I need to understand this. So, in a first draft, I’ll always have scenes where I’m learning these things. But the reader doesn’t need too much of this, only enough to feel immersed.
This is especially true of the opening. Why? Because a story’s opening has to be strong. An opening has to hook the reader so they can’t wait to read on.
One technique for openings is ‘in medias res’—starting in the middle of the action. Think of the classic James Bond films. They start with the climax of a mission, full of stunts and excitement. Or the opening to Star Wars, with a large spacecraft being chased and fired on by one even larger. Or the first Indiana Jones film, where Indy’s facing all those traps. Of course, in media res doesn’t have to be physical action. We could open with an argument, or a funeral, or someone being fired from their job.
But there are problems with starting this way. How should the reader feel about this action? Who should they be rooting for? Without knowing anything about the characters, why should they care what happens? Action without some kind of emotional attachment is like a roller-coaster ride—fun while it lasts, but soon forgotten, and having very little lasting meaning.
I’m writing space-opera, so I could open with a scene focusing on world-building—maybe have a character introduced to a new environment, and have the reader learn all about this setting through that character’s interactions. It might not get the adrenaline pumping, but it might intrigue enough to encourage further reading. And, in a story with a large scope, a slow build might be more appropriate.
That word—’appropriate’—is an important one. The opening has to set the tone for the whole book, even the whole series. It has to set expectations. Opening with a couple of friends enjoying a peaceful day off work might not be suited to a dark tale of galactic pirates. Starting with a character being chased by wild animals won’t necessarily work for a light-hearted cyberpunk story.
I should caveat this by saying there are no hard and fast rules in writing. The above examples could work. It depends on how well the writer drip-feeds enough to hint at the ‘proper’ story. So there might be inconsistencies in that ‘peaceful’ day, things that are said and done which feel slightly off. The character being chased might mutter humorous lines while checking their cyborg abilities.
And there are far more ways to open a story. I don’t have time to explore them all here.
In my novel, I have another complication (because I’m not making things easy for myself with this project!). In this first book I have three very distinct story arcs. They won’t fully come together until later in the series, so I need to ensure that there are enough touch-points between them that readers feel confident that they will eventually resolve in combination. But it also means I have three openings, one for each story arc.
Maybe this is an advantage—I can use different techniques for each arc. So the arc involving a crew of couriers pulled into a high-risk venture could start with action, allowing the reader to experience the crew in operation, being introduced to their particular skills as well as the interplay between them. The arc focusing on the more political situation in the galaxy might benefit from a world-building focus (through dialogue, enabling me to introduce this arc’s main characters at the same time). And the arc aboard a generation ship, an arc that starts with a mystery, might work best with an opening that makes the reader wonder what’s going on (although not so much that they’re likely to stop reading!).
Whatever opening(s) I use, I’ll need to make sure they introduce characters and the world, while being exciting and interesting enough to keep the reader reading. So, no pressure!
And with that, I should get back to the edit. I have those read-through notes to go through. With the arc I’m working on at the moment, I think I have about 5000 words before a suitable opening, but there are things in those pages that the reader needs to know, things I need to somehow make clear in this revised opening.
The first draft was only the start. In many ways, the first draft is the easy bit. Now I have the start of the hard work. But I can see a way through. Unity is coming together.
This post is the latest in a series I’m running on Substack, chronicling my work on this new project. If you’d like to read these posts as they appear, please consider subscribing for free.
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I can’t keep referring to this new project as ‘my new project’, or even ‘my space-opera project’. It needs a name. It needs a title.
But titles are tricky.
Okay, it’s easy to come up with titles. It’s coming up with good titles that takes work. A good title has to catch the attention. It helps if it’s memorable. And a good title needs to say what the story might offer, either in plot or tone (or both).
Yes, there are exceptions. Trainspotting is about drug addicts in Scotland, isn’t anything to do with trains. But most titles go a long way towards explaining the story. Think Star Wars, or Star Trek, or Stargate. Fighting in space, travel to distant planets, and portals crossing vast distances.
It helps that these titles have a certain rhythm, too. Two words (or a combination of two), each with four letters. The pattern helps us remember the title. It’s a technique I’ve used in my previous book titles. The first three Dominions books are Dark Glass, Dead Flesh and Deep Water. I like the symmetry—all starting with the same letter, all having a four-letter word followed by a five-letter word.
Which brings up another point—consistency across a series. It’s not necessary, but does it help? Possibly. So, what are the options?
One option is to have numbers and subtitles: Star Trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Kahn, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. I still think the best version of this was used for the Naked Gun films—Naked Gun, Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear and Naked Gun 33 1⁄3: The Final Insult.
Other series use a common word—Dune, Dune Messiah, God Emperor Of Dune and so on.
I prefer the series title to be separate to the titles of individual books, though. This is the pattern used in The Expanse. So let’s consider those titles for a moment.
First, the series title. The Expanse. It tells you the story’s going to be epic. It points to vast distances, either in space or in time, or possibly both. With a title like that, you expect a series that starts small and then balloons out (expands). It’s a title that fits the story told across the nine novels.
And what of the individual book titles? They all follow a two-word pattern. Leviathan Wakes, Persepolis Rising, Abaddon’s Gate and so on. There’s an epic quality to them, as well as tension. Words like ‘wakes’ and ‘rising’ automatically prime us for action—we know these aren’t going to be light-hearted books. And then there are those initial words. Even if we don’t know the actual references (if our knowledge of mythology or history isn’t sufficient) they still sound mythological, so we anticipate stories on a grand scale.
But titles are also important during the writing process. The files on my laptop refer to my new project as ‘Space Opera Series’ (or simply SO), and the spin-off is ‘Space Opera Spin-Off’ (I haven’t shortened that—don’t know if I’d go with SOS or SOSO). Those work as labels while I get to grips with the stories, but they don’t do anything to describe them. They don’t mean anything. And as I sink deeper into these stories, that becomes a problem.
I need the focus a title can bring. A title turns a bunch of ideas into a cohesive whole, even if there are still gaps, even if the structure needs tightening. A title helps ground a project, helps make it feel real.
Titles also help when thinking about marketing. Writing in a vacuum and thinking about selling the book afterwards is not a realistic option. It’s more sensible to consider marketing while writing, or even before.
By marketing, I don’t mean advertising. That can be a part of marketing, but there’s far more to it. Marketing includes covers, and back-cover copy (or product description or blurb, whichever term you prefer). Marketing involves condensing the whole story, even the whole series, into a punchy paragraph, then further into a tag-line. Marketing means thinking about how to present the books to potential readers. And for this, not having a title is a serious hindrance.
So I need titles. They don’t have to be finalised yet—writing a book, let alone a series, is a long process, and the end product is rarely close to what is initially envisages—but I at least need working titles.
So, here goes. My current working titles.
For the main series, I’m going with Unity. In the story, Unity is the name of the organisation that acts as a galactic government. This entity plays an important role in the story, and is home to some of the important characters. The word ‘unity’ also relates to what is becoming a major theme across the series. Humanity will face a major dilemma, and must come together to find a way through. Along the way disparate groups will need to work together, overcoming their differences.
For individual book titles I did consider things like Unity Fractured and Unity Resolving. But while this might be fine for a couple of books I think the titles would eventually sound too forced—trying to conform to the pattern rather than trying to be proper titles. So I don’t have any book titles yet.
Then there’s this spin-off (read this Substack post for more information). I see this as a series in its own right, but with the books working as stand-alone stories. One of the major story arcs in Unity follows Kane and his crew aboard the spaceship Seraph, and the first spin-off explores Kane’s back-story, focusing on his first contact with Seraph. My plan is for each book in this spin-off series to introduce another member of his eventual crew. While Kane could be seen as the main character, the ship is what binds them all together. For this reason I’m currently calling this spin-off series Chronicles Of Seraph.
I don’t have individual book titles yet. A part of me likes the idea of using character names in the titles, with the final book being something like Seraph Unbound. But I can’t come up with a decent title for a character called Norm. I suppose I could change his name, but ‘Norm’ suits his character. He’s the ‘average one’. He doesn’t think he’s anything special. He’s not the action hero or the smart one, but the one who fixes things on the ship (and cooks the crew’s meals). If I was writing a comedy, he’d probably be the butt of a lot of the jokes, yet take it all in good humour. In my mind he’s Norm, and I’d struggle to change that.
So, no book titles. But I have those series titles now, Unity and Chronicles Of Seraph.
And simply having names makes these series feel real. They’re no longer vague notions but solid projects. I’m no longer tapping away at stories for my own amusement. Instead, I’m creating books.
I still have a long way to go, of course. But every step brings me closer to bringing the project to fruition, closer to having books I can share with others.
This post is the latest in a series I’m running on Substack, chronicling my work on this new project. If you’d like to read these posts as they appear, please consider subscribing for free.
TW Iain 