A few weeks back, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by the good people at The Bookshelf Cafe News site.
You can read the whole interview here but I thought I'd put up one of my answers on the blog since it deals with a writing related question I sometimes get asked about character names.
The Bookshelf Cafe: How do you come up with character names for your stories?
MW: I usually have a name fairly soon for the male and female leads though sometimes when David & I are discussing them, we use “Fred and Ginger” so we can keep track of who we’re talking about. The problem there is what when the final names settle in, we’re still calling them Fred or Ginger. For the remainder of the characters, I like to keep it really simple by picking a favourite film or TV show and downloading the imdb cast & crew list. For instance, with DON’T GO BACK, I chose the “Hunter/Hunted” episode from THE PROFESSIONALS TV series and that’s why the baddie has Cowley for a surname. By mixing and matching characters, actors and technicians, you have more than one hundred name combinations in front of you instantly and it saves spending too much time trying to think of names for yourself (and, if you write enough stories, you’ll quickly find you tend to repeat names).
Over the course of the ten-question interview, I talk about what started me off with writing, how I plot and what music I listen to. You can find the rest of my answers on this link.
If you're interested, David & I recorded a little snippet on one of our Friday Night Walks where I talk about the same thing. You can see it on this link here
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