More Thoughts on Character

Can you tell I'm in the mood to blog today? One more note on character. I took the character advice to heart from the conference and rewrote my Grandpa Bill story. While Grandpa Bill was awesome (if you read the story you would agree, of course!), he was an adult and stealing all the thunder away from Abe, my kiddo. (Good advice, Mr. Greg Ferguson of Egmont USA). So I decided to rework the story, focusing on Abe. I did my character web/sketch. I figured out all sorts of things about him, but still the story was akin to birthing my children. Painful. Suddenly, I realized Abe could not be Abe anymore. The name just did not fit once he was the focus. So I hit a couple of baby name sites (there are others of you out there who do this, right?) to see if the right name would hit me. A couple of searches on names that mean clever brought up 'Wylie.' Boom. Once I renamed the boy, the story came out. Wylie was perfect. Clever, sneaky, but sincere at heart. What a revelation that a simple name change can open up a character for you.