The Nameless Book Blog

Welcome to the first chapter of a series all about creating a good character. I am not an expert, but this is just my general experience and what I've noticed from other authors. In the past few years I've created a lot of characters and all of them are different and unique, like all the other 6.999.999.999 people I live with on this planet called earth. This was actually going to be one post, but as I had already written quite a lot for only names, I decided to make it into chapters. 

Disclaimer: I do not mean to offend anyone, this is my personal opinion and experience. 

Characters are by far the most crucial aspect of your book. If you characters are shallow and unrelatable your readers most likely will put your book into the darkest
Characters are the most crucial aspect of your book. Your characters are what makes your book interesting, without a good character your reader will lose interest. However, it's a task that does not come easily. Today we discuss: Names




From the day we were born
All of us were gifted with a name by our parents, they have spent hours looking on baby names websites looking for the perfect name for their precious child. Sometimes they name them after a celebrity they have alway loved. Names are as important in a book as they are in daily life.

The name of a character might be more important than most of us realize. I personally enjoy seeing uncommon names, and to find those I spend hours looking on baby name websites, which occasionally causes a diaper commercial to pop up when I'm watching a Youtube vid. But even though I love a unique name, it can't be too complicated.

I'll remember you
Why a name is so important is because your readers will likely remember that name for a few years or maybe even the rest of their live. That is why you should always be careful by picking a really unique almost unpronounceable name. For example, I have thought for a really long time that Feyre was pronounced as Fay-ruh and not much later Amber talks about someone named Fah-ruh, and I become  utterly confused. The best solution for that however, is a simple pronunciation guide at start or end of your book.

Tip: Let a friend or family member try to pronounce the name, if it is really too hard for them, consider alternating the name or choosing a different one entirely.

The origin and the character
Now this is something I have noticed quite a few times, especially in fan fictions, the name doesn't match with the ethnic of the character. For instance, I was reading this fan fiction about Mystic Messenger (Yes, Mystic Messenger) and the girl was supposed to be Korean but had a Japanese name. I am guessing the writer is an anime fan and really likes Japanese names because they are unique and pretty.

Let me straight up and honest with you. If your character is for example Korean, and the story is set in Korea, there will be a 0.2% chance that her parents would actually give her a Japanese name. That's unless the true ethnic of the character is actually Japanese. Giving the character a name that does not fit the setting of the story or the ethnic of the character, can make your story  a lot less realistic.

The true meaning
If you're having a difficult time choosing a name for your character, try searching by the meaning of the name. Think about what kind of person this character is, what does he or she stand for, how do you want to portray them. I have done this numerous of times and I always end up finding perfect names for my characters.

There are quite a few sites on names and their meanings, but I have always loved using behindthename.com. This site never let's me down and they're reliable. So you can thrust the information on the website.

Basically, just try to have some fun with it and keep it realistic. As I said before, this might be a name that will stick with a reader for a long time. So of course you want that name to be unique.
I hope these tips were helpful,

Yours truly,

Shania

Recently I discovered something that allows me to read a lot more than I did before. Today I would like to share this with all of our lovely readers. I'm sure people have been already doing this, but for me this works incredibly well, so I still wanted to share it with you.

Question Of The Day:
What's your technique to read more?


The Problem
I used to be strictly against reading ebooks, because I want to hold a physical copy of the book in my hands. I came across a problem though: whenever I was travelling to school or waiting at the dentist or something, I didn't have a book with me, because I'm too scared it'll get damaged, plus I have to take my laptop and chargers ect with me to school every day, so there's no room left for a book. Also, the train is usually so crowded that there is no way I could take a book out of my bag and read it.

At these moments I did really want to read and it annoyed me that I dind't have a book with me. That's when I got a great idea, when I saw a lady read something from her phone next to me. I thought: why don't I download the book I'm reading a physical copy of on my phone, so when I'm at home I can read the actual book and when I'm out I can continue from my phone. I thought it was the greatest idea ever.

How it works
I buy the physical copy of the book, hardcover or paperback, it doesn't really matter. Whenever I'm at home, I read from the book I bought, because I still prefer to read from an actual book (and I like smelling them too tbh).
I download the book I'm reading from the internet, there are a lot of places you can download them from for free, if you want to know which problem exactly I use, you can message me on tumblr: b00kishfantasy. I then upload the book to my Google Drive, so I can open it on my phone, which is what I do next. When I open it on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S5), it automatically transports to my Google Play Books and I can read them.

Whenever I'm out, I continue the book from where I stopped at home. This allows me to read so much more than I used to do before. I can read during break at school or work, when I'm travelling, when I'm waiting at the dentist or doctor or whatever, I think you get it by now.
I think it's the perfect technique to read more and that's why I wanted to share it with all of you.