The seemingly unavoidable focus breaker

[Aes]

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down and managed to crank out 2500 words on my project of the moment in just a few hours. Everything was going so well, until I reached a point where my main was to encounter a few semi-permanent supporting characters. I knew roughly how I wanted them to look and act, but the fact that I drew complete blanks at their names is what sent me screeching to a halt. So I opened up my database and thought it over before plugging in acceptable names, but I couldn't get back into the trance I had going, so that's all I wrote that day.

I guess my question is, how can I prevent this from happening again? Sure, I plan, plan, and plan some more, but sometimes, the story heads in a slightly different direction than what was originally planned.

 

[lin robinson]

Just slap in generic names and go back later. I use XXX as a place-holder for any fact I am missing, sentence I want to straighten out later, etc. Then search for it later.

 

[jenna]

I do something similar, Lin, I use these [square bracket thingys] when I get stuck. I just write what I need to come up with inside there - it could be [name] [rank] [description] or just [more] if I want to skip a particular paragraph or I don't know how to start or end a section. Then when I'm in the right mood I go through what I've written and fill in the brackets.

 

[Lith]

I slap on a generic name too. Whatever's close at hand, even if it's the name of a town or brand name on a milk carton. XXX just doesn't work for me. I've also been known to use the circuitous route- using a physical descriptor in place of a name (the tall one, etc.) or something in that person's life. I have a partially written story now in which the sheriff's wife is still called the sheriff's wife, twenty chapters in... which is going to take a bit of editing when I get around to naming her.

 

[lin robinson]

What throws me sometimes is that I name scene files, then the characters name changes and I'm searching around, forgetting that the scene about Branson getting his was called enemy shot.com or the lovely Cybele was introduced back in meeets hottie.doc and Tullio was once the star of scion.doc

 

[Aes]

Awesome, this is the kind of thing I was looking for. I'd say a combination of square brackets and descriptors should serve my purposes well enough. Thanks everyone.

 

[The Curious Orange]

I give them immediate names. Ib and Ob, Fred and Barney, that sort of thing.