Young Writers Society

For charcter names I usually pick my friends names and then alter them or join them with other peoples names.

For story ideas try to use things you like or maybe something that has happened to you to influence your writing.

Great! I am going to the mall this weekend, I will see if i can find it! Thank you !

I never seem to have much trouble with plots, but naming ... *shudder*

I can do it for real names. Like, for people with names in our world. One day I just got so sick of dithering about it that I just picked the lamest name I could think of and gave it to the character. Since then it's been fun picking out those names.

Making names from scratch is hard, like you have to do for sci-fi or fantasy a lot of the time. The best advice I have is to say it before writing it, because otherwise you end up with something unreadable, or worse, unpronouncable. Pick a couple of letters you want in it, then form sounds around it. Deffinately speak out loud. Thinking stuff often sounds different to saying stuff.

Oh yes, and naming the characters after creating their personality is also a good thing. Sometimes people have prejudices with certain names and it will affect the personality of the character.

Story ideas, not much of a problem for me. Plotline, that's a little trickier. Character names, that's where I fall.

For story ideas, maybe start with the general story of a book you liked. Next, think of what you would do differently with it. Somewhere in there, some fresh ideas must have come out of your head. That, and simply the personality of some prearranged characters can help create a story.

Plotlines, well I can't really help you there. It just takes refining and tweaking the original idea. That's the best I got.

Character names are a pain. Sometimes they come to you, sometimes they're more elusive than finding a dragon in Detroit. For realistic names, that's more personal preference than anything else. As for more out-there names, I have a technique that may help. First, start with a letter. Often that will hit you, that you simply want a name to start in a particular way. After that, find a syllable that fits. Then continue for as long as you want the name to be. I used this to find the name Karleteth, a name for a dragon. I think there were others I came up with, but I can't think of them right now.

Well, hope that helps anyone who reads this!

I usually don't have problems thinking of stories because in the worst case senerio if I'm that desperate to write, I Speed Write for about a minute. Afterwards, I look over what garbage I jotted down, edit and refine it to my liking. Also, if I've hit the block and fiction is not within my grasp, I write non-fiction because it's about something you already know and non-fiction usually doesn't reequire the writer to rack their brains for char names and plots. The names are already formed, such as places and time.

Names; yeah that can be tricky. It really depends on how fixiated the writer is on finding a name. I suggest picking five names and the one that catches your interest the most, go with it. However, if you like two of the names on the list, why not use both in your story?

Easier said then done, huh? To find names you could always try http://www.babynames.com if you can't think of any 'exotic' ones.