Paul Whybrow
Full Member
- Jun 20, 2015
In choosing names for my fictional characters, I try to make them memorable, fitting for their characters and true to their backgrounds.
My crime novels are set in Cornwall, where surnames are often drawn from the old Cornish language. Family names may begin with Tre, Pol or Pen, such as Tregenza, Polwhele and Penhaligon. Tre means settlement, Pol means pond and Pen is a hill or headland. Using names like this adds to the sense of place.
My protagonist is a police inspector named Neil Kettle, which I chose to suggest his subtle but cunning approach to questioning suspects, for he's quite mild, almost submissive (kneeling), lulling them into a false sense of security. He's also slow to come to the boil, but when he does the explosive results are shocking. When I started writing the first novel featuring him, I did think to check that there wasn't already a well-known fictional detective of the same name and that it wasn't the name of some celebrity I'd never heard of.
I've checked on a few characters' names since, trying to avoid looking like I'm copying anyone. The worrying thought came to me, while I was labouring away on the second novel, creating a serial killer called The Watcher, that another author might have success with a murderer of the same name. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I gamely thought….
Now, the bridge has appeared!
My WIP Sin Killers features a malevolent thug who goes by the name of Cleaver. His face is hideously scarred with knife wounds, and he's an expert with various blades, a career criminal with a fearsome reputation. I'm 20,000 words from typing The End, and I have plans for Cleaver to appear in the climactic and bloody arrest of my villains when he saves Neil Kettle's life.
Last night, I settled down to read a crime novel set in Cornwall in 1956. It's recently published and well-reviewed, so I wanted to see how debut novelist Laura Powell had tackled the county in The Unforgotten. From the blurb, the storyline is more about a village girl's fixation on a handsome newspaper reporter who's writing about some gruesome murders, but I howled out loud when I read her telling him that the locals are calling the murderer The Cornish Cleaver!
Damn it!
I'm only one chapter into reading the story, but I went to sleep fuming….
Has this happened to any of you?
I know that it's a coincidence and that even if my novel was ever published, it wouldn't be for years, so few people would ever notice the similarity, but I'm still annoyed and slightly disheartened.
My crime novels are set in Cornwall, where surnames are often drawn from the old Cornish language. Family names may begin with Tre, Pol or Pen, such as Tregenza, Polwhele and Penhaligon. Tre means settlement, Pol means pond and Pen is a hill or headland. Using names like this adds to the sense of place.
My protagonist is a police inspector named Neil Kettle, which I chose to suggest his subtle but cunning approach to questioning suspects, for he's quite mild, almost submissive (kneeling), lulling them into a false sense of security. He's also slow to come to the boil, but when he does the explosive results are shocking. When I started writing the first novel featuring him, I did think to check that there wasn't already a well-known fictional detective of the same name and that it wasn't the name of some celebrity I'd never heard of.
I've checked on a few characters' names since, trying to avoid looking like I'm copying anyone. The worrying thought came to me, while I was labouring away on the second novel, creating a serial killer called The Watcher, that another author might have success with a murderer of the same name. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I gamely thought….
Now, the bridge has appeared!
My WIP Sin Killers features a malevolent thug who goes by the name of Cleaver. His face is hideously scarred with knife wounds, and he's an expert with various blades, a career criminal with a fearsome reputation. I'm 20,000 words from typing The End, and I have plans for Cleaver to appear in the climactic and bloody arrest of my villains when he saves Neil Kettle's life.
Last night, I settled down to read a crime novel set in Cornwall in 1956. It's recently published and well-reviewed, so I wanted to see how debut novelist Laura Powell had tackled the county in The Unforgotten. From the blurb, the storyline is more about a village girl's fixation on a handsome newspaper reporter who's writing about some gruesome murders, but I howled out loud when I read her telling him that the locals are calling the murderer The Cornish Cleaver!
Damn it!
I'm only one chapter into reading the story, but I went to sleep fuming….
Has this happened to any of you?
I know that it's a coincidence and that even if my novel was ever published, it wouldn't be for years, so few people would ever notice the similarity, but I'm still annoyed and slightly disheartened.
