In this blog series, The Inkwell, award-winning author Vanessa Gebbie shares writing tips and exercises to keep your writing mind in motion during lockdown.
Hi Inkwell-dippers – how you doing?
I hope you had a good time with last week’s Inkwell gate game.
This week, we’re going to have a look at names for your characters. How do you name them? Some writers, like me, can’t write a single sentence unless I know the name of my character. Other writers have a placeholder name for ages, until the right one appears.
I’m going to suggest you look up a few baby names websites. There are many of these, for all cultures, all countries, all different languages too. Boy babies and girl babies.
Take a look at not just names for the present day but names that were popular, say 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago.
List a few that strike you as interesting for some reason – and sketch out what the name tells you about the possible character who will wear it well.
A Clarence will be very different to a Brian.
A Clementine will be very different to a Betty.
Julius will differ from Hank in so many ways.
Tom, Tommo, Thomas, Tomas, Tommy, Tommie … each one is slightly different, isn’t it!
Think of the differences that come out as you think round the names.
Social class?
Age/era?
Education level?
Geographical setting?
And many more.
Have fun!

Vanessa Gebbie is a novelist, short fiction writer, poet, editor and writing tutor with ten books out there somewhere – including Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story (Salt), editions i and ii, for which she was commissioning and contributing editor. She has taught for The Arvon Foundation, The Arts Council, London’s Spread the Word, The Word Factory, Curtis Brown Creative and New Writing South among others. She is self-isolating in Sussex.
Reading your article helped me a lot and I agree with you. But I still have some doubts, can you clarify for me? I’ll keep an eye out for your answers.
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks. I have a question for you.
Thanks for sharing. I read many of your blog posts, cool, your blog is very good. https://accounts.binance.com/ro/register?ref=53551167
The point of view of your article has taught me a lot, and I already know how to improve the paper on gate.oi, thank you. https://www.gate.io/fr/signup/XwNAU
Reading your article has greatly helped me, and I agree with you. But I still have some questions. Can you help me? I will pay attention to your answer. thank you.
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article. https://accounts.binance.com/pl/register-person?ref=W0BCQMF1
Thank you very much for sharing, I learned a lot from your article. Very cool. Thanks. nimabi
Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me? https://www.binance.info/bg/join?ref=P9L9FQKY
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks. I have a question for you.
Thanks for sharing. I read many of your blog posts, cool, your blog is very good.
Thanks for sharing. I read many of your blog posts, cool, your blog is very good.
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks. I have a question for you.
Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.
Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.