One of my earliest difficulties was in coming up with original character names. The main characters were fine, they just came to me by some sort of inspiration. It was all the others (and there are quite a few!) Trying to think of original character names I found tricky and frequently unsuccessful. Such as the very early morning where I decided ‘Wilde’ would make an excellent surname and decided to pair it with ‘Oscar’ not realising how badly my brain was functioning until I wrote it down later!

Because the characters in my book are called by their surnames (most of the time anyway!) it added another dimension as I didn’t want any names to be too cumbersome. I looked in the phone directory, paid attention to the credits at the end of programmes, searched for names in everything I read. Finding myself trying and rejecting many different alternatives.

When I finally thought I’d come up with something appropriate for each character I would put the name into Google  just to make sure the results didn’t bring up anything unsuitable! In several cases that search meant I’d have to strike that particular name and start again as it would turn out to already belong to someone really quite famous! Just what I was trying to avoid!

I still keep expecting to come across something which may mean I have to change a name, keeping my fingers crossed that this won’t have to happen. At least not to any of my main characters, they’re all too fixed in my mind now!

Of course there is one name that isn’t revealed in ‘A Single Step’, I say ‘of course’ but that only applies if you’ve read it! Well you can’t show all of your cards in the first book!

Georgia Currently reading ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ by Robert Galbraith

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