The Books That Made Me a Writer

Before I ever wrote a word of fiction, I was a reader.

From very early on, books were the place I went to understand the world, to find language for things I felt but couldn't articulate, to inhabit lives different from my own, to discover that the particular loneliness or longing or wondering I carried was not unique to me but had been felt by others and written down. It made the struggles of my real life a bit more survivable.

That kind of reading leaves marks. The books that found me long before I knew I was a writer planted something that took years to fully surface. When I finally sat down to write fiction of my own, those early stories were already in the foundation whether I knew it or not.

Reading is the Life

I was a voracious reader as a child. If anyone needed to find me, I was probably reading or telling stories and captivating whatever audience I could find, even if that audience consisted of Barbie dolls and stuffed animals. My mother once said I was completely content playing and doing things solo as long as someone else was in the room with me. Guess that's how I can hone in on my writing in the middle of a crowded coffee shop as I sip my tea.

I gravitated early toward stories with strong emotional cores. Books where the characters felt genuinely real and the stakes were high and the resolution was earned rather than convenient. I had little patience even then for stories that didn't make me feel something. Even though I read to escape reality, I still wanted to be inside the story, not observing it from a careful distance.

The books that accomplished that for me became the standard I used to measure everything else. Even though I didn't know it at the time, I was actually developing a sense of craft. And I thought I was just reading. But every story that moved me was teaching me something about what fiction can do when it's working at full capacity. The stories that left me unmoved were teaching me something too.

What Historical Fiction Gave Me

My deep love of historical fiction developed early and has never left. Even though I've shifted some to contemporary stories, there's still a small-town, coziness reminiscent of historical timeframes that's evident.

There is something about a story set in another time that satisfies the desire to understand how people lived and loved and made meaning in circumstances entirely unlike our own, to find the thread of common humanity running through the distance of years and different worlds. A well-researched historical novel makes the past feel not so distant. And it brings to the past to life in a way no history book ever will.

That's what drew me to writing historical fiction eventually. I wanted to know the WHY behind the WHO and the WHAT and the WHEN covered in history class. And I wanted to build those worlds myself. To do the research and find the details and construct a place and time that invited a reader into that world.

What Faith-Infused Stories Gave Me

The books that shaped me most deeply were ones where faith was present in the way it's present in real life. Not announced or imposed, but woven into how the characters understood themselves and their world. This is known as a Christian worldview.

Those stories gave me permission to write the same way. They showed me that a novel could be thoroughly grounded in Christian conviction without becoming a sermon. That the truest expression of faith in fiction is often the quietest one. I absorbed that lesson as a reader long before I could have ever articulated it as a writer.

When I finally sat down to write my own stories, I was drawing on all of the emotional honesty, the historical grounding, the faith woven quietly into the foundation. Without even realizing it, the books that made me a reader had already made me a writer.

What books shaped you along your life's journey? Is there a story from your earlier years that planted something that's still growing? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

How I Name My Characters (And Why It Matters)

Names have weight.

I don't think most people realize how much until they try to change one that has already settled into place. There's a particular kind of wrongness that happens when a character's name doesn't fit. A low-grade friction that follows you through every scene, every line of dialogue, every moment where you type that name and something in the back of your mind quietly objects.

When the name is right, you don't notice it at all. It just disappears into the character, the way a good pair of glasses disappears when you're actually looking at the world through them rather than at them. That's the aim of every author.

Getting there, though, is its own process.

Where the Search Begins

I rarely arrive at a character's name quickly. Oh, I might start with a name to get the story rolling, but those names often change before the book comes to an end. Usually the character exists for a while before the name does. I might even throw in a placeholder of sorts while the rest flows. A presence, a voice, a set of tendencies and wounds and desires that feel real before they have anything to be called.

During that nameless stretch I pay attention differently. Noticing names the way you notice a color when you're trying to decide whether it belongs in a room. A name will catch my attention in a completely unrelated context. It might be a historical record, a passing conversation, or even the credits rolling at the end of a film. Yes, I'm one of those who sits until the very end. But something will shift.

That's not how it always happens, though. Sometimes, a name will land and I'll know immediately that it belongs to the person I've been trying to find.

Other times I go looking deliberately. I keep a list of names I've encountered and liked but haven't yet used. I research naming conventions for the time period and region or contemporary setting I'm usingn to write the story, because a name that belongs to a character's world matters as much as one that belongs to their personality. A woman living on the Virginia coast in the early twentieth century is not going to be named something that sounds like it belongs in a contemporary Manhattan apartment, and if she is, there needs to be a specific reason. And the story needs to earn it.

What a Name Has to Do

A character's name is doing more work than you might think.

It's the first impression a reader has of a person before they know anything else about them. It carries sound and rhythm that affect how a reader experiences every scene where that character appears. It can signal something about the origin of a character, what era they inhabit, what kind of family shaped them. And in dialogue especially, the way other characters use a name becomes a tool for showing relationship and tension without having to explain either one directly. Whether they shorten it, avoid it, or use it pointedly in a moment of conflict 

Names also sometimes unlock something about a character I hadn't consciously known. There have been moments where I tried three or four names that were all technically fine. Then, I landed on the right one and suddenly understood something about the character I hadn't been able to articulate before. As if the name was the last piece that gave everything else clarity.

That probably sounds strange. It makes complete sense to me.

The Names That Didn't Work

I've changed character names mid-manuscript more times than I care to admit. Usually it happens when I realize somewhere around chapter four or five that the name I chose in the planning stage was just who I hoped the character would be rather than who they actually turned out to be once the story started breathing.

Characters have a way of becoming themselves despite your best intentions, and sometimes the name you gave them at the beginning no longer fits the person who showed up on the page. When that happens, there's nothing to do but change it and do a thorough find-and-replace and hope you didn't miss any. Which reminds me, I have a comical story (now) about this:

In one of my earlier book series, I reached the Net Galley phase of the editing process. This is the time to find any overlooked spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. It's not for major substantial edits. Well, in my review, I realized I had 2 completely different very minor characters in similar roles who had the same name.

So, I made note of the pages where the 2nd character appeared at the end of the novel. That, along with a couple other spelling catches went to my publisher for final changes. I specifically stated what needed to happen for that character. Isolate those exact pages, and change the name "Mary" to "Laura." Simple enough. Right?

Obviously not. And I had no idea of the mistake until I received reader email and letters asking what "prilaura" was.

It took me a few minutes to process, but thankfully, one of my readers cited the page number. Anxiously flipping to the page, I found the error. But sadly, it wasn't just that one. My book also had the odd words of "custolaura" and the scent of "roselaura."

Ugh! Instead of limiting the find/replace command to the 7 specified pages of a single chapter at the end of the book, the person who oversaw the galley changes had done a global search & replace and also forgot to capitalize the names. So, anywhere the string of letters m-a-r-y appeared in any word or name, they were replaced with l-a-u-r-a. And there were over 20,000 copies that went to print like this!

After notifying my publisher and replying to that handful of early readers, then sitting in anguish over this glaring mistake that couldn't be fixed, I realized I could get angry, or I could find the fun in it. I chose the fun.

So, I sent out a newsletter challenging readers to find the mistakes and report back. Each one who did was entered into a drawing for 1 of 5 different prize baskets containing not only a copy of this "rare" book, but also a copy of the other 2 books in the series, some herbal tea, a coffee cup, bookmark, and a magnifying glass to honor the sleuths.

If you'd like to join the fun, pick up a copy of Bound by Grace anywhere you can find it and look for yourself. :)

I never mind the extra work. A name that fits is worth the trouble of finding it.

Do you have a name that you've always thought sounded like it belonged in a story? Maybe your own, or someone close to you. I'd love to hear it in the comments.