What's in a Name?

This week I mailed out two copies of Some Like It Hawk, my latest book.  One was a thank you present and the other was by way of an apology.

The thank you present was to reader Sarah Smith of Nevada.  Some months back, Sarah noticed I was having a contest on my website, looking for bird titles that I can use for future books in my Meg Langslow series.  The deal? If you submit your title, and I like it enough to send it to my publisher and they like it enough to let me use it--then you win a signed copy of the book, assuming I can still track you down.  Sarah's brilliant suggestion was--you guessed it--Some Like It Hawk.

It's an ongoing contest, so anyone who's interested can check out the potential titles that are already taken here and submit any new ones that come to mind.  Although the title for my 2013 book is already set--and I'll be giving myself the signed book for that one: The Hen of the Baskervilles.

The other book, the apology one, goes to Melissa Banks and her daughter, Kate.  Some while back Melissa bid on and won the naming rights to a character in one of my books, and asked me to name a character after Kate.  And I planned to, in Some Like It Hawk.  I thought "Kate Banks" sounded perfect for one of the characters, a young, ambitious reporter from the Washington Star-Tribune (which is the newspaper I have invented so that real newspapers like the Washington Post and the Washington Times won't get offended and sue me.)

My Kate Banks started off as a walk-on, but I liked the character, and I gave her a larger part.  She showed up on Meg's doorstep way too early one morning, demanding information.  She hung around enough to drop a few clues.  I liked her.  Heck, Meg's brother, Rob, liked her and flirted with her.  Some readers have suggested that Rob's overdue for another romance.  I pondered whether Kate Banks should be a recurring character.  I've done that before. The continuing character of Rose Noire, Meg's New Age cousin, whose real name is Rosemary Keenan, arrived in my fictional world when the real Rosemary's father bought naming rights in an auction. Tempting. But not something I had to settle right away, so I focused on gettting the book finished, and then getting the next one started.

Finally came the day when I had real, live pritned copies of Some Like It Hawk, I sat down to inscribe one to Kate.  And I flipped through the book to find where her character first appears, so I could note the page number on the title page as part of my inscription.  And then I saw the fatal words.
    "Ms. Blake is with the Star-Tribune," Randall said.

NOOOOOO!  She's supposed to be BANKS!  How had Kate Banks morphed into Kate Blake?  She's not supposed to be Blake--Blake is the last name of Meg's grandfather. And--

Oh, dear.  I suddenly realized what had happened.  I even almost remember when it happened--the day I was reading over a section of the book, and realized I'd called Meg's grandfather Dr. Banks.  Twice. 

Not an uncommon occurrence.  I once wrote an entire draft of a book with Meg's cousin, Horace Hollingsworth appearing under the name "Harold."  No idea why. Some kind of mental block. An alert critique partner spotted it, though I suspect at least one Harold made it past the proofreader.  And then there was the book where I realized, just before sending it to my editor, that I had a character named Bob in addition to Meg's brother, Rob.  Which happens a lot in real life, but doesn't work well in a book.  So I went through and switched Bob to Jim.  After checking, of course, to make sure I didn't have any Tims lurking in the manuscript.

And I didn't use global search and replace Bob, either.  I still remember the time when a fellow writer brought something to a critique group and realized, too late, that she'd made a global faux pax.  She had a character named Ed, and she decided, at the last minute, that she had too many plain vanilla WASP names, so she'd change Ed to something else.  Like maybe Angelo. And she used global search and replace, leading to sentences like this:

She wantangelo to tell him how much she missangelo him, but she decidangelo instead to work on the dangeloication of her book.  And then she fangelo the dog.

You'd think I might have learnangelo from her example, but no.  I'm pretty sure I used global search and replace to make sure Meg's grandfather was consistently Blake instead of Banks.

And I swept away poor Kate Banks with him.

Sigh.

Not the first time Meg's grandfather's name has given me name trouble.  At another auction, a reader bought the naming rights and asked if I could name not one character but two--a couple.  I was willing to try.  But when I heard their names--Phyllis and Henry Blanke--I panicked.  How could I have a brace of Blankes in my book if I already had a Blake?  The reader would be too confused.  And then I realized that there was a way to use that similarity of the names, and advance the plot at the same time.  I won't tell what.  You'll have to read the book.  (The Penguin Who Knew Too Much.)

It's always fun figuring out how to work in the name of a real person who's bought naming rights.  Sometimes it's tough--like the time Marguerite Johnson bought the right to have a Tennessee Belted Fainting Goat named after her.  The challenge wasn't to name the goat, of course, but to figure out a situation when the goat's owner would plausibly use her full name.  (And the answer: when she's being naughty.  Check out Swan for the Money to see just how naughty.)

As you can see, I've done this thing before.  I thought I had it down pat.  I check with the person who bought the naming rights to make sure they're okay with what I'm planning to do.  I don't make people murder victims or bad guys (or, for that matter, goats) unless they WANT me to. And this time I thought using the name I'd been given was going to be a piece of cake.  Kate Banks was the perfect name for the character.  And a likable character, too.  And one who got a big part.  I was so looking forward to see how the real Kate and her mother liked it.

Ah, well.  I guess this means that fairly soon there will be another Kate in one of my books--and this time it will be Kate Banks.  It might even be in The Hen of the Baskervilles, if I can find a suitable character.

So congratulations to Sarah.  And apologies again to Kate and Melissa.  I owe you one.

Comments

[Karen in Ohio]

Oh, Donna, thank you for the enormous laugh at your expense this morning. It was much needed.

Global searchangelo! Still roaring.

[lil Gluckstern]

Ah computers. And you are a very nice, and funny, lady!

[Mario in DC]

And I shall read Hawk with even more enjoyment now that I know a bit more about the background ... Thanks for the laugh, Donna.

--Mario

[Deb Romano]

Donna, I roared with laughter each time I read today's post! Thank you so much letting us laugh with you! I will need to reread the earlier books that caused you some name trouble, and of course I need to run out and get Some Like It Hawk. It's your sense of humor that makes me excited whenever you have a new book out!

[Jean]

I laughed reading your blog, thanks for laugh to end the day, I thought I was the only one to get names messed up ;)....I love the book tremendously too. :)....

[Elaine Viets]

Thanks for the laugh, Donna. Every book has mistakes, no matter how careful we are, but it always hurts when we learn our babies aren't perfect.

[Storyteller Mary]

My license plate is 2RS-UMN * as a reminder, especially useful for my teaching days . . .
My friend said of her computer, early on . . . maybe in the '80's, "The problem is, the computer does what I tell it to instead of what I want it to." You may have invented a new game -- find the most hilarious find/replace possibilities -- though it will be hard to match Ed/Angelo. The second + pairs of eyes could catch that one, but yours was more subtle, nice that there is another chance . . . ;-)
* license plate translation: to err is human

[Dana]

Oh, Donna: I've had that happen (the search and replace) and it can so easily escalate to something even worse. I bet Kate will enjoy this story as much as her character!

[Donna Andrews]

Knowing people got a laugh out of this cheers me up!

A bunch of us competed to see if we could think of anything that would have been worse than Angelo. I came up with Art. Ed's friend Ted would become Tart. Nobody would go to bed, they would go to Bart. And if was a mystery and the FBI became involved, they would be the visiting Farts.

I seem to remember winning this competition.

[Storyteller Mary]

Hah! That's truly funny and you deserve to win!
You've also reminded me of my little niece, who was just learning to play with rhymes, deciding one day to try "luck" -- spoil sports that we are, we suggested another word to rhyme very quickly.

[Tiffany]

Thanks for the laugh. I love your Meg stories and will enjoy them even more knowing a bit about the background. "Art" is hilarious.