Guest Post - Naomi Clark

I am so sorry! This didn't post for some reason and was mean't to be posted on 8th. 

Please welcome Naomi Clark to Books For Company!

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Picking a name for your character

I knew several boys called Ryan growing up, but I didn’t stumble across a girl called Ryan until I started reading Point Horror books (I had a ridiculously large Point Horror collection. I wasn’t allowed to read Stephen King, so I invested heavily in Point Horror instead). I can’t remember the plot or the title of the book, but I remember the heroine was called Ryan, and that for some reason that really lodged in my brain. For whatever reason, I thought being a girl called Ryan was pretty cool, and I must have filed that idea somewhere in the back of my mind. When I first came up with the concept for the Deva Chronicles, the very first thing that popped into my head was the heroine. And I knew she’d be called Ryan.
So I wrote away quite happily and then submitted the first chapter to my writers’ group ... all of whom assumed Ryan was a boy and were confused when it turned out she had breasts. A lively debate ensued in which I insisted readers would understand Ryan was a girl and everyone else suggested alternative names for her.
I vacillated for a while, trying to think of girls’ names with the same “feel” that Ryan had for me, that still suited my heroine and conjured up her image when I wrote it. I thought maybe Rhianna or Rianne would be a nice compromise, but the minute I changed names (even mentally), I changed the character. Ryan, as I always envisioned her, was brave and cautious, prickly but yearning for affection. Rhianna or Rhianne didn’t hold those connotations for me. Now, I’m sure if I’d started writing NIGHT AND CHAOS with a heroine called Flossy, I could still have made her brave, cautious, prickly, or whatever I wanted her to be, but for me there was no changing Ryan.
I’m a firm believer in the right name for the right character, and have agonised over stories in the past because one of the characters just wasn’t working. And I usually find that as soon as I stumble upon the right name, everything comes together. I don’t know why – I’m sure I’m not alone in this though. So there was no changing Ryan, although I admit that my writers’ group’s confusion over Ryan’s gender stuck with me while I redrafted NIGHT AND CHAOS. I did have visions of readers spending the whole book worrying over whether Ryan was a boy or a girl. Nobody’s mentioned it to me yet, so I guess my fears were unfounded, which is nice!
I’m interested in how other people feel about it though – does seeing a heroine with a traditionally male name bother you?.

Author Bio

Naomi Clark lives in Cambridge and is a mild-mannered office worker by day, but a slightly crazed writer by night. She has a perfectly healthy obsession with giant sea creatures and a preference for vodka-based cocktails. When she's not writing, Naomi is probably either reading or watching 80s cartoon shows, and sometimes she manages to do all three at once.

Find me online!

http://naomijay.blogspot.com/ 

http://naomi-jay.livejournal.com/ 

http://twitter.com/#!/naomi_jay 
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I think :
My brother is called Ryan but l have heard of a girl called Ryan and l don't think it is that unusual for a girl to be called Ryan. I think when it's a name you have wanted to use then you should use it, especially if it making you change the character from who you want her to be.