Q&A Thursdays Reprised #8: Robin’s Question
This year, I’ve been reprising a Daughter of Blood (and by extension The Wall Of Night ) Q&A series that first featured in 2019. I think the questions merit another look so I hope you’re enjoying the refeature, too. 🙂
Today’s question is from Robin, on the writing of Tuckerization characters.
Robin: You’ve had readers give their names to a character in both Daughter of Blood and The Gathering of the Lost. (I think it’s called Tuckerization?) Are those characters hard to write into the rest of the book? Or do you just change the names of characters you already planned to have in the story?
The process of real-world people giving their name to a character, or sometimes a place or object, in a book is called Tuckerization. For example, I was Tuckerized in Julie Czerneda’s Search Image (2018), by giving my surname to a continent, Lowesland. 🙂 The Tuckerization character in Gathering was Jan Butterworth; while the Daughter character was Che’Ryl-g-Raham: aka Cheryl Graham. Both were also double namings, as Butterworth was also the name of Jan’s village, while Che’Ryl-g-Raham was the name of both a Sea House ship and its navigator.
I definitely don’t just rename an already planned character because—having given the Tuckerization away as part of launch celebrations—I want the whole process to be special for the recipient. Giving the name to a pre-conceived minor character would feel a little like cheating on that process. So far neither Tuckerization character was difficult to write or include: they both pretty much came to life and wrote themselves. In fact, with Che’Ryl-g-Raham it was more a case of saying a very firm authorial “no” to her cutting a swathe through Daughter and assuming a greater part in the story, especially since she was already a reasonably significant player in the Grayharbor section.
Previous Thursday Q&A Refeatures:
March 31 — #1 Phoebe’s Question on Book Planning
April 21 — #2 Sam’s Question on Deleted Scenes
April 28 — #3 Sandy’s Question on Characters That Take Charge
May 19 — #4 Lindsay’s Question on Research
June 23 — #5 Chris’s Question on Tirael & “What Would Have Happened If…”
June 30 — #6 Rosie’s Question on the Web of Mayanne
September 8 — #7 Jason’s Question on Weapons & Names
A good question and a good answer
Thanks, June. 🙂
Also, I’m sorry I missed your comment earlier, hence the delayed reply.