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I once read some advice about not having two characters with names beginning with the same letter, to avoid reader confusion. Do you think that having rhyming character names might also confuse the reader? I'm working on a story with four main characters and two of them are called Aimee and Jamie, and I'm wondering whether I should change one of those names.
Comments
:)
Ultimately, people in real life do have rhyming names (I'm Dan and I have a friend named Fran, for instance. My girlfriend knows a married couple called Wayne and Elaine!), but in prose they'll draw attention to themselves and readers may wonder why you chose to name your characters like that. Unless you're sure those names are definitely right for the characters, you might be better off changing one of them.
http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/fiction-writing-character-basics-part-1.html
http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/writing-short-stories-part-2-structure.html
I think this sums up my thoughts on it. If there's a good reason, as in Danfango's case, go ahead. Otherwise avoid the rhyming.
I know of one youth football team that has five Dannys. (prompting a chant from the sidelines of "You're just a team full of Dannys"). Don't get hung up on names, write the story.
So is "erm, erm, ooh, ahh, what? erm *mumble*" in conversations but that would make for a bad book :P
Fiction is different in oh so many ways!
If you have put them in as a running joke, well and good: otherwise the humour of it wears thin very rapidly, and becomes a turn off.
Could you not just make Jamie 'James'? It's a little different.
That could make an interesting twist if Jamie is a female :P
It is indeed, yes. In the 1990s when I worked for the railways, some of us were sitting in the train crew messroom one day when a lady representative from an insurance company came to the depot - by prior arrangement - to possibly sell insurance to the drivers, guards, and other employees. When she had set up her paperwork and leaflets on policies on one of the tables, she began by asking the five of us who were already sitting in the room - three drivers and two guards - what our names were. The thing is, she thought we were pulling her leg when we told her that all five of us were called John. It was the truth. At that time, there were seven 'John's among the drivers and guards, and five of us were in that room all at once.
It was accidental, and only when I started writing the story did I really take notice of the rhyming. Anyway, Aimee has since changed her name by authorial fiat to Sara.