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[rj_anderson]

Thanks for all those who voted in my poll about whether or not it was necessary for me to change Timothy's name to "Tim" or something else entirely -- the general consensus was strongly on the "A bit old fashioned, but not the end of the world" side, which was exactly how I'd been thinking of it myself (it's not as though "Timothy" is a big popular name in Canada any more either!).

So I sent my UK editor a link to this poll and also expounded a little on why I thought that "Timothy" was the best name for the character, and she (being a lovely and understanding person) said that was just fine. This was a great relief to me, especially since my dutiful attempt to substitute "Tim" for "Timothy" throughout the narrative yielded a truly soul-harrowing result (I couldn't get past the first page!). And besides, I've known this character as Timothy since he first appeared in the original draft of Knife back in 1994, so it would have been very hard for me to change it (even if I did cut him from the final draft).

Anyway, Timothy he is and Timothy he shall remain. Huzzah!

Comments

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

especially since my dutiful attempt to substitute "Tim" for "Timothy" throughout the narrative yielded a truly soul-harrowing result (I couldn't get past the first page!).

I so know this feeling. I've tried to go back and rename characters for various reasons and it's just no use; my brain automatically assumes they're different people. It's absurd, really, but there you are.

...and just for the record, I'm firmly in the "A bit old fashioned, but not the end of the world" camp myself. To my mind, that sort of gently antiquated name is perfect for a story with such obvious roots in literary and folkloric tradition.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Renaming can actually be useful when you need to separate a new iteration of the character from an old one: it was a great help to me to change my heroine's name from Thea to Alison when reworking Touching Indigo, for instance. If I hadn't changed her name I would have had a really tough time making all the other changes I needed to turn that short story into a proper book -- making her younger, changing her background and certain aspects of her personality, and so on...

But if you're not changing the character, then yeah, changing the name is awkward in the extreme.