Naming the bad guys

Calla Lily · Jun 17, 2005

Help!

(Even tho the agent's good advice was to label my book "thriller" rather than horror, it's horror in my eyes. He said that most women skip the horror section, so if I want to get published... My target market is women 20-50.)

Here's the backstory: Limited nuclear war, civilization in the toilet. Rebuilds. 250 years later, it's an agrarain/guild society. I don't do machines well.

A group of monks survived, found other survivors, and led the rebuild. They are now the government. Trouble is, they're completely nutters and have a secret agenda of killing off (horribly) anyone who they perceive as a threat.

I called them "Hermits" because of what that name said to me. The agent said (nicely) wrong, wrong, wrong. "Hermits" said absolutely nothing to him, and hey, I'm trying to wow an agent. Gotta jettison what doesn't work.

Good news: he made some great rewrite suggestions and said I could resubmit to him. :hooray:

So, PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE, I need suggestions naming the bad guys! Too bad Cenobites is taken, you know? I went into the thesaurus for Tracker, hunter, Elder, Superior (I'm an ex-nun, those last two terms come automatically into the ol' brain.) I'm completely stumped.

Thanks!

- the Lily

Joe Calabrese · Jun 17, 2005

If I understand your bad guys correctly, they are religeous, isolationists and perhaps anti technological, like the Ludites were in the 1800's.

You may want to take a combination of terms and blend them together to creat a new word, like Monk + Luddite = Monitte. It's okay to make up a word/term that sounds ominous and threatening and you don't nessesarily have to explain it, but can hint along the way so the readers may get it.

For instance, in The Time Machine, Wells made up the Eloi and Morlock from his imagination but they represented Victorian class structures and although I don't remember the root structures, the words are derived in part by terms used during that period.

For specific characters, you may also want to combine made up words and add a known one. For the leader, using my formula above, try something like, "Monnite Superior" instead of the well known "Mother Superior." Adding a well known reference can clearly establish position and status.

Good luck.

Richard · Jun 17, 2005

Just as long as you look up the word afterwards.

"Okay, so they're like hermits, but also a bit heretical. Any problem with Hermetical monks?"

"It gets my seal of approval."

Calla Lily · Jun 17, 2005

Interesting ideas. I'll chew on them this weekend...

Thanks!

MacAllister · Jun 17, 2005

You could also do a "newspeak" thing--that is, take a word that means something positive, and turn it on its head so it becomes ominous, because of the irony of its reality in your fictional world.

Something like "Patrons" or "Ministers"

Fractured_Chaos · Jun 18, 2005

MacAllister said:
You could also do a "newspeak" thing--that is, take a word that means something positive, and turn it on its head so it becomes ominous, because of the irony of its reality in your fictional world.

Something like "Patrons" or "Ministers"

I would think that would make them seem even more sinister.

Calla Lily · Jun 18, 2005

MacAllister said:
You could also do a "newspeak" thing--that is, take a word that means something positive, and turn it on its head so it becomes ominous, because of the irony of its reality in your fictional world.

Something like "Patrons" or "Ministers"

That was my intention with "Hermits" but it obviously didn't carry. I'll chew some more. I do want to find a Newspeak-type title for 'em.

I did consider coming right out and naming characters after my former Novice Mistress and Superior General, but there's that pesky libel law.

Naming the bad guys

Calla Lily

On hiatus

Joe Calabrese

Richard

13th Triskaidekaphobe

Calla Lily

On hiatus

MacAllister

'Twas but a dream of thee

Fractured_Chaos

Distra-- Ooh! Shiny!

Calla Lily

On hiatus