What's in a Name?

With every piece I work on, no matter what the genre or format, I labor over names.  Titles, character names, and even the name I write under are all just as important to me as storyline, grammar, and character progression.  A name can say a lot.

I wrote World-Mart under the title, The Last Great Minds of 2084, opting to change it nearly a year after finishing the novel.  Although I personally like both titles quite a bit, I felt that The Last Great Minds of 2084 was too "literary" for the mainstream audience for which I had intended it.  When I decided to convert the novel into screenplay format, I knew I had made the right decision: what mainstream audience is going to want to watch a movie titled The Last Great Minds of 2084?  World-Mart more accurately tells the audience what to expect out of the story.  Moreover, it is short and to the point, offering more of a mainstream appeal.

Character names, while seemingly unimportant, can hold great significance.  While I choose most of my character names based on visual and audible aesthetics (or, sometimes, personal reasons), sometimes I choose names based on more important factors.  In World-Mart, for example, each name holds significance: each character is named after a sci-fi or literary writer who has, in some way, influenced my writing.  "George" is named after Orwell.  "Virginia" is named after Woolf.  "Kurt" is named after Vonnegut.  "Shelley" is named after Mary, and the list goes on.  This is important because, although World-Mart is strictly a work of science fiction and drama (the novel also falls under the category of literature), it is my also personal tribute to all of those authors.  Tucked in discretely, here and there, like Easter eggs on a DVD, the themes intertwined throughout the story are all based on themes explored by these time-honored heroes; I was inspired to write the piece after learning of Kurt Vonnegut's death in April of 2007.

I have a few different pen names.  I market under my actual name, as not to confuse agents/managers and producers, but I feel that it is necessary to publish or produce under a different name for each genre I write.  The reason for this is simple: I write in a few very different genres, which could potentially disrupt audience expectations, when comparing my various works against one another; if my work seems inconsistent, people may feel hesitant about chancing the next piece.  My narrative nonfiction, for example, is very different from my dark fantasy and horror.  How many people out there are aware of the fact that Stephen King is quite skilled at writing non-fiction?  Most people have probably never taken a chance on these numerous other works, simply because he made a name for himself in horror.