Okay, read all notes on both potential nano novels, still vacillating, but now swinging back to POW. Had the right piece of the puzzle fall in my lap today. Watching/listening to a commentary on the 1948 film "Act of Violence" (excellent movie, btw), and the commentator began discussing identity, how it related to the two main characters, the noir genre, and the director. Takes something that simple sometimes, but I realized that's what a big part of POW is about: identity. I just couldn't label it until today, but now that I have, the novel just became much clearer in my mind. This pleases me greatly.
I've started compiling lists of names for it. It's stupid, but lack of the right names can be one of those annoying things that can really stall a project. And during nano is not the time to stall over something dumb. I'm not talking the main characters -- they're all already named. I'm talking the extras and secondary characters. But calling characters Jack 1, Jack 2, Jack 3 just doesn't cut it. Hence the name lists made up in advance. Need a character name? Just open the file, scan until something jumps out at me. Done. And in a fantasy novel, the flavor and sound of the names is important. Average novel potential name list for me needs 50-100 names in it. I won't use even half that, but I've got to have the selection at hand. Even that many's sometimes not enough, and I'll have to fish around elsewhere to supplement the list. Place names too... usually need a lengthy list of place names to choose from.
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