Naming a protagonist mid-novel by kirk_pos
I called her Celestine for the first 35,000 words. Her full name in my notes was always Celestine Marcano, and I had this very clear picture of her: a woman managing the estate accounts after her father's stroke, somewhere between 1935 and 1945, watching the cocoa price collapse around her while trying to keep the family out of debt. Now I'm 47,000 words in and I'm not sure Celestine is right. It's a beautiful name. It's correct for the period and the place. But every time I type it I feel like I'm reaching for something slightly out of my range, like I'm performing a character I haven't quite earned yet. The woman I've been writing for the last month feels like she could go by Celine, or maybe just a completely different name I haven't thought of yet. Has anyone else had this happen? Changed a protagonist's name deep in a draft? Did it clarify things or was it just a form of productive procrastination? I'm asking partly because I have this superstition that the name should fit in the character's own mouth, the way they would introduce themselves, and I'm not sure Celestine would ever say her own name out loud.