A Screenwriter's Journey 5: Research

For the next part of the process, I had to do some research.

The first thing I had to research was names. I don't like randomly tossed-off names that much. I'm a fan of choosing names that have resonance with the story or character(s). Not all of them, that becomes too obvious and transparent if done to excess, but if used judiciously, it's a great tool to add subtext.

The Dortches family were the easiest. I just googled a list of common Southern women's names. I ignored obvious and over-the-top names like Bobby Sue or Scarlett. There are a lot of women characters, so I went with names that seemed they'd be given by the same mother. For the mother, I went with Lovie. I've met a few Lovie's in my time and they were all pretty bad people, not as extreme as the characters here, but bad enough. It fits. The oldest daughter, who is kind of the public face of the Dortches (she appears in commercials for the haunted house) is named Dawn. The mother didn't have the blue-skin disease, but most of the children do. She was the first to have blue skin (thus Dawn).

The daughter that is in school with the main cast is named Brandy. The b-name allows for a "Brandy Blue" nickname for the other kids to use to make fun of her. The other daughters are named Misty, LeAnn, Peggy and Tammy. These characters also all have personalities and motivations now, but I'll expand upon those later. There also two big dumb heavyweight sons who are functionally idiots, but do whatever they are told by Lovie and Dawn. Their names are Buck and Cage. Simple one-syllable names that have other meanings, but not that imply any compassion or humanity. Forceful names as they are only brute force.

The main characters also have names now, too. All the kids were born in America, but not all of their parents were. For the characters of international lineage, I wanted to do authentic names. As I mentioned last time, the two international characters are both Asian, but I didn't want their families to be from the same place. I've written Asian characters before, so I like to not repeat things, so I had to avoid China and South Korea. I chose Japan and Malaysia.

I also didn't want to go with overly stereotypical obvious names that people have seen before. The Japanese character is the shy lesbian with a crush on the black girl. I named her Himari Ito. She is proud of her culture and doesn't shy away from her heritage. But, she is basically an outsider even in the popular group. Her parents are from Japan and her mother speaks only a little English. She has pink hair, but not obnoxiously so.

The Malaysian character is the star football player, probably a quarterback. Malaysian names are more complex than American names. Ahmed is a common name, so that became his first name. Most Malaysians use a middle "name" that refers to their gender (equivalent to "son of" or "daughter of"), so for a male, that's "bin." And for last name, I went with Tengku, which helps show the diversity of Malaysian culture, as they are influenced by many other surrounding countries. So Ahmed bin Tengku.

The black kids are brother and sister (with the brother being gay). I gave them the last name Martin (with no real connection to anything). The sister is older, but less than a year so. She is named Rosa, after Parks and the brother is named Jeffrey, which I decided comes from a family friend. So Jeffrey and Rosa Martin.

The tall white girl who plays basketball I named Sarah, common enough name it lures people in with a sense that she is the normal one. Gave her the last name Willingham because it seemed really white.

The last of the six characters is the white nerd. I gave him the name Gordon Stevens. (I liked the idea of his first name being a last name and his last name being a first name).

One final character I named so far is the school principal who really only appears in one scene (so far, that may expand later). When I was thinking of her name, I looked out at the ocean in Puerto Rico and decided to give her a Puerto Rican name. I chose Valentina Casiano.

I also did research on haunted houses, to see what the trends are and to come up with a list of techniques and vignettes to appear inside the haunted house. And I researched a list of the most common phobias, so I can make sure to hit all of them at some point or another in the haunted house.

With all of this info in place, I actually wrote a few scenes, but I'll tell you more about that next time.