Day 1
The critical aspect of any book, plot aside, is the characters. For a book to succeed, its characters must be either a) likeable, b) memorable, or c) both. Not only is the character's personality important, but also his or her name. Take the obvious Hannibal Lecter. Not a particularly likeable character, but definitely memorable. Read The Silence of the Lambs and you will never forget him. Thomas Harris could have, I suppose, named his character John Davis, but would that have had the same effect? Hannibal rhymes with cannibal; Hannibal was also a fierce warrior. Lecter? Say it out loud. It has a clean, slashing sound. On another level, maybe we want to equate it to the church lector, the person who delivers the word of….Hannibal? Harris' second character is Clarice Starling. Clarice is a fantasy name, one a writer might give to a fairy princess, yet it derives from the Latin claritia or fame. It can also mean illustrio...