Warrior Names

***WARRIOR NAMES***

We’ve seen a lot of fantasy warriors come and go throughout our creative fuel intake. They tend to have last names like Overspark, Dreadlord, and Pusdrinker. Yes, that last one is a real enemy from Diablo II: Lord of Destruction; I shit you not. In all my time of writing fantasy and sci-fi stories, I’ve pretty much just passively accepted the fact that warriors have two-word last names that describe how badass they really are. That’s where I got characters like Deus Shadowheart, Butch Hellfire, and Machu Throatslash to name a few.

However, the more I started collaborating with Marie Krepps to fix my short stories, the more I realized that such two-word last names sound a little too…obvious. And to her credit, Marie has a point here. After all, when you eventually meet Machu Throatslash’s parents, what do your refer to them as? Mr. and Mrs. Throatslash? That’ll make for some fun conversations. Suppose Machu wanted to take a cute girl to the prom with him and then the two decide to marry. Would the girl be legally obligated to call herself Mrs. Throatslash? That’ll look good on her credit card application: Julia Samantha Throatslash. She doesn’t actually want to make any purchases with it; she just wants to run the sharp edge across someone’s neck and bleed them out.

Ever since hearing the other side of the warrior name argument, I’m kind of on the fence now with what I believe. A part of me doesn’t want to let go of my fantasy and sci-fi traditions. I want to have badass warriors whose names strike fear in the hearts of their opponents. But then again, if they really are badass warriors, do they need to have overpowered names? Couldn’t they just get the job done by breathing fire on their opponents or chopping their heads off with a magical battleaxe?

I have to confess that Marie’s critique was the inspiration behind the John Bush character from “Kill, Cut, Scalp”. The whole reason that hero took the name John Bush was so that the evil sorcerer Dark-Law wouldn’t suspect him of being a fire breathing death angel, which he eventually transformed into to get his assassination job done. It’s easy to trust a guy name John Bush (even if he is a death angel), but if his name was Konnor Dragonslash, then the ruse would have been all for naught and Dark-Law would have killed him off right then and there.

George Carlin did an entire comedy routine about the power names have to influence history. There would have never been a World War II if Hitler’s first name was Floyd. They would have beaten the shit out of him in Munich in 1931! And nobody would have been fearful of Jack the Ripper if his first name was Wally. And Billy the Kid? Do you think anyone would take him seriously if his name was Billy the Schmuck?

I guess the lesson to be learned with giving your characters overpowered names is to judge how seriously you want the warriors to be taken by their enemies. Helpless civilians would bow at the metal boots of Konnor Dragonslash or Viktor Fireborn, but they’d laugh John Bush or George Kerry out of the building. Maybe you want your characters to be as intimidating as possible. Or your philosophy could be based on a rhyme that fellow indie author Edward Davies once bestowed upon me: “Convince your enemies that you’re benign and you will beat them every time.” Choose your fate, noble warriors, and bring back a severed demon head. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

　

***BACK TO RANDOM SELECTION***

In an effort to jumpstart my creative life again, I’ve gone back to the idea of randomly selecting my next artistic task. I did this back in the summertime with plenty of success. I’m doing it now with even more success. There are currently six items on my list to choose from:

　

1. American Darkness: put together the paperback and Kindle versions of this newly revised anthology.

2. Dark Fantasy Warriors: draw a picture of the next randomly selected short story character on my list, which this time happens to be the fourth and final character from “Guns, Drugs, and Misogyny”, Edgar Rinehart, elf mercenary.

3. The Girlfriend Wager: read 30 pages of this self-published raunchy sex comedy by Edward Davies.

4. Poison Tongue Tales: edit the next randomly chosen short story from this sci-fi, horror, and fantasy anthology. If you’ve been to your Deviant Art inboxes lately, you would have seen a revision of Bee Jay the Glutinous. Marie really wants to eat macaroni and cheese with a talking orange kitty now. ^_^

5. The Silence of the Lambs: read 30 pages of this traditionally published serial killer mystery by Thomas Harris.

6. Weekly Short Story Contests and Company: catch up on the reading of this week’s “Broken Windows” short stories (which I’ve already done) and contribute a story before the week is over (which is also something I’ve already done).

　

There is one item that should be on this list, but isn’t, and that’s Blood Brawl. Blood Brawl is supposed to be my main novel WIP, but ever since making it to chapter three, I’ve hit a roadblock. The entirety of this chapter is supposed to be Ivan Blackstone chasing Justine Dupree down the street while swinging a scythe in the air. How the hell am I supposed to stretch out a chase scene for that long and keep it from getting dull? I have no choreography, damn it! I’ll figure something out come hell or high water. But for now, Blood Brawl is off the menu.

　

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

WYNARSKI: I went into the video store one time and that son of a bitch was sleeping.
DANTE: I’m sure Randal wasn’t sleeping.
WYNARSKI: Are you calling me a liar?! Are you calling me a liar?!
DANTE: No, I’m saying maybe he was resting his eyes or something like that.
WYNARSKI: What the hell is that, resting his eyes? What is he, an air traffic controller?
DANTE: Actually, that’s his night job.

-Clerks-