Today we say hi to the lovely Wade Kelly joining us here at our blog to talk about her new release “Bankers’ Hours”.

Wade talks to us about naming characters , shares an excerpt and also brought along a wonderful giveaway!

Welcome Wade 🙂

Hello good people! This is Wade Kelly. I’ve dropped by Love Bytes to talk a little about my new novel, Bankers’ Hours. It released last Friday! I’m so excited. I hope you’ve stopped at the previous guest posts in this blog tour, or you have missed out on all the fun stuff I already talked about. In this stop, I’m going to talk about naming my characters.

Naming characters is actually really difficult sometimes.

When I started writing, I was dead set AGAINST naming characters after people I knew. I figured it would be less likely that people would read something and think, “Oh, that character is me!” But ya know what, all my characters are ME in one way, shape, or form. I am trying to get over the worry that people will think I write about them. In my opinion, we all live the human experience and eventually an author, me or another one, will write somebody that is so much like YOU, or you, or you, that you think it was written about you. Make sense? So I write the human experience in stories that basically fall out of my brain.

Yes, I have met people who inspire characters. My friend Lance, for example, in No! Jocks Don’t Date Guys, is based on a friend Lance, but it isn’t exactly him because I don’t know him well enough. I described his face and smile, but all of the character in the book is out of my imagination. Rob McAvoy is also based on a guy I know in real life, but his name is not Rob. Doug, in JOCK 2 and JOCK 3, is named after my friend Doug, but the character is again purely out of my imagination. In naming characters, I have generally shied away from naming characters after people.

I say in the past because I’m am trending toward using names of people I know. Boy, how times have changed.

I did this because of the excitement Lance had that his name was in a book. I told him I was going to rename the character to “protect the innocent,” and he was disappointed. So, I left the name as is. Same with Doug. People like knowing you named a character after them.

In Bankers’ Hours, the love interest is named Tristan. Oddly, shortly after I decided to write about the cute guy at the bank, and name his love interest “Tristan,” I learned that one of the bank tellers I talk to was named Tristan. That was really weird. I didn’t recall reading her name tag before (and yes, Tristan is a girl at my bank.), but I might have registered it subconsciously because the name Tristan just kept speaking to me.

Then, I named Tristan’s daughter Claire after one of my fans. I also used Kirsty as her best friend because of another fan. There are other authors who offer a name in a book as a prize or something because it is pretty cool, but I kind of already name characters after fans. Sometimes it is intentional, and other times it is not. But them more characters I write, the higher the likelihood that someone who reads a book will have that name.

So, now, I kind of think it doesn’t matter. What matters is finding the name that feels like the character. Nick Jones (Names Can Never Hurt Me) by any other name may not have come across the same. If his name was Elliott, for example. Names have a certain flavor to them, don’t they? Maybe not all the time, but sometimes. I think characters have personalities and sometimes the name influences the mind of the reader.

In Bankers’ Hours, I used specific names for a reason. There are a couple of author friends in there. One name is what I was going name my daughter before I knew she was a she. My real name is in the book. I use a friend’s last name and one of my friend’s names. Grant in reality is my friend’s son’s name, although I was not thinking of him when I wrote it, I simply thought Grant felt right. Actually, if you were or are in my life all the time, you may be able to pick out ALL the names in Bankers’ Hours and cite why I chose them.

When I choose names, I normally save the names I am super-fond of for main characters. For example: Luke, Scott, Marc, Shawn, Alex, Jayden, Max, David, Todd, Sean, Oliver, Simon, Eric, and more, haven’t been used because I want to hold them in my pocket for now, or they are already characters’ names but you as the reader haven’t read them yet. I have like 10 stories in my arsenal for future novels and most of those have a list of characters already. So when I ask for character names on Facebook, it is probably because I can’t think of one I haven’t used or earmarked for another novel.

I guess what I want to say in closing is that Naming characters is sometimes a challenge, and other times the name pops into my head. Gee, how specific is that? Anyway, be warned, your name may appear in a book and it might be intentional, or it may be accidental. Usually if it is on purpose, I will probably tell you.

If you have any suggestions for a name, tell me! I love to hear suggestions.

Before I go, here is a short excerpt. Don’t read if you don’t like spoilers.

Tristan stepped closer and before I could react he kissed me right there in the store. I felt self-conscious at first, but as he kissed longer and slower I simply melted into him. He squeezed my hips and pulled me tight against him. No tongue, but his kiss was pretty darn knee buckling without it.

Then I heard a word that chilled my growing lust, and forced it into hiding. “Dad?” a female voice asked.

Tristan pulled back, peeling himself away from me in slow motion. I would have thought being caught by his daughter, kissing a man, would have jolted Tristan into jumping away from my body, but it hadn’t. Maybe it was akin to the police yelling, “Freeze!”

Claire wasn’t as relaxed and pre-occupied as I remembered from the gym. Her jaw was two inches from the floor, eyes bugged out, and mirrored by her two friends.

Tristan swallowed so loud I could hear it. “Hi, Claire,” he said, probably because there wasn’t anything else he could say.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, still gaping. “I mean, you called and told me you were gay, but I didn’t think you were actually gay. You don’t even look gay. But now… you’re… holy shit, that’s the guy from the gym!” Her eyes bugged out farther as she pointed at me and dropped her bags.

Tristan said, “His name is Grant.”

I weakly lifted my hand. “Hi.”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes.

“Claire!” her male friend chastised. “Don’t be rude. Besides, that guy’s cute.”

I knew I blushed. I blushed at everything, so a compliment from a kid wasn’t going to escape the list.

Tristan grinned at me and then addressed the kid, “Thanks. What’s your name?”

“Danny,” the boy answered, batting his eyes and smiling way too sweetly at my man. He was wearing a tight sweater with a blue scarf. I liked the scarf. My shirts didn’t accommodate scarves and therefore I mainly wore ties. Still, I appreciated his style even if I could do without his flirtation.

Tristan then asked the girl, “And you?”

She answered, “I’m Kirsty. I think it’s cool you’re gay.”

Claire nudged her. “Shhh. Don’t encourage him.” She glared at Tristan. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Tristan cocked his head to the side. “I should ask you the same thing, young lady. Where’s your mom?”

A pain shot through my stomach. I couldn’t bear to see that woman twice in one day.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I spent the night at Kirsty’s and her mom dropped us off while she bought some birthday presents.”

“Does she know about Danny?” Tristan asked. I sort of knew why, but didn’t want to hear Claire’s answer.

She grimaced. “No. She’s a freak when it comes to….” Then I saw her expression open up. Her shoulders relaxed and her tone completely changed. “Oh God. That’s why you’ve never said.”

Tristan nodded.

She cupped her mouth briefly, then said, “I’m so sorry, Dad.” Tears formed in her eyes right before Tristan hugged her. I heard her sniffle. “I never realized until recently, how bigoted Mom is.” Claire pulled out of the hug and took the tissue Kirsty offered. She wiped her eyes carefully to avoid smearing her makeup, and continued, “As soon as high school started, everything changed. She started getting strict, like she never had been before. She’s been checking my grades online every week to see if all my assignments are in. She e-mails my teachers. I don’t understand why when I’ve had almost all A’s since fifth grade. The worst was when I met Danny in Honors Government last year. He came over to research a paper with me and Mom got really rude. Luckily, he was wearing a school spirit T-shirt and not one of his normal outfits, so I lied and told her he was dating Kirsty. I couldn’t believe the things she said, besides the fact she assumed he was gay from his hairstyle!”

Stereotyping! I recoiled. His hair was very well quaffed, but I would hardly call it “gay” hair.

“True story,” Danny added, holding his hand as if swearing in court. “I heard the whole argument and did my best to act straight and deepen my voice when I said good-bye. I haven’t been over there since.”

“It’s so dumb,” Kirsty said.

“He’s my best friend, Dad, and he can’t come over to my house because I don’t know what Mom would do if she found out he’s gay.”

It all came together for Tristan as he summarized, “Which is why you’re at the mall with your friends when your mother isn’t around. I get it. She dropped by to see me this morning, right after breakfast, and degraded me in front of Grant.”

“It was awful,” I added.

“Wait, breakfast?” Claire questioned, only to drop her jaw a second time from shock. “How early was she there?”

“It isn’t what you think,” I defended.

“I think you spent the night and my mom caught you,” she said.

Tristan sighed, “Okay, that is what happened, but nothing was going on. His car broke down in my driveway.”

Danny snickered behind his hand, “Likely story.”

“It did!” I exclaimed. I caught sight of the clerk watching us from afar. It was odd, I had to admit, having this type of discussion in the middle of Hot Topic, but at least there weren’t loads of other patrons. The store was empty besides us.

“Look, Grant and I are in a relationship. I told you about my sexuality because how I feel about him isn’t casual. In fact,” he glanced at me before he said, “we’re getting married.”

“What!” she cried.

Danny clapped while hopping up and down. “Yay!”

Kirsty said, “Aww, that’s so sweet.”

 

Join me for more tomorrow. In the mean time, leave a comment and tell me one of YOUR favorite names. MY favorite favorites are Nick, Alex, Flynn, Keith, Luke, Jayden, Corey, and Max. One day, all those names will be in a book of mine 🙂

Blurb:

Even though bankers’ hours leave long weekends for romance, cosmic intervention is Grant’s only option when money doesn’t buy happiness and he’s got virginity in spades.

Grant Adams is a twenty-six-year-old bank teller who’s unlucky at love, yet hopelessly hopeful. After years of horrific first dates, he’s convinced he’s saving himself for true love. Surely he has bad taste in men because it couldn’t possibly be his persnickety nature that’s sent them packing.

Tristan Carr has been in a holding pattern since his daughter was born fifteen years ago, which suits his workaholic lifestyle just fine. This ex-Navy turned auto mechanic never wanted anyone interfering with being a weekend dad. For Tristan to rearrange his perfectly orchestrated life, a guy will need to be special. Or in the case of the newest employee at his bank, the guy will need to be adorable, shy, and open to the prospect of forever when it shows up at his window.

Buy Links:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

This is the official tour list of stops:

February 24 – Prism Book Alliance

March 18 – MM Good Book Reviews

March 22 – Long and Short Reviews 

March 23 – My Fiction Nook

March 24 – Oh My Shelves

March 25 – Divine Magazine

March 25 – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

March 28 – Love Bytes

March 29 – Gay Book Reviews

March 30 – The Novel Approach

For LINKS to all the stops, hop over to MY BLOG.

The BUY LINK for Bankers’ Hours is HERE.

*Note: Names Can Never Hurt Me is now out in audiobook! HERE.

I have several giveaways. Leave a comment on this blog for a chance to win an Amazon gift certificate. I am going to take ALL the names, from all the comments, from all the blog stops, and put them in a drawing. I have 10 stops including this one. The more comments you make then higher your chances of winning. I will have 3 winners of a $10 Amazon gift certificate to be announced when the tour ends! Additionally, for those who comment on ALL 10 STOPS, I will enter each of them into a grand prize drawing good for:

1. An eBook from my backlist of your choice, OR the next book I publish this year. (*Excluding Bankers’ Hours)
2. A $10 Amazon gift certificate,
3. A Wade Kelly Spoon in the colors of your choice,

• One autographed paperback copy of the novel of their choice, OR the next book I publish this year. (*Excluding Bankers’ Hours)

• A special Promo Code for you to download a copy of the audiobook: Misplaced AffectionNote: I am willing to mail things to other countries so don’t let that stop you! Please, post on ALL the posts. I had fun with this last time 🙂

Wade Kelly lives and writes in conservative, small-town America on the east coast where it’s not easy to live free and open in one’s beliefs. Wade writes passionately about controversial issues and strives to make a difference by making people think. Wade does not have a background in writing or philosophy, but still draws from personal experience to ponder contentious subjects on paper. There is a lot of pain in the world and people need hope. When not writing, she is thinking about writing, and more than likely scribbling ideas on sticky notes in the car while playing “taxi driver” for her children. She likes snakes, can’t spell, and has a tendency to make people cry.

My social media:

Web: www.writerwadekelly.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wadekellywriterFace book Fan group, The Wade Brigade : https://www.facebook.com/groups/247976895406172/ Blog: writerwadekelly.blogspot.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/WriterWadeKellyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/writerwadekelly/ Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5141623.Wade_Kelly http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=bankers+hours&x=0&y=0