Behind the Name: Wyre

Paperback Writer gave me this idea for my post today thanks to hers, By Any Other Name. I thought I’d share with you how I came up with the name Lady Doctor Wyre.

I have a female character in a skewed Regency setting with a science fiction touch.  I wanted a name that blended both of those elements–no matter how crazy that sounds–which also hinted at the underlying world. So I took a piece of paper and drew a line down the middle.  On the left, I started writing all the key words and inspirations behind the science of my world:

Doctor Who, nanobots, assemblers, dissemblers, etc.

It felt rather silly, but since I had written “Who” I wrote down the other journalistic questions: Why, Where, What, How.

On the other side of the paper, I started writing down all the popular and known names involving the Regency elements.

Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Lizzie…but none of these were really working for me.  Until I hit:

Jane Eyre.

Eyre.  I really liked the spelling and of course I love the story. I let my eyes scan back over the SF list and landed on those W words, and all the sudden, I had it.

Wyre. 

Lady implies the Regency setting. Doctor W hopefully resonates with Doctor Who and implies the SF elements and Charlotte’s background. Wyre is a combination of Eyre and Who.

There you have it!

No snippet today — the novella is only about 30K and I can’t share too much of it. However, I did submit it yesterday and we’ll have to wait and see if it’s a go or not.