What’s in a name – Part 2?

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Photo courtesy of “farconville”/freedigitalphotos.net

As I mentioned last week, I love naming the characters in my writing. In that post I took you through the three leading human characters. This week I thought I’d cover off some of the angelic ones.

Territorially I structured the supernatural beings along global regions. Much of the material I’ve read about them makes reference to a hierarchical structure within angelic and demonic circles so that was the approach I followed. As I mentioned last week, the novel started as three separate parts, each focused on one of the lead characters (Thierry, Loren and Jack) being a victim of a terrorist attack. The first attack was in London (Europe), the next in Los Angeles (the Americas) and the final one in Australia (Asia and the Pacific). Accordingly, I established angels and demons to link with each situation.

Over the course of many re-writes and edits, the cast of supernatural characters shrunk dramatically including some of the regional leaders. The cast as outlined in the prelude to the novel reflects about 50% of the characters that have been created. I expect some of those who missed the final cut will attempt to push their way into making an appearance in subsequent Chronicles.

Tagan

Tagan is Head of the European Region and was delegated overall responsibility for this assignment. The greater part of the novel is set in Europe and the final climax is in Berlin, Germany, so it made sense for Tagan to be the boss.

He has no specific responsibility for any one individual human.

Tagan is a name that I first came across in the early 90s and stayed with me for over a decade before I penned the first words. Perhaps the only way I can say where his name came from was he introduced himself to me one day. I sincerely hope when I get to heaven I meet an angel called Tagan.

Arlia

Arlia is Loren’s angelic guardian and has feminine characteristics.

Some readers have struggled with the idea of female angels as there aren’t any specific Biblical references to such. When I first created Arlia and Andola (another female angel) in the first draft my perspective was one that supernatural beings are created. If God created man and woman (not too mention all the other female creatures) why couldn’t there be female angels and demons? Yes, God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are far above our thoughts but in the end I took Thomas Aquinas’ perspective. He proposed angels could assume whatever form was needed to do God’s work. So why not, a female?

IMG_0586Fiona, my wife, thought up the name, Arlia amongst many other name ideas she provided in the early stages. Fi provided a list that you can see in this photo.

Darius

Darius is Jack’s guardian.

You’ll notice his name is included on the top right hand list and is in my hand writing as from memory I scribbled it down in a moment of brainstorming.

For the majority of the manuscript’s life, I had Darius and Arlia being attracted towards each other. On understanding my initial perspective I mentioned above about why not female angels, you can probably see why I extended that towards romance. It was all very tame and minor, more a playful mutual attraction.

It wasn’t until Jan, my Lion Hudson editor, suggested this was making them too human and hence not credible, that it was ditched. Oh well, I enjoyed holding onto it for many years of the manuscripts’ life.

I’d love to get your thoughts on female supernatural beings, both angels and demons. For those of who’ve read Angelguard, was it a distraction that took something away from the novel?

Next week I’ll talk through the dark side of the supernatural realm. Till then be safe.

2 replies
  1. Peter Younghusband
    Peter Younghusband says:

    Really enjoying this, Ian, and in regards to having female angels being a distraction from the novel, I did mention in my review that this was not a distraction at all but some good poetic licence on your part and it added variety to the plot!

    Reply
    • Ian
      Ian says:

      Pete, I thought you’d like this series. It’s been fun tracking back through the years and reliving some of the backstory. Since the first draft was 707 pages, there’s quite a lot of it.

      In a future post I’ll also take readers through some of the deleted scenes.

      Thanks again for popping by, Pete. Always appreciate your contribution.

      Reply

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