What’s in a name

Funny, fun coincidence. What I’ve been working on, a character’s name is Virginia. I’d not expected her to be a significant character but she grew into one.

However, “Unending Wonders of a Subatomic World” also has a Virginia which is a prime character. She’s a rather abrasive character and so is this Virginia in this other work. I had carried over the name Virginia, knowing this one would be not very pleasant, just thinking it would be a fun thing to do, but she was supposed to be fleeting and minor, I’d not expected her to end up occupying so much acreage.

Tonight, I decided it would be best to change this character’s name.

I went through my document and did an individual search and replace rather than a global just to see how the new name played, which took a while. And then I had to change the name of another character as hers was an intentional variation on Virginia.

The second I was done and sat back to rather admire the new name, liking it a good bit, the computer beeped at me, letting me know new mail had arrived. I opened my email client and there was one new message from AlterNet. The email’s headline read “Virginity Movement on the Defensive, Scrambling to Rebrand.”