(#) siaru 2011-01-19
Well, if you're looking for normal-sounding names, go look in your email client program's spam-trap. Those spammers put a lot of effort into creating names which sound like real people; since you've no way of returning them to them, they're effectively gifted to you. Might as well get some use out of the stuff.
One can't help but wish that somehow those pigeons were rats instead, with a silver-pawed one discovered after the mercy-cut was given. As it was, it's a warning to the arrogant: if you push this Trelawney too hard, you're gonna get Seered, and, if you take Umbridge at that, no snitch in time will save you. Getting the point of Divination takes guts.
Author's response
Awesome! If I could rate a review +1, I would. :)
As to names, over the course of the story I have used the following techniques:
- a god-awful lot of lists of names on the Internet (Wikipedia is good for this)
- the phone book
- randomly flipping through the dictionary
- going through bibliographies in the back of textbooks from college
- using names of textbook authors
- lists of stars
- multiple field guides to plants, birds, and reptiles
(not an exhaustive list)
I have several repositories of names built up at this point, but I expect this will be an ongoing process so long as I try to show the plots of the books from the perspective of outsiders looking in. I realize I am totally overdoing it for the purposes of fanfiction that I intended as mental stimulation and a writing exercise. :P