God, I love Scrivener

Scrivener's the best writing software I've ever used. Bear in mind, when I say "writing software," what I really mean is "writing support software." When I'm actually writing, any RTF editor will do -- if I can put down words and occasionally italicize them, I'm in my happy place.

But, there's more to writing than just... well, writing. There's research, and notes, and formatting, and prepwork, and organization, and reorganization, and... everything.

That's when Scrivener shines. I can stick images in my notes, assign roles, do all the old Dramatica stuff -- you name it. It's amazingly useful when you're juggling short stories or trying to piece together a novel.

And then there's the little things.

One of the things I write are erotic superhero stories. There's a lot of reasons for this (though one is "I find them unimaginably hot," and that's enough sometimes). And there are certain requirements to the form when you're writing superhero stories, erotic or not.

And one of those requirements is naming your cast alliteratively.

It seems silly, I know, but this is a subtle, almost unconscious part of superhero fiction. Cast members have alliterative names. Lois Lane. Clark Kent (alliteration is sound -- CUH-lark CUH-ent). Cassandra Cain. Lex Luthor. Ronnie Raymond. Lana Lang. Peter Parker. J. Jonah Jameson, Larry Lance, Laurel Lance. Et cetera et cetera et cetera.

So, when writing supersmut, obviously I want some amount of alliteration going on. Now, finding names is one of those little things they don't talk about on "writer's inspiration" websites very often. You get ideas, you build characters and situations, you get excited, you sit down at the keyboard, you realize your characters are unnamed and everything stops oh holy crap what do I call these people? Back in the day, you kept phone books at hand or bought lists of names or whatever and you grabbed them desperately, searching for a name that you think fits and that you can get away with.

But Scrivener is a writer's program, so tucked away in a corner it's got a name generator. You can tweak it for regional needs or set levels of obscurity if you want. And at least one guy's got a bunch of great name lists you can import and use, because he is awesome.

And one thing you can set? Is alliteration.

So, I sit down to write a superhero story, I fire up the list generator. I set it to give me a mix of male and female, and decide to only do ten names (I usually do 50, but this is a blog post). And I tell it to "attempt alliteration."

The results -- five guys, five gals:

• Jennifer Jackson
• Jerrica Jones
• Thomas Thackeray
• Eric Ellis
• Angela Adams
• Steven Stewart
• Elizabeth Ellis
• Robert Ramos
• Melissa Miller
• Brian Boyle

If you can't see superheroic possibilities in the above list, you're just not trying. "Jennifer Jackson" should secretly be Jetstar, soaring above the heavens in her turbo-powered skintight suit. Her boyfriend, Brian Boyle, doesn't know that the reason Jennifer keeps breaking dates is her need to use her talents and technology to protect the populace. Their mutual employer and mentor at Technorp, Thomas Thackeray ("everybody calls me Thack"), tries to reassure Brian, but is secretly worried about Jennifer's perceived commitment not just to her relationship but her job. Angela Adams from accounting sees it as a chance to move in on Brian, much to the dismay of Eric Ellis -- who knows Jennifer's secret and whose innovative artificial intelligence skills make the operation of Jetstar's suit possible. He's always liked Angela and disliked Brian, and this all makes it worse. Meanwhile, his sister, Elizabeth Ellis, has unbeknownst to him gotten access to the Jetstar files and used it to create her own turbine-powered AI-driven drones, which she has sent into the city to secure riches for herself and bring down Jetstar once and for all....

Cliché? Yeah, okay. But the tropes exist for a reason, and this was freeform riffing off the names. I didn't even get through them all. Just listen to those cadences. Miss Melissa Miller. Sir Stephen Stewart (I think changing the spelling of a name is legal). The jaunty Jerrica Jones. The righteous Robert Ramos. It highlights why people like Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and Stan Lee went to alliteration in the first place. Pe-ter Par-ker is memorable and complex. It flows off the tongue and suggests a complicated man with complicated problems. Clark Kent defines the man in the union suit perfectly -- it's a strong, monosyllabic name that sounds chunky and powerful, but almost feels cumbersome and... well, a little geeky when you look at it. 

So, yeah. This is a tiny little thing that makes all the difference in the world when you're trying to write superheroes.

Of course, that Jetstar paragraph above comes across a little differently when you're writing erotic superhero stories. On the other hand, consider Jenna Jameson, Persia Pele, Jesse Jane, Katie Kox, Jelena Jansen, Ava Addams, Capri Cavalli, Kimberly (yay!) Kane, Gracie Glam, Shazia Sahari....

Yeah. All the ways alliteration works for superheroes also work for porn. Who knew?