Brainstorming help for places, names, people

[greyfort]

Basic Plotline: My two main characters are Essie and Amanda; sisters raised in Corrigan City - a city that's sole purpose is to time travel 1) for anthropological reasons and 2) to capture people who try to disrupt the time line. The people that populate Corrigan are people who should have died or have never been born and their descendants - Essie (the older sister) arrives in 1872 but instead of finding a pre-Victorian industrialized nation, finds a very medieval society.

I know that I am going to have some fun coming up with same names; etc for different types of things and I was hoping you guys might be able to help with a few of them.

The city is made up of all kinds of citizens - the people who actually time travel; teachers, mechanics, farmers, etc... a full fledged city.

I'm trying to come up with a name for the time travelers - at first it was "Agent" but that just seems cliche and bleh - then I thought of "Jumper" - but that just makes me think of a certain movie...Any thoughts or suggestions? I need to come up with a full hierarchy for that particular group but figured it will be easiest once I have a name or nickname for them

The second that's driving me a little bit batty is a name for the people in the historical time frame. An appropriate term would be "subjects" but it just sounds so impersonal and in-human. While I will probably use it as the clinical term (and one of the guys is very clinical) I want another name - more friendly name to refer to them.

Help? Please?
;D

[metalikhan]

Jan 28, 2010 11:19:48 GMT -5 greyfort said:

I'm trying to come up with a name for the time travelers - at first it was "Agent" but that just seems cliche and bleh - then I thought of "Jumper" - but that just makes me think of a certain movie...Any thoughts or suggestions? I need to come up with a full hierarchy for that particular group but figured it will be easiest once I have a name or nickname for them.

Rangers might work for both the overall name and an upper tier in the hierarchy (being the time enforcement level). Maybe other tiers could be Roamers (or Rovers) and Strays.

BTW, welcome, greyfort! ;D

[greyfort]

Thank you!

I do like the term Strays for the "crazy" bad guys (one of the things is that there are certain people in which time travelling too much breaks them psychologically) versus the really bad guys (the ones who chose to do bad).

Have to think on the other ideas. All during the month of December I re-watched Babylon 5 (Walmart had each season for $20 or less! ) and so I hear Ranger I think "can't use that!" LOL

[ryain]

I lke strays but if the time travelers are good it might not work. "Shifters" could work or maybe "Vanishers". I don't know about the "Subjects" nothing comes to mind. But a great story! Love to read it!

[Teskas]

Sometimes it helps not to have the terminology at the beginning of a story. If you start writing it, and develop your main characters, you might find the right terms pop out of their characters in dialog.

If I'm remembering correctly, there's a scene In The Heat of the Night. It is night time in a rural Southern setting. The police are at a crime scene. A squad car has its flashing light strobing into the dark. The chief shouts across to the deputy driving the squad car, "Turn off that party hat!" See how the term flows out of the police chief's crusty personality.

Your unconscious can work for you if you start writing your characters and let the term appear from them and the world they inhabit.