Andrea asked Colleen Hoover:

how do you choose character names for your books? do any have special meaning or they're just names you like? also, how do you choose titles and were any books almost named something else? i think "rules for love" would be a cool backup title for Ugly Love lol also i work at barnes and noble in glendale colorado and we love you

Colleen Hoover Thank you! Barnes & Noble staff have been SO GOOD TO ME. To answer your question, I steal names a lot. Like when I have signings, if a reader has a cool name, I'll take the sticky note out of the book and use it. The thing about character names is that you want your characters to stand out. When readers talk about their favorite characters online, as an author you hope people know who they're talking about, so it helps for characters to have names that aren't mainstream. But I also just love unique names in general. I use baby name generators online a lot, and also poll my readers for unique names. As far as book titles, I almost always come up with the title first and work it into the book somehow. There have been a couple of times the title has changed during the middle of writing. Hopeless was originally titled "Fall together" but when I got to the point in Hopeless where Holder's tattoo ties into his past, I changed the name of the book. So it really depends on the story.

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