It doesn’t suck, but…
Naming characters is a notoriously difficult part of writing fiction, but for my six-year-old son, it’s apparently pretty easy, at least when it comes to Pokémon. We looked through a catalog of Pokémon Vivid Voltage cards a few days ago, and much to my surprise, he spontaneously renamed 150+ Pokémon. He actually didn’t have much of a choice, because he’s a little too young to read on his own. I suppose he could have forced me to read through the book for him, but that would have been pretty boring for both of us. Instead, he did it his own way, and I know I’m biased, but I think the results are pretty adorable, even when (or especially when?) they veer into bizarre potty humor territory.
Picasso once said that it took him a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.
Freeing your brain of self-criticism and the need to do things the “correct” way ain’t easy, but it’s the only way you’re ever going to come up with new Pokémon names like Cocoon Butler and Jiggly Horror. Let’s hope my kid stays young and wild long enough to get a few more of these videos out before the cold hand of teenage self-consciousness squeezes the innocence out of his heart like a sponge.
