Jaye Lawrence ([info]wordswoman) wrote,
@ 2006-05-24 21:22:00
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Entry tags:writing exercises

A Bean By Any Other Name...
Quite by accident, I discovered a difficult writing challenge: coming up with a clever coffee shop name that doesn't already exist. Uncommon Grounds? Taken.  Bean There? It's in Derry, Northern Ireland. Caffeine Dreams? Omaha. Urban Bean is in Minneapolis, City Bean in Westwood, CA, and Java the Hut in Silver City, NM. Daily Grind? It's a franchise.

So there's your writing test for the day, my literary friends and neighbors. A small but devilishly difficult exercise in originality. Name That Coffee Shop.

After about a hundred Google searches, it dawned on me that it was dumb to bring my novel to a complete halt for lack of a coffee shop name. So I inserted "Beans" as a placeholder name (yes, I know, there's a real one in Chardon, Ohio) and finally let my hero get to the counter to order his damn espresso.


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[info]mmerriam
2006-05-25 03:03 am UTC (link)
I used one called Urban Grounds, which exists in the real world in Avondale, GA.

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[info]hilarymoonmurph
2006-05-25 04:24 am UTC (link)
:)

You could just ask the permission of a coffee shop that already exists, and promote their name. I would bet Hakan at Sovereign Grounds would let you use his shop's name in your novel.

Hmm

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[info]dsgood
2006-05-25 04:47 am UTC (link)
When the Science Museum in St. Paul had the Chinese dinosaur exhibit, the person I went there with said "They have terrible coffee." I turned up my hearing aid, but it was several tries before I realized she was saying "Caribou Coffee." I have a dormant story with a coffeehouse called Terrible Coffee, but if you want to use it....

Starbucks is named after a character in Moby Dick. Moby Dick is based on a real whale called Mocha Dick. (It's possible Melville changed the name in order to avoid a lawsuit.)

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[info]wordswoman
2006-05-25 10:19 am UTC (link)
:D

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[info]maggiedr
2006-05-25 05:40 pm UTC (link)
Apropos of nothing, consider reading "The Bellwether" by Connie Willis if you haven't. The main character witnesses the local coffee shop transition through trends into a tea shop.

I also wind up with placeholder names when I find myself wasting hours trying to think up something. Then I forget about it until I read through for the revision.

Brainstorming:

Cup O'Joe's (Joe being the owner)

Federal Espresso

Mocha-Cocoa-Loco

Bean there, drunk that

Celestial Beans

Ok, I have to get on to something else. Thank you for the distraction. :)

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[info]quasipsyco
2006-05-30 03:00 am UTC (link)
Suggestions cleared through Google:

Foaming Over

Drip Drop By
or
Drip Drop Bye

The Old Bean and Grind

Watered Bean

Latte Lately

Cream and Sugar (I can't believe that one doesn't exist already)

and in bad taste:
Columbean Coffee Shop

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