1) For an unpublished novelist, what would be a good approximate word count for a fantasy novel? My current guesstimate is around 20k, but I'm already 1500 words along, and not much has happened (not nothing, but nothing major).

2) Would it stand out too much if the MC has a name that is used in real life, while all the other characters have made-up names?

On stories dying, I suffered through that for a long time. Each person has their own solutions.
ONe I did was to force myself to write short, four pages single spaced, so the begining and end were there. After a whole summer, I got two stories short enough to be in the word count, but really learned how to finish.

An outline might help on going from beginning to end. It can be as simple as the key scenes you want to hit, to, for a novel, write a short story telling ABOUT what is going to happen in the novel. In this latter, you can update it first, if you see you want to make a change, to makes ure it works. I post sciencie fiction and fantasy story ideas, averaging an idea a day, and most of them would be outlines for novels, though a few just needs some clean up to be short stories. The nice thing of the story idea method is that this could then become your synopsis at the end.

As to names, they should all be of the society they are from. It is sort of jarring if you have people who's names are bob smith, john anderson, ricky johnson, tom blankenship, and your main character's name is Buckaroo Bonzi (the movie comes to mind for this).
The same would be similar for having a character named Anglebert Humperdink, and everybody else has Thor, Grog, Miggle, Zeno. There had better be a good reason for a difference in the name.
A lot of times, I will write with some easy to type name, like Blackstone, and then, when completely done, do a search and replace for the real name Agastininig. It is a whole lot less a chance of making a mistake in the end. Of course, this does not work if you choose a name like Bill, then have passages where they are paying the bill to their hotel, or the duck has a bill. YOu would endup with you are paying a blankenship to their hotel, and a duck has a blackenship.

I've read thousands of books in my life. I found that few readers will dig out the naming dictionary and see what the name means so they can get more power out of the character. Usually, if the name fits, they go with it.
You might not want to have a "Manard the barbarian" as it does not fit, but for fun, you might have a Conan the Accountant.
I have never avoided reading a book because of the name of a character.

I have some baby naming books and one of my favorites is to go to names of peoples we normally don't see, such as Basque or Asian, for example, which the western ear is not used to hearing.

As to dead ends,
I write my first draft of short stories from beginning to end in a stream of conciousness, getting something on paper. I write my story ideas like this.I then can edit them into the shape I am after. By writing like that, I don't have to think much about the story.
The big time I run into them is if the story is doing something that it should not do. An example, I had a story where this guy was a caretaker of an advanced creature, sort of a slave. I was going to have a ship with passengers and crews come to visit, bring supplies, and the creature would check each one out to see how they react and decide if any of them would be a better choice. The story died at the moment I wrote the first words of that concept. I could not get it done. I then realized I did not want to write all that text, changed the ship to a robotic ship, and I finished the story.
At least look at your plotting and see if that might be the problem.

You did not tell what style of writing you do also. Some people write a section, edit it to completion, then write the next section. Others will write a bunch, edit, then write more, then correct the first section.
My first story was written by listing scenes I want to hit, then expanding the sentances, adding discription, action, scenery, editing the scenes to completion and then tying them together.
Now I write the whole thing through. I figure I will correct inconsistancies in the story once I have everything on paper since I will have something to edit.
Some will do all sorts of world building, character creation, development of the situation and then let their characters go.
Each method has their advantages and disadvantages, and not all work for everybody. I, for example, want to tell the story NOW, rather than prepare for it.
What you might need to do is to change how you write your stories, to solve your problems.

I was under the impression that typical novels were around 100K.

If you find your stories are running out of steam, I suspect it is because you are doing what I did when I first started writing. You start a story because you have a world to tell it in, and some characters. But you don't actually know what the story IS, you're just writing along hoping it will happen.

If you keep an idea file, pull out something at random.

Or, go to your pile of other stories that have lost steam and see if there isn't an idea or two in one of them that you could adapt to your story.

You may be surprised at how the creative juices can start to flow when you try to make an idea from one story that didn't work fit into an entirely different story that also didn't work.

As far as question #2 goes, I started reading Katherine Kerr's "Daggerspell" series and was greatly disappointed that her heroine's name is ... Jill. Please, choose carefully.

Hope this helps.

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1) For an unpublished novelist, what would be a good approximate word count for a fantasy novel? My current guesstimate is around 20k, but I'm already 1500 words along, and not much has happened (not nothing, but nothing major).

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This has already been answered, but 75k is low end, 120k high end, for a novel word count.

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2) Would it stand out too much if the MC has a name that is used in real life, while all the other characters have made-up names?

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3) Finally, if I end up in a slump, thinking I've hit a dead end, what are your suggestions? This issue keeps killing my stories - I have tens of thousands of words in work saved from 'failed' attempts at dozens of 'failed' story ideas, and I'm saving it because I know I might be able t bring it back later, with some work. The problem is that I don't know how to bring any of it back.

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I used to have this problem, there are several things I tried.

1: I recommend you get a writing program, if you dont already have one. yWriter is free, and very helpful as it lays things down in 'scenes'.

2: Try writing a later section in the book.

A possibility is, as someone told me here, your antagonists aren't coming out soon enough, or there isn't enough conflict.

I suggest when sitting down to write, you write the first scene of the chapter, and then the last scene of the chapter. Then, as your characters try to get from point A to point B, throw conflict and antagonists at them. It doesn't even have to be the main antagonist, just someone that makes things more difficult for them.

Ahem.

rstegman: Thanks for the ideas and detailed response. As for the names, I get the idea, but as Gan says some time after you, the Wheel of Time series does the same kind of thing I'm doing. My fault, I suppose, for not mentioning that it's a fantasy novel, and that only the MC has a real name - to the best of my knowledge, every other name is completely made up by me, usually on the spot.
Regarding dead ends, I hear this suggestion a lot, and that's what I try to do, but I usually end up facing something like 'the characters are at an inn, getting ready to leave for a long journey.' There's a conflict or goal involved, but I can't manage to zoom out enough to slide over three weeks/months/whatever of monotonous traveling. Either that, or I just have no clue what happens next, and any outline I try to make crashes the same way.
Finally, about my style of writing - I sit down and give myself a few characters to work with, and then I start writing. I've gone through a large amount of world building already, and all that's left, really, is to do some detail on geography and history (the general idea is there, but not the specifics).

Zero and satate: I was wondering that too, and I don't know where I got 20k from. Thanks for the input.

tchernabyelo: Thanks for the info on where I should aim in word count. Also, I know that most people work far better with an outline, but any attempts I've made at it have killed the entire project before I could get my outline off the ground. Something about it just kind of kills me inside.
As for writing because I have a world and some characters, but no story, you're partly right, if I think about it. I've spent a long time working on the world, and I was initially planning on following a certain character, but now I've shifted to an entirely different character of a different race/species. I have a general idea of the story, but the details are unclear. There are scenes that I know need to happen, but the space in between is the problem.

Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: An idea file sounds like a wonderful idea (heehee), though somewhat difficult for an employed college student with no car (that last part will change soon, YAY!). I could try to save them all as text files on my laptop or something, but physically, I have nowhere to save them. As such, I'd probably need to name each idea file with a number - that way, I can still select randomly.
In my pile of incapacitated stories (they're not dead, I tell you!), I have a group of characters that has managed to break out of their original genre (fantasy) and into others (urban fantasy, surreal fantasy, science fiction/fantasy blend, straight science fiction). That's part of the problem with them, really - I don't know where these characters belong.
Synergy is good, though - I understand what you mean, and I'll give it a shot.

C L Lynn: I wouldn't have much hope of my works being sold to a christian company, either.
If the Wheel of Time serves as a decent example, as long as I stick to a name that isn't Bob, John, or Bill, or something of the like, I wouldn't disappoint too badly, would I? Is a character named Damien inapropriate for a fantasy novel when he travels with a gryphon named Reik and a mage named Stekaan?

Gan: First off, thanks for the organized reply - I'm too tired by the time I can check the forums to understand entirely what people are saying sometimes. :P
As for finding a writing program, the best I've been able to manage is a buggy monstrosity called JDarkRoom (I deleted it after a week and several corrupted files). I'm confined to working on a Mac laptop at this time, so my selection is limited. However, I will take another shot at searching. Thanks for reminding me of that.
Finally, in regards to writing the beginning of a chapter, then the end - I'm not nearly organized enough in my style to have chapters defined until I reach the end of them. Generally, I write until a good deal of time needs to pass in the story, and drop a chapter break in there.

From what you are saying, is that you really need to forget about the beginning until later. Start with the action scenes you want to write, and write until you have expended that energy. Then write the next scene that excites you. Keep writing this way. Build up as many scenes as you can until you can tie them together. When you finally do your beginning, you will know exactly what is needed.
As a joke, I started a story that began at the end of a quest, where it was an utter failure. they only had one of two keys to open the treasure trove so the hero leaves the band. That might tell the reader more than a group of adventurers leaving an inn.

I had several stories that I started at the beginning, and nothing was happening. That was not the story. The purpose of the beginning is to set up what is next, also to draw the reader into the work.

In essence, the normal story starts out with someone who does not know something and has to learn along the way. The journey is the learning process until they are able to handle the final conflict.

Consider a group of qualified wealthy adventurers who find that the wild world they are entering, is nothing like they expected. They essentually blunder their way through the story until they gain the experience they need to bring out the ending.
One idea for the journey part of the story is to have them start out, with shiny armor, walking erect, sharp step, bragging about how easy this is.
One then cuts to where they are near the mountains their destinations are beyond. They are fighting among each other, tired, pieces of armor and equipment missing. They see the mountains close up and are dispirited at tough the route actually is after all they went through so far. In two scenes and one jump, You have eliminated a lot of trudging with this, and you have a character development situation.
Your example might not be bad, but you don't have to show every single step, just the key scenes that develops the characters, and sets up the scenes. just show what the story needs and no more.

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Is a character named Damien inapropriate for a fantasy novel when he travels with a gryphon named Reik and a mage named Stekaan?

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Personally, I've never used it, but I've heard its a more workable, prettier version, of the program I use. It's MAC only, much to my own dismay

The website its on also has some links to other MAC based writing programs.

C L Lynn: Thanks for the input. Honestly, I'd never heard of the Omen movies, let alone seen them, so that's an interesting idea to me.
I started with the name Damien because I like it, and it seems to have some sort of power for me, but recently I'd thought about using its similarity to 'demon' in some way, which makes the Omen movie reference even more interesting. I don't know if I'd be able to handle it very well if an editor insisted on changing the name, though using the 'demon' idea would likely invalidate that threat.

Gan: Thanks for the ideas, but I'm currently working with the limitation of $0 to work with, thus leaving me with free programs, and Scrivener and the others that the site links to aren't free, though a few have free trials. I'll have to do some more searching to find something that works for me. Thanks again for the info, though.