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On Character Names, Sad Puppies Edition
May. 21st, 2015 02:34 pmThis week has been interesting. On one blog, I was called a member of fandom's "Insider Alpha clique." (I wonder if I get a raise. Or actually paid. Expenses, at least?)
Erm, moving on. In yesterday's post I made an off-hand remark about character names. It was made in defense of a Sad Puppy author, but said author and others took extreme exception to it. In an attempt to make lemonade out of lemons, herewith are some thoughts on character names in fiction.
When writing fiction, we strive for the appearance of reality. In reality, everybody has bowel movements and brushes their teeth (hopefully not at the same time) but we rarely see fictional characters do either. When we do, there's usually some point to it, if only to show how ordinary Joe or Jane Character is, or at least how ordinary their day has been thus far.
Also in fiction, the writer is in a constant battle for the reader's attention. The doorbell or the phone rings, the spouse or the kids want something, or just the New Shiny on the To-Be-Read stack calls. In short, we want the appearance of reality without something that pulls the reader out.
So, even if it is perfectly realistic for a person to be addressed by more than one name, the author needs to be careful and consistent about the process. Joey might be Mister Joseph M. Smith III AKA Trey Smith, but each character in the story (and the narrator) need to pick one of those three names and (at least internally) be consistent. Thus, Joey's pal might introduce Joey to the President as "Joseph Smith," but in the pal's mind he's always Joey.
An example. I recently gave a piece of fiction to my writer's group in which a father and son were both named John. Obviously very typical, yet two of the writers looking at the piece both said "it took me way too long to figure out that John in Chapter 2 was the son of John in Chapter 1." The reader is not in your head, writer. Nor are they looking at a screen where they can see the Old Man and the Younger Guy. Throw your reader a bone and be consistent on names.
Erm, moving on. In yesterday's post I made an off-hand remark about character names. It was made in defense of a Sad Puppy author, but said author and others took extreme exception to it. In an attempt to make lemonade out of lemons, herewith are some thoughts on character names in fiction.
When writing fiction, we strive for the appearance of reality. In reality, everybody has bowel movements and brushes their teeth (hopefully not at the same time) but we rarely see fictional characters do either. When we do, there's usually some point to it, if only to show how ordinary Joe or Jane Character is, or at least how ordinary their day has been thus far.
Also in fiction, the writer is in a constant battle for the reader's attention. The doorbell or the phone rings, the spouse or the kids want something, or just the New Shiny on the To-Be-Read stack calls. In short, we want the appearance of reality without something that pulls the reader out.
So, even if it is perfectly realistic for a person to be addressed by more than one name, the author needs to be careful and consistent about the process. Joey might be Mister Joseph M. Smith III AKA Trey Smith, but each character in the story (and the narrator) need to pick one of those three names and (at least internally) be consistent. Thus, Joey's pal might introduce Joey to the President as "Joseph Smith," but in the pal's mind he's always Joey.
An example. I recently gave a piece of fiction to my writer's group in which a father and son were both named John. Obviously very typical, yet two of the writers looking at the piece both said "it took me way too long to figure out that John in Chapter 2 was the son of John in Chapter 1." The reader is not in your head, writer. Nor are they looking at a screen where they can see the Old Man and the Younger Guy. Throw your reader a bone and be consistent on names.
