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Is it ok not to name the characters in a short story, or does that make it too hard to identify with them (I should specify that it is a fairytale piece)?
Posts: 1075 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Everything I have read indicates that you should name the lead character, and soon.
H. Rider Haggard wrote a novel titled "She" and never named that character, using "She" as a title. And although "She" was a popwerful character, "She" wasn't someone you as a reader really cared about, although the other characters themselves either cared strongly for her or against her.
"She" was more of a malevolent force of nature, personified. In fact, I suspect you could rewrite that entire book and replace "She" with an addictive, debilitating drug and still have a good tale.
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited January 17, 2005).]
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Unless you have a good reason not to name the major characters (and while sufficiently good reasons exist, they are rare), you should name them.
However, naming a character doesn't necessarily mean giving their real names. As long as you give the characters labels which can be used to differentiate them from each other, you have named them. Such labels can be nicknames, titles, or even just descriptions (i.e., The Man in Black).
In a movie you don't have to make repeated reference to the mystery character since his actions are being watched. In a book you do and it rapidly becomes tiresome to have the character referred to as "the mystery figure" or "him/she/he/her/it".
posted
In Kill Bill (which is a movie I love), the way Tarantino gets away with it is simply to bleep out every time a character says the bride's name. It works in the movie because people have come to expect that kind of artsy breaking of the rules from Tarantino. It's an option you don't have in a book. I suppose the literary equivalent would be blotting the name out in ink on the page. If you can talk a publisher into THAT, I'll be impressed.
And anyway, Kill Bill does tell you the name of the character, just not at the beginning of the story.
[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited January 17, 2005).]
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If you are looking for permission, I've read published stories without named characters. If that is what serves the story best, and you can do it clearly, then do it.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I think it's different for fairy tales. Often the names in traditional ones are just descriptions anyway (Snow White, The Goose Girl). In fairy tales, I often don't name the main character; he's "the farmer" or "the trader." In other fiction, I always give a name.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Actually, the mention of the bleeping in <i>Kill Bill</i> reminded me of an old convention that's fallen out of use. Remember reading stories that had lines like, "Madame L-- turned to Holmes and said..."? I think it was used in two cases. In one it was meant to imply the use of a real person as a character. I've also seen it used in real diaries and letters, so I believe it might also be used when the person is very familiar with Madame L and needs to save space, or perhaps is afraid that the letter or diary will fall into the wrong hands.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Actually, it's more than my POV character does have a name, but that I use it very little (once in the whole course of the story, when I need someone to call her by name). So I guess the question was wrongly phrased. <sheepish grin> To me it just seems more powerful and more natural that way, but I'm afraid it'll put some people off.
Posts: 1075 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I think if you used something like "The Princess" or "Prince" that would be sufficient. If you intend to refer to everyone as he or she, that could get confusing.
Posts: 497 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Oh, please. Would everyone just stop saying useless crap like that? Please? You don't have to be using the same medium to run into the same problems.
quote:In a movie you don't have to make repeated reference to the mystery character since his actions are being watched. In a book you do and it rapidly becomes tiresome to have the character referred to as "the mystery figure" or "him/she/he/her/it".
Ah, but the reader doesn't even know it, so get over it or come up with a nickname. If you're writing for your own pleasure and have desire to let anyone else read it, just give it a name and don't let the characters know about it. If you want people to read it, then you can get over the hassle of using pronouns (which isn't really a hassle, seing as how they're generally shorter than most names) because you're writing to serve.
quote:In Kill Bill (which is a movie I love), the way Tarantino gets away with it is simply to bleep out every time a character says the bride's name.
I think it's funny that you didn't realize that you used another technique while explaining the more obvious one. She wasn't [beep] she was the Bride.
quote: I suppose the literary equivalent would be blotting the name out in ink on the page. If you can talk a publisher into THAT, I'll be impressed.
You could just have a plank space instead of an ink blot. You wouldn't even need to try to convice the publisher of that! "What? I save five characters of ink every time someone says her name! GREAT!"
quote:And anyway, Kill Bill does tell you the name of the character, just not at the beginning of the story.
quote:Actually, it's more than my POV character does have a name, but that I use it very little (once in the whole course of the story, when I need someone to call her by name). So I guess the question was wrongly phrased. <sheepish grin> To me it just seems more powerful and more natural that way, but I'm afraid it'll put some people off.
Is this story told in first or third person? If it's in first, then I think there will be very little problem.
If it's in third, what are you calling her? If you are using only pronouns to refer to her, that may get confusing if she interacts with any female characters.
quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Movies and books are apples and oranges. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, please. Would everyone just stop saying useless crap like that? Please? You don't have to be using the same medium to run into the same problems.
Why do you have to be so hostile? Is that comment pablum, maybe, but it is true. Though movies and novels OCCASIONALLY share problems, there are things you can do in film that just do not work in a novel. One of those in my opinion is having the "mysterious" unnamed character. Becuase of the need for repeated reference it often becomes confusing when the character is only referred to by pronouns. It also can become confusing as to whether it is the same character recurring or different ones. In film you can readilly identify the mysterious character because you see them, this invariably fails when attempted in a novel.
quote:Ah, but the reader doesn't even know it, so get over it or come up with a nickname.
At the point that you give them a nickname you have NAMED the character and it is no longer an issue. This is generally my recommendation as well.
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EJS brings up the point I was trying get to by asking about the POV you are using. In first-person, it won't bother me if I don't really know the narrator's name. A different POV gets tricky.
I actually did something like this in short I wrote recently. One of the key characters remains un-named until the very last paragraph of the story. I refer to him by vague titles, saving his name as a surprise and to add impact. Although I intentially withheld the name from my readers, I tried not to make it obvious. The character I used to tell the story naturally treated my mystery character with elevated resepect and as such, only used formal titles to identify him.
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You know, that particular kind of story is addressed in Roger MacBride Allen's excellent The Standard Deviations of Writing, under Unnamed characters.
I heartily recommend the entire article to anyone that hasn't memorized it.
quote:Why do you have to be so hostile? Is that comment pablum, maybe, but it is true. Though movies and novels OCCASIONALLY share problems, there are things you can do in film that just do not work in a novel. One of those in my opinion is having the "mysterious" unnamed character. Becuase of the need for repeated reference it often becomes confusing when the character is only referred to by pronouns. It also can become confusing as to whether it is the same character recurring or different ones. In film you can readilly identify the mysterious character because you see them, this invariably fails when attempted in a novel.
Both mediums share a LOT of problems. Having unnamed characters is no different. How does one character refer to that character? Is there a narrator? How does (s)he refer to him/her?
Yes, you can get away with a lot in film that you can't in print, and vice versa. But for every situation that I have brought up movies the problem is shared, and there's always some smart alec who comes in and says "Well movies aren't books" and I'm getting tired of it.
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Thanks for the ref, Survivor. That was not what I meant, however. I totally agree that such stories are BAD. But in mine I make no mystery of my main character's name, nor do I have drama upon "revealing" it -- I don't even have a revelation. It is just that since there is no female secondary character, I have no trouble referring to her,and to me it feels more natural not to say her name. I can't really explain it.
Posts: 1075 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Yeah, that's why I didn't bring it up before. I was referring to the type of story RH was describing, where the author is "saving his name as a surprise and to add impact."
Anyway, the "unnamed character" works better in a movie because the character is not rendered unidentifiable or unimportant by lack of a name, since the character can still be seen. Also, character designations and descriptions are intimately tied to POV choice, which is not a real issue in movies since they almost always take the third person objective.
So it just isn't fair to say that you could take an solution to an unnamed character in a movie and apply it successfully to a book, unless the book was going to feature lots of pictures of this unnamed character.
posted
Another thing to consider is how often the unnamed character is referenced in a story. I would venture to say that all authors, at one time or another use unnamed characters. The lack of name is not always for effect, or to add drama or mystery. It can simply be that the character is so minor that they do not require a name.
And again, back to POV. If the POV character doesn't know the other character's name or if they would use a different designation that is more natural, then the use of a proper name may come across as awkward or contrived.
Then there is the "Paul Harvey ~ Rest of the Story..." approach. The story is told naturally, but it is not obvious until the very end who the character really is. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.
Overall, I agree that a completely unnamed character is a device better left to the visual arts. And making it obvious that you are avoiding a name can annoy readers.
Do what feels natural and if you are unsure of the effect, ask your critiquers what they think. Chances are, if it doesn't work, you probably won't have to ask.
posted
Just read a great example of a whole novel with an unnamed viewpoint protagonist, Silver3. Fight Club. The main character (Edward Norton's character in the movie) is never given a name, and it is not even noticable. I didn't realize he had no name until the very end of the book.
It's a great example, but not a particularly great book. This is one case where the movie was MUCH better than the original novel it was based on.
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