posted
So. This stems from the discussion that starts over in F & F, with Ray's Fourth Season post.
I, too, have a work in progress that features an initially unnamed MC. It's the old cliche of the orphan with no memory. Her arrival is told third person, from a series of secondary character POV's. So for the first 2 1/2 chapters (which are not entirely devoted to her story) she is "the girl." Then she picks a name for herself, and the name she picks is important to the overall metaphor of the book. (You can come back when you've finished retching.)
I initially drew a distinction between my plot line (well, it's mine, right?), and the one begun in Ray's Fourth Season fragment. My character has no history, no previous interaction with other people. However, reading through some of the comments posted in his topic, I'm doubting the practical difference between the two scenarios.
My basic feeling is that, in third person POV, names are essential because they help the reader keep track of who is speaking, who the speaker is speaking TO, and who the two speakers are speaking ABOUT. ('k, at least one of those should be "whom.")
Failing to name a character means two things: 1.) The author must perform complicated contortions in sentence structure to avoid repeating "the girl" or "the boy" 800 times/paragraph. AND 2.) The author is planning to reveal the character's name in a huge "TA-DA" moment. (I'm interested in Ray's "ta da", which he hints is a major plot device. See, Ray? I'm hooked.)
So what if my MC's name is not a "ta-da" name? Or at least, the name doesn't appear to be so on the surface? My problem is, there's simply no logical explanation for a character, who supposedly has no memory whatsoever and no history whatsoever, knowing their own name. Or is there? *sigh*
What's the consensus opinion on names? Is there a consensus opinion? Has anyone ever seen a book or story that successfully avoids naming the character? (Well, other than Phillip Roth's "Everyman.")
posted
Usually I don't think of my character's name until the absolute last minute when I'm writing it down for the first time. Then I ponder changing it...then I ponder whether it fits in the world I'm writing in...then I think about other people and / or characters who've had it...then I usually leave it at what I started with.
To revive a painful discussion from the past, only because it's still fresh in my mind...the main characters in H. G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds" don't have names. They're all "I," or "my brother," or "the curate," or "the artilleryman," or "my wife." Those that have names appear and disappear quickly.
posted
I think there is a difference between your story and Ray's. In your story you are not in the Girl's POV so we don't have to know what she calls herself. Although I suspect the people around her may call her something other than Girl based on how long they have interacted with her and social status. We like names. As long as she has something to identify her, I'd probably be comfortable with it. When we shift to her POV though I'd want to know what she calls herself.
In Ray's story (which I do like) we share the MC and he's unnamed even to himself. IMHO that pushes credibility too far.
Originally in my story I left the second MC/villan unnamed during the prologue. When I edited I realized it made the scene disconnected from the rest of the story and, as I also use his POV (later in the story), unworkable.
In Dead Again Emma Thompson's character has lost her memory and is found by some nuns. When Kenneth Brannagh's character picks her up and tries to find out who she is, he gives her a name. We don't learn Emma's real name until almost the end of the movie because no one in the movie knows it. That worked because while the information was withheld there was no character who served as a POV who knew. The bad guy suspects but we don't share his POV.
posted
There's the "I" with which the character identifies herself, and then there are the other names or tags used by the other characters -- and, more importantly, by the reader.
Even if you don't use a _name_ per se, I'd consider using a relatively consistent tag. "The girl" and "the boy" are too generic to stick well in the reader's mind, I think -- "the shy girl" or "the orphan" or "the Berman girl" (if, say, the girl was found on Berman street) would be better. I say "relatively consistent" because I can see "the shy girl" and "the shy orphan" used interchangeably as long as the adjective is consistent.
My two cents. I'm not pro, but that's what feels right to me.
A name does not have to be a Proper Name, just something more than a pronoun, something we will recognize as being distinctly that person when it's used.
posted
I've been thinking of this topic in terms of the major speculative question: "What if?"
What if a society existed in which people did not name one another? How would they refer to one another, or do they need to refer to one another? What kind of situation would negate the need for a name?
A collective society (with a shared mind of with a leader and a bunch of drones) might not need names.
Then I came back to a society we are more familiar with. There is the cliched amnesia in which a person forget his/her name. (Actually, they tend to forget everything that is convenient for the plot.)
An orphan would have a name. First of all, a baby or a toddler just couldn't survive on his/her own. Someone woul have to care for him and that someone would give him a name, even if it was just "Boy."
If a person was abandoned as a child (say 5 or 6) and he was intelligent enough to learn to steal to survive, then he would still have a name. Whoever abandoned him would have given him a name.
Hmmm...what if we had an extremely abusive mom who locked her baby in a closet for five years. They provided basic nutrtion but nothing else. Somehow, this person escapes and despite his/her environment learns to survive. (Personally, I think it would be incredible that they didn't die from lack of attention but let's assume...) Then maybe they wouldn't have a name but once again, how would they survive? Someone woul dhave to care for him/her. This is quite a contrast to the 5 or 6 year old who was smart and figured things out.
Nope, I'm having real trouble envisioning any situation in a regular, human world that would leave a person nameless. Their name could not be known to others, but always to themself.
quote: Nope, I'm having real trouble envisioning any situation in a regular, human world that would leave a person nameless. Their name could not be known to others, but always to themself.
You're leaving out the whole amnesia / lost memory angle though. If, say, someone were raised to the age of self-sufficiency, then abandoned, and after that point where that child had to fend for himself he somehow lost his memory, including his own name, then he could be potentially nameless, couldn't he?
I mentioned this in the F&F post as well, but if the orphan in question is sufficiently anti-social in nature, I don't see why the first thing they would do is name themsleves. Names are tags we use to identify with OTHER people, or to allow other people to identify with us, but most people don't think of themselves in the 3rd person. To me, my identity inside my own head is "I," not a name.
But yes, the moment this nameless, memory-less orphan find a friend/enemy/anyone to interact with, she is going to be given a name of sorts, even if it's just "amnesia girl" or "lost memory girl" or something equally vague.
posted
You've forgotten to add brainwashing. The younger the person is, the easier it'd be to indoctrinate that person to believe anything, and if you were taught that names are a form of individuality (or rebellion) from the overall group, then that person would only be aware of existing at most and remain nameless even to himself. No, that isn't the case in my story.
Christine is right though. In a regular, human world, nobody goes nameless. You always have an identifier for yourself. It's been mentioned before that nobody thinks of themself in the third person; if we think, we call ourselves "I." Regardless of how we think of ourselves though, we always have a name to go with it. Even with the case of amnesia, the person still thinks of himself as "I," and they know that they had a name at one point. The journey for them is discovering what it is.
In short, it's illogical for any person in regular society to go nameless, even in fiction, and it's been tried. The only way this could possibly work is if the nameless person is not part of regular society. That the person has been trained to live in a different social system apart from normal culture, where individuality is nonexistent, or at least where identification is concerned.
The trouble is portraying that in fiction, because a character has to be identified. Crispin by Avi did this by writing the story in first person, but even then, the MC identified himself as "Asta's son," because he was still part of the society, albeit a low one.
The only reasonable way to identify a nameless person in third person, then, is a description. Like "old woman," but these are so boring and vague. The only other identification I know of then, is occupation, like Roland in the Dark Tower series, who in the first book is referred to as the gunslinger for most of the first chapter before his name is revealed. An occupation may not replace a name, but it is a symbol of who that person is, and that I believe is what readers want. A name is a symbol, symbols are identifiers, and identity is what readers want to be engaged with a character. A career isn't a replacement for a name, but it is a symbol of who a person is. Which, I think, would suffice for identification in a third person POV.
quote:What if a society existed in which people did not name one another? How would they refer to one another, or do they need to refer to one another? What kind of situation would negate the need for a name?
This has been done in (stifle your groans) Star Trek with the Borg who were drones, connected to one another, but referred to each other by designation number.
quote:what if we had an extremely abusive mom who locked her baby in a closet for five years....maybe they wouldn't have a name ...
This has also been done, sadly, in real life. There is a book called A Child Called 'It' by Dave Pelzer. Of course, he knew his given name was David, but his parents reduced his identity down to "The Boy" or "It."
The sense of being "I" is central to every human being, even if others don't call you by your given name.
posted
The first short story I ever wrote had a situation pretty much like this. I wrote in first person so the story started with I but as soon as he discovered there were many others who had been kidnapped and had their identities stripped away one of the first things I had them do was name themselves.
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posted
Anthem by Ayn Rand eliminates the identifier I and the main character is identified by a number.
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posted
The Frankenstein monster didn't have a name, but again, like all the other examples, there was still a description to identify it.
I consider numbers to carry the same function as letters when it comes to naming. After all, we're identified by the government with driving license and social security numbers. It's not too large a leap in fiction to make these identifiers the actual name in stories. Take the ants in The Once and Future King or Boy 412 in the first Septimus Heap book. The numbers really are their names because it's a way to specify who you are in the community, albeit a more strictured one.
posted
Hmm..perhaps have the 'nameless someone' meet a charismatic stranger, who tells Nameless about how to name yourself, or suggests a nickname to avoid confusion..'Well, I just can't keep on calling you Nameless, that's too stupid..you're small, wiry, and get into things...howabout I call you Runt? And if you don't like that, you can call me whatever you want...let's rename each other!' Something along those lines perhaps. I'm also thinking of the priest who renamed the albino Opus Dei monk in Da Vinci Code, naming his Silas, after the man who the angels helped escape from prison in the book of Acts in the New Testament...
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posted
A name by any other means of identification is still a name.
Well ask yourself what would you do if you came across someone without a name? (or at least wouldn't identify themselves.) Personally I'd name them, like "Fine I'll call you Hank." I think that your characters will do the same. As for the girl herself she must call herself something, unless she has no identity at all.
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During part of my psychotic break I couldn't figure out what my name was. I called myself "The One." See, that's the kind of thing I will have to tone out of my book. Maybe. "The One" was short for "One Mighty and Strong" which is a mythic phrase in the Mormon's Doctrine and Covenants. Part of the OM&S myth* is that it will not be an ordained leader, but will set the affairs of inheritances in Zion in order where the ordained leaders could not.
Anyway, that's how I saw myself, in my free time between serving as Clinton's Secretary of the EPA or recording hit singles in the name of Mormon/Catholic ecumenism. I guess I did think I was Queen Elizabeth II briefly after seeing a news item about her that contained the phrase "the one." This was in 1992, by the way. Long before The Matrix.
*myth= psychologically true ur-legend, as opposed to patently false nonsense.
P.S. I just checked that prophecy again, and it appears to be the inspiration for Nefai's Starmaster Cloak in The Ships of Earth. Though I'm looking at it and wondering if it is supposed to describe the internet. Which would mean Al Gore...
quote:And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God, and to arrange by lot the inheritances of the saints whose names are found, and the names of their fathers, and of their children, enrolled in the book of the law of God;
[This message has been edited by pooka (edited June 09, 2006).]
posted
when I got married, my mother in law decided me calling her by Ms was too formal, by her first name too informal, so "hey you" was perfect.
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posted
Personally, I get annoyed when a major character doesn't have a name. That's because I want to know who the characters I'm reading about are, I want to easily identify them within the story.
There's not much worse than coming across something like, "The boy ran up to the man and stole his wallet. He looked at him and shoved him hard. He fell down, but when he tried to run away, the man grabbed him. Then two other men showed up and things got really confusing."
Unless a character never interacts with anyone, they can't get by without a name of some sort. Heck, there are people in real life who I see all the time but never meet, so I just make up names for them in my head: The Vegan, The Evening Jogger, Mr. Crazy Hair.
I remember reading somewhere, it may have been OSC, who said that keeping back someone's name is rarely exciting, because everyone has a name. Unless some fantastic force prevents them from having a name, give them any name, and in the big name-reveal, let us know who they really are.
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I wrote a novel in which my main character makes a bargain and loses her name in the process. For the first half of the story she is Marie, and then she is the girl. "The girl" becomes her name until she recovers her own name.
As others have said, a name can be a title. The clearest example of that is "Mom." It's not a name in the way that "Marilyn" is, but if you ask me what I call my mother, I'd say Mom. Granted, if you asked me what my mother's name is, I'd say Marilyn, but my point is that if you choose not to name a character, pick a title and use it exactly as if it were the character's name. We are already wired to accept it.
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I've answered to quite a few names in my time. If I were writing a story about me, though, I wouldn't use all those names, or even more than a couple of them. I'd just use one, chosen by fairly arbitrary standards, to represent my character.
When we find someone with amnesia (or who cannot give a name for other reasons), we assign a name.
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Cecilia Dart-Thornton's first novel, "The Ill-Made Mute" uses an unnamed main character for much of the book. The character not only doesn't know it's own name, it doesn't know it's own gender. At first she uses the word 'creature' to identify it, and later after the character decides based on it's clothing that it must be male, she refers to him as 'boy' or 'youth' or 'lad'.
In fact, one of the main mysteries of the book is the evolving identity of this main character, which is revealed slowly and has many layers.
While I know the concept is certainly not new, I feel "The Ill-Made Mute" is an exceptionally well-done instance and well worth a read to see how seamlessly the lack of identity is handled.
(By the way I had the amazing good fortune to spend an hour talking to Cecilia at Worldcon last year. She's a really neat person.)
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