Names and no names

Hbooks said:

In reading a few threads, it seems like having a character in a scene for x amount of time without revealing their name was bad, or an automatic reject by agents. Is this universally true, and, if so, how do you get around situations where a character's name wouldn't organically be revealed? Or is it necessary to find a work-around?

For example, if my MC is being abducted, she may eventually figure out the names of her captors, but mid-abduction, they are unlikely to stop and introduce themselves. So right now there is a few pages of "scar-face" and "the black-haired boy" or whatever. Is this the bigger sin? Or throwing names in even if it feels inorganic?

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Whether or not it feels organic is the key, I think. Usually when people complain about unnamed characters, it's because there's no good reason for them to be unnamed, as far as the reader can tell. If someone is being abducted and the book is from their POV, then of course it makes sense that they wouldn't know their captors' names. On the other hand, if the story starts with, "She looked out over the wilting rain forest," and then proceeds to leave "her" unnamed for pages and pages, that can be annoying because it seems like the information is being withheld to create artificial, inorganic tension.

Could she know them by names she makes up for them, for instance "High Voiced Captor," "Scratchy-Voiced Captor," "Putrid-Smeller," and "Bottom Pincher?"

Hbooks said:

In reading a few threads, it seems like having a character in a scene for x amount of time without revealing their name was bad, or an automatic reject by agents. Is this universally true, and, if so, how do you get around situations where a character's name wouldn't organically be revealed? Or is it necessary to find a work-around?

For example, if my MC is being abducted, she may eventually figure out the names of her captors, but mid-abduction, they are unlikely to stop and introduce themselves. So right now there is a few pages of "scar-face" and "the black-haired boy" or whatever. Is this the bigger sin? Or throwing names in even if it feels inorganic?

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There's nothing wrong with this. Do what would come naturally, both in the viewpopint character's perspective and in the story itself.

Your MC can overhear the captors talking to each other, using names or code names. Or she can make them up, "He looks like a Bruce, I'm going to call him Bruce."

I just read a novel where there was a meeting between two factions, as the main faction approached the enemy the author just mentioned what each person was wearing. In this interaction they had these medical jumpsuits on and for some reason each was a different color. I thought that was weird but it made it easy to be like, "Green guy did this."

I agree that making up names would be the best way, "Scar-face," "The man with the limp," "The rookie."

Hbooks said:

In reading a few threads, it seems like having a character in a scene for x amount of time without revealing their name was bad, or an automatic reject by agents. Is this universally true, and, if so, how do you get around situations where a character's name wouldn't organically be revealed? Or is it necessary to find a work-around?

?

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I guess I am very curious where you saw that.

if the no name thing is a distraction, a speedbump, its probably (but still not always) bad. If it serves the story, and you didn't fuck up the story, it isn't an automatic problem or reject (and if you saw something saying otherwise re-read it--either you misread what they said, or they were wrong.....that's pretty bold, but I don't feel terribly uncomfortable saying it) so check what was actually said, but if your entire book is in Nancy's head, for example, and Nancy was abducted on her way to a Passion Party to sell lube and dildoes, and she was abducted by masked men in a panel-van, and they never gave her a name and you never left her POV, then "Steve was hovering over her bag, grabbing at his crotch and licking his lips, his tongue darting out of the mouth-hole in his shitty Wal-Mart ski mask" is wrong, unless earlier she decided "Douchebag number 1 looked like a Stave, and until she had a better name, that was what she'd call him: Steve." or something similar.

there's very few absolutes. There are TONS of generalities. And either you (and the how-to online bloggers) understand the difference, or you and they don't.

But there is nothing inherently wrong with "Shadow #1, the fat one, said..." or whatever else. If the MC wouldn't know their names, they wouldn't know their names.

I have something similar, and with more than two people it’s very difficult and I’ve not figured it out yet. Nicknames that seem natural, or placeholder names introduced in smooth way.

There are two issues: names used by the characters, and names used in narration. To keep the name from the reader is more difficult.

I have a scene where the MC is attacked by unknown assailants, and trying to keep it straight who was where started to get difficult without naming them, so I came up with nicknames - one is Loudmouth, another is Obelisk (because he's bloody massive) and the other is Jar-Head, because the MC smashes a jar of beer over head head

Seemed to work ok...

I have a serial killer that has no identity. He has a propensity to giggle at everything, and the other characters call him The Giggler.

A nickname IS a name.

"Scarface" and "The black haired boy" work just fine. In fact, those sorts of nicknames, which focuses on one feature or action, can be quite evocative. "The man with the kind eyes" and "Knife Licker" bring to mind very different characters.

I've done this in real life, mentally assigning nicknames to strangers.

I used to have these neighbors, college boys. The houses here are really close together and these guys were LOUD. As a result, I mentally named both of them long before I ever actually met them: Donkey Laugh and Punching Bag. (Don't worry, Punching Bag wasn't being abused).

JDlugosz said:

I have something similar, and with more than two people it’s very difficult and I’ve not figured it out yet. Nicknames that seem natural, or placeholder names introduced in smooth way.

There are two issues: names used by the characters, and names used in narration. To keep the name from the reader is more difficult.

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If you're using the third-person limited POV, names or designations in the narration would be the ones the POV character uses.

If you're writing in omniscient POV, you should have already made it clear from the beginning of the story that the omniscient narrator is the one with all the information. Even so, omniscient narrators will often use a certain character as their eyes and ears for the scene, in which case the narration would reflect what that character knows or doesn't know--unless the omniscient narrator has a particular reason to let the reader in on information the character doesn't have.

Hbooks said:

In reading a few threads, it seems like having a character in a scene for x amount of time without revealing their name was bad, or an automatic reject by agents. Is this universally true, and, if so, how do you get around situations where a character's name wouldn't organically be revealed? Or is it necessary to find a work-around?

For example, if my MC is being abducted, she may eventually figure out the names of her captors, but mid-abduction, they are unlikely to stop and introduce themselves. So right now there is a few pages of "scar-face" and "the black-haired boy" or whatever. Is this the bigger sin? Or throwing names in even if it feels inorganic?

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The latest Blade Runner - he starts as K and ends as Joe.

I like the idea of the nameless narrator, and it's something thats been done before:

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

And quite a few others.

I do something similar. Some of my characters in my first book enter the story without names. I refer to them as "The Red-Haired Boy," "the Brown-haired Girl," and "The Black-haired Girl," because hair colors tend to be traits that immediately jump out at someone. Though the character referred to as "The Black-haired Girl" is of Asian descent, but I wasn't sure how well it would come across, if I kept referring to her as "The Asian Girl." I do give them names by the end of the second chapter, because I figured it would get confusing and tiring to keep referring to them by hair color.

Regarding the no names thing, so long as you avoid the situation in Jose Saramago's book, Blindness, you'll do okay. Jose Saramago, for some reason, is opposed to giving his characters names. Thus, everyone is referred to with a title like "The Doctor's Wife" or "The cross-eyed boy." I don't know why he does this, whether he's trying to go for a universal, deep literary feeling or if he's just morally opposed to names, but the usage in this book is really irritating, because it's not just a handful of characters referred to this way. Dude has a good-sized cast and still can't be bothered to give anyone names. It wasn't long before I threw down the book and started daydreaming about beating Saramago to death with a book of Baby Names.

Did eventually look up the ending on Wikipedia. Between the ending and the no names, I'm like, "How did this pretentious bullshit win a Pulitzer?" Because if this ending came from a genre writer, rather than a so-called literary one, people would be immediately screaming to the heavens about how this is bull. Having some very pretty passages doesn't make up for a story that goes nowhere and does nothing.

TellMeAStory said:

Could she know them by names she makes up for them, for instance "High Voiced Captor," "Scratchy-Voiced Captor," "Putrid-Smeller," and "Bottom Pincher?"

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And as time goes on, she could shorten these 'nicknames' to things like 'HighVoice', "Scratch', 'Putrid', 'Bottom' as a silently defiant way to insult them...?