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).]
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).
As long as you still have something to call the character, IE: detective, sergent, His Dudeness (although I think that one's taken), etc.
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".
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).]
Really, that's all a name is, in the end.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!"
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And anyway, Kill Bill does tell you the name of the character, just not at the beginning of the story.
No, Kill Bill Vol. II does
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
I heartily recommend the entire article to anyone that hasn't memorized it.
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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.
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.
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.
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.