McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

First verses Third

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the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Aminar on August 21, 2011, 01:59:27 PM ---That's so incredibly awkward at times, it's what I'm currently working on, third person but only with knowledge a given character would have(For the most part, there is a little outside narration when necessary.  Hardest thing, before a new POV character knows everyone names and your referring to characters as the male voice or the female voice with an odd accent.

--- End quote ---

I don't see how that's hard, really. I see how it's convincingly realistic.

Gruud:
I've been handling this in a bit of an odd (or maybe a good) way.

When folks first meet, they are primarily referred to by race, or by their profession, etc. in the mind of the current POV character.

It's only after a character gets to know another character that they actually begin referring to that person by their given name.

*shrug*

seems right to me

Aminar:

--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on August 21, 2011, 11:56:21 PM ---I don't see how that's hard, really. I see how it's convincingly realistic.

--- End quote ---
Awkward and difficult aren't especially similar, it's just weird because the reader knows the characters names and with any luck knows who you're talking about.

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Aminar on August 22, 2011, 01:07:28 PM ---Awkward and difficult aren't especially similar, it's just weird because the reader knows the characters names and with any luck knows who you're talking about.

--- End quote ---

I may be misreading what you are talking about here; if you're talking about character A describing character B when character A has only just met character B and does not yet know character B's name, how does the reader know character B's name ?  Is that something set up elsewhere in the story ? I thought you were talking about writing with a single viewpoint character.

Bearracuda:

--- Quote from: Gruud on August 22, 2011, 02:05:09 AM ---I've been handling this in a bit of an odd (or maybe a good) way.

When folks first meet, they are primarily referred to by race, or by their profession, etc. in the mind of the current POV character.

It's only after a character gets to know another character that they actually begin referring to that person by their given name.

*shrug*

seems right to me

--- End quote ---

Yeah, I love it so much when authors do that.  I chuckled everytime I heard Dresden refer to "Liverspots" in Dead Beat.  And that's just the one that came off the top of my head.  I can't even remember all the awesome nicknames Harry assigned to people throughout the series.

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