| No name for you! | |
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+6Penguin Fairlight Jay/Cris rae Chaltab the asylum 10 posters |
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the asylum Shitgobbling pissdrinker
Join date : 2009-06-14 Age : 39 Location : O Canada
| Subject: No name for you! Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:54 pm | |
| So it's like this:
A story told through the perspective of a nameless character. Not just a minor character or a storyteller (such as a historian, criminologist, etc), but by the very main character himself. Throughout the entire story, we're never given his name, or even a (substantial) description of his appearance.
Just based on this alone, do you think the average reader find this annoying? | |
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Chaltab Shitgobbling pissdrinker
Join date : 2009-07-19 Age : 36 Location : Outside the middle of nowhere
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Fri Aug 07, 2009 10:09 pm | |
| It depends on how well you pull it off. You might be better off working in first person, otherwise you'll have instances of pronoun confusion anytime there's someone of the same gender as your protagonist in the scene. | |
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rae Contributor
Join date : 2009-06-10 Location : computer chair
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:21 am | |
| I think it could work very well, but as Chaltab stated, first person might be best. Especially since your other choice is to always refer to hir as 'the investigator' or 'the redheaded person' or whatever, which would very quickly become annoying. | |
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Jay/Cris The Word Police
Join date : 2009-06-10 Age : 36 Location : A´dam.
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sat Aug 08, 2009 2:51 am | |
| Yann Martel´s Self employs this trick, never revealing the protagonist´s name throughout the novel while using a first person narrator. In this novel, this namelessness can be considered to be thematic, since the book deals heavily with the concept of identity (gee, ya think?). While reading it, I didn't even notice that we hadn't been given the protagonist's name until halfway through and the omission never bothered me. A friend of mine absolutely adores the book, and the namelessness of the main character only started bothering her when she wrote a paper about the story, which turned out to be an absolute bitch - especially considering the fact that the protagonist changes gender habitually, so even employing a gender pronoun would only confuse. There's only so many synonyms you can have for 'protagonist' and 'narrator'. Anyhow, I think it's absolutely possible to keep the name of your protagonist hidden without annoying your reader, but I do think you're stuck to a first person narrator if you want to keep this kind of ninja-writing subtle. | |
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Fairlight Keeper of the Gaffapedia
Join date : 2009-06-11 Age : 43 Location : England.
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sat Aug 08, 2009 7:26 am | |
| There's quite a few books (and some films) around where the narrator never gives their name, Layer Cake for example, The IPCRESS file and it's sequels and kid's book The Witches. So yeah, it can work. | |
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Penguin NO NOT THE BEEEEES
Join date : 2009-07-18 Location : Wild Gray Yonder
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sat Aug 08, 2009 7:48 am | |
| They sort of did this in The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, because they never tell you the protagonist's real name. Everyone calls him by a nickname he's had since childhood before he can properly introduce himself: "Kyon." He occasionally complains about this in the narrative, but actually makes no effort to tell the audience his real name. | |
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ZoZo Knight of the Bleach
Join date : 2009-06-10 Age : 38 Location : In WD40's head
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sat Aug 08, 2009 11:13 am | |
| ...and Fight Club. We can't forget Fight Club. I only realised it when (having seen the film first), I tried to talk about Ed Norton's character and couldn't bring a name to mind. | |
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Spotts1701 Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
Join date : 2009-06-10 Age : 44 Location : New Vertiform City
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sat Aug 08, 2009 11:48 am | |
| - ZoZo wrote:
- ...and Fight Club. We can't forget Fight Club.
Or "A Fistful Of Dollars". In fact, the entire publicity surrounding it and the two sequels was about Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name". | |
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Melissa Sporkbender
Join date : 2009-06-13 Age : 45
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sun Aug 09, 2009 5:59 pm | |
| H.G Wells did this in both War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. | |
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KGarrett Sporkbender
Join date : 2009-07-07 Age : 1013 Location : New York, aka the most boring state there is.
| Subject: Re: No name for you! Sun Aug 09, 2009 10:18 pm | |
| - ZoZo wrote:
- ...and Fight Club. We can't forget Fight Club.
I only realised it when (having seen the film first), I tried to talk about Ed Norton's character and couldn't bring a name to mind. He's usually called either Narrator or Jack when people talk about him. Though, considering the twist, I've wonder if his name is technically Tyler Durden before (I would've spoilered it, but c'mon, everyone knows the twist by now). | |
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