[ SECRET POST #3209 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3209 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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04. [WARNING for incest]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 054 secrets from Secret Submission Post #459.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[wannabe_influential]

I read that you should only use epithets up until you reveal the characters names, or something like that. :P

[(Anonymous)]

You better introduce the character's name soon then cuz that shit gets annoying fast :)

[(Anonymous)]

I never read that, but to me that just feels natural. Nothing throws me out of a story like epithets once I know a character's name. Especially if it's fanfic. YES, I KNOW MY FAVORITE CHARACTER HAS GREEN EYES, THANKYOUVERYMUCH.

[(Anonymous)]

That makes sense (for original fiction, at least, fanfction maybe not so much since readers already know the characters). Epithets can be a way to work in some exposition without doing a whole paragraph of an info dump. "Her gaze wandered to the window while the blond man absent-mindedly trailed the flesh and blood fingers of his right hand over the artificial ones of his left." and so on.

[iambecomebees]

It's not about whether the reader knows who the character is or not, it's about whether the POV character does,

[(Anonymous)]

Eh. Maybe, if there's an actual need to keep the character identities secret for the purposes of a plot. But honestly, there usually isn't. Just name the damn characters to establish who they are.

[naemi.livejournal.com]

I don't know about prose for sure, but there used to be a rule (I'm not sure if it's still in effect, or if there's a difference between here and there) for movie scripts that says to first introduce an unknown character by giving him or her a specific description, but then, later, always use her or his name.

So it would read something like

BEN, a blonde twenty-something with a bird tattooed on his neck […]

the first time around.

In a nutshell, it sounds about right introducing a character in prose with a little description if the character whose pov we're in doesn't know him or her, but then refer to said character by name once we know it. I mean, duh, it is common sense, right? Just check how we look at people and refer to them in daily life. Once we know someone's name, do we really think of that person as "the guy I met at the bar" or "the chick that was at auditions with me"?

I don't think so =)

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

They can also be used to indicate something like mind-control or personality shift is going on. Though I suspect the effectiveness of that would drop if someone over-used them already, that idea only works if epithets are not common in the writing.

[(Anonymous)]

Haha, I'll remember that the next time I encounter it: "Ooh, it's a neat mind control thingy!" I can think of several fandoms where this would be perfectly appropriate.