A Nameless Character

[kitsune_boy389]

I've been plotting out a trilogy, well strictly speaking I'm really still down in the early stages of this but I wanted to deal with this problem now. I have a character who for practically the whole of the first book he has no name. It's not the fact he doesn't know or remember it, it's a fact that he doesn't recieve a name, nor is he worthy of one until the main plot of the first book is complete.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could write this when he speaks or while describing him?

[C Of K]

If he has a considerable amount of dialogue, you might want to reconsider not giving him a name in the first book.

If he doesn't have considerable dialogue in the first book, when you get to the second book, you can have one of your more important characters recall him from the first book.

EDIT: But even if he doesn't have considerable dialogue in the first, if not giving him a name has become a problem, then you should give him one, in my opinion.

[kitsune_boy389]

Oh he's the main character. i consider writing it in first person but then changed my mind as I find I don't enjoy reading in first person as much as I do in third person.

[lin robinson]

I don't see any problems with this. Certainly not with his dialogue. How many times do you use your own name when speaking?

This has been done. The Edgar-Winning The Butcher's Boy by Thomas Perry has a nameless character as one of the two only important characters.
I believe that the heros of the books Donald Westlake wrote as "Richard Stark" is nameless.

[Green]

I'd advise reading those books mentioned above, because I had a nameless character in my book, and even after one chapter I was struggling when it came to dialogue tags. See how they did it.

In the end, I changed my plans a little and came up with a title rather than a name. I think that chapter is probably better for it. A whole book of it would have been pure pain to write.

[C Of K]

Originally Posted by lin robinson

I don't see any problems with this. Certainly not with his dialogue. How many times do you use your own name when speaking?

I see what your're saying. Although, there is no one reading about my life. I have no narrative. Other people use my name every day.

This has been done. The Edgar-Winning The Butcher's Boy by Thomas Perry has a nameless character as one of the two only important characters.
I believe that the heros of the books Donald Westlake wrote as "Richard Stark" is nameless.

Interesting.

I haven't read these. Being that these are all main characters, I would have to deduce that there was definite purpose in giving these characters no name. There is doubtlessly an art to achieving this. I imagine it adds a lot of atmosphere to the story.

However, the OG poster referred to his particular character as unworthy of a name (at least in the first book) I imagine not giving such a character a name wouldn't add much to the atmosphere of his story.

I think if this issue becomes a problem for him, he should just give the character a name.

[C Of K]

Originally Posted by kitsune_boy389

Oh he's the main character. i consider writing it in first person but then changed my mind as I find I don't enjoy reading in first person as much as I do in third person.

Ah. I think I see what you're saying.

Is the story some sort of "right of passage"?
Is this character trying to establish a name? therefore becoming worthy!

EDIT: I thought you were saying he was a practically unimportant character in the first book, who becomes more important in the second.

[kitsune_boy389]

C of K.
I'll PM you the basic idea of the story. I'd rather reveal it to only one person as oppsed to letting the whole hog out.

[chrispenycate]

I suspect you underestimate the human penchant for creating labels.
Even without a personal name, in order to think of him we will automatically generate a label for someone, "Boy", "slave" even "you there", a generic label for all those in his particular situation, perhaps (indistiguishable between themselves, any slave being equivalent to any other) but without at least a functional label, we're not equipped to cogitate (hardly even to recognise)
The problem here is that different humans could well apply different labels.

[C Of K]

Originally Posted by kitsune_boy389

C of K.
I'll PM you the basic idea of the story. I'd rather reveal it to only one person as oppsed to letting the whole hog out.

Hey great. I'll check that out right now. As was mentioned above, I think some sort of common identification might be in order, regardless as to whether or not the character has a name

[jenna]

It can be quite hard, I have just a small snippet at the end of one of my chapters where there is a dialogue between two unnamed people, it was so tough getting it right, I worked at it for ages. It's hard to make it clear who is speaking or carrying out an action. As always, researching how others do it is often the best way to get your head around it...

[Carpe Diem]

What might help is using some description of him. For example, in the Gunslinger (Stephen King), there was the 'man in black', or you could simply say 'the boy/girl/man/woman' or he/she/it, or even their species if they are unique in that way from the rest of the group they are in, e.g. 'the vampire said' etc. etc. etc.

[Interference]

Len Deighton, the "Harry Palmer" books - it was Michael Caine who gave the character the name and only long after the books had been written without one. Evidently, the makers of the film felt a tag was necessary.

On the other hand, The Man With No Name appears in three Leoni/Eastwood films and is called something different in each one. The name is given to him by the other characters as as description (Blondie, Bounty Killer etc).

The Virginian, in both the long-running TV series and the original book, was never named or mentioned by name, on TV they devised the timely interruption if ever anyone seemed to be about to call him something.

H.G. Wells used dashes to hide the name of his main protagonist in Time Machine and, I think The Invisible Man, possibly others, too.

[DarkBunni]

Im skipin everything everyone else has sed so forgive if I repeat

I tried doing the whole nameless thing and it is HARD so heres a couple of -tips.

-Naming him/her after a distinctive physical trait.

-names like 'old boy' 'strange girl' stuff like that.

-Or even calling your character 'nameless'

.....the bloke with homocidal tendencies took all the good tips. i hope one of these helped anyway. Good luck!

[Birol]

Even without a name, other characters would need to refer to your MC in some manner. As others have indicated, they would have some thought-process for thinking of him, but having a nameless character is not new and there are different ways for handling it. For example, Dashiell Hammett's detective was never known as anything other than a/the "Pinkerton detective." He was never named.