Hmm.

[katallison]

OK, I'm still trying to write a Vividcon con report, with marked lack of success, but in the meantime -- I'm very curious about something I've come across a couple of times lately in LJ comments, and that is the issue of the name you use to refer to a character when you're writing a close-3rd-person-POV story about that character.

Ahem. Let me see if I can be clearer. Say I'm writing a story in 3rd person about Fraser, where he's the POV character. I always refer to him as "Fraser" because that's, y'know, what I call the guy. But I've seen a couple of people lately saying that in such situations the name used should be the one that the character himself uses when he thinks about himself, so the question is does he think of himself as Fraser, or Ben, or Benton, or whatever?

See, in my head this is kind of, sort of, related to the issue flambeau was talking about a while ago (here, to be specific), where you can't sneak in descriptive stuff by having the POV character musing about his own tautly muscled abs or emerald eyes or whatever, or on the other hand providing detailed descriptions of scenes he regularly moves through and is familiar with to the point of obliviousness. You have to maintain the authenticity/integrity of the character's own awareness. And one could argue, I guess, that using the name the character would use about himself inwardly is part of that authenticity-maintenance, except -- I dunno, I just have never thought of it that way. It feels strange to me, and I'd love to hear others' views.

Comments

[umbo.livejournal.com]

What jacquez said. I guess I've never really thought about it much, to tell you the truth, because I *do* write almost exclusively in first person present. And I agree with what some other folks have said, too--that it's not that important if it's Fraser or Ben, but that it *is* important for Ray to never *ever* be Stan or Stanley.

I was actually thinking of something sort of related with the dS/Homicide crossover I appear to be writing (I really wasn't intending to, and I'm not sure it'll be a whole story, but I'm having fun), in that I have Tim (it's written first person from his POV) first thinking of Ray as Kowalski, and then, as he gets to know him a little better, as Ray. But I don't intend for him to ever see Fraser as anything but Fraser--Benton is reserved for Ray, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, cool reading all the comments!