Timeline for How to introduce a nameless, mysterious character in limited third person?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 25, 2017 at 11:56 | vote | accept | Acss | ||
| Aug 18, 2017 at 7:19 | comment | added | Acss | Quite interesting, never thought of that. Thank you! | |
| Aug 17, 2017 at 15:32 | comment | added | Henry Taylor | I think you can go either way with that, based on need. Perhaps you could start with a compound reference such as "the travelling fool". Then later, you could split it into "the traveller" and "the fool", metaphorically splitting the burden that each must carry. | |
| Aug 17, 2017 at 15:26 | comment | added | Acss | That makes perfect sense, but I was talking about prologue, where the POV remains unchanged. So it's not about other POV's references to the mysterious character, it's about the "self-reference to the character", as you put it, "based on the character's existing knowledge of himself". This is where I was wondering whether I should stick with "the traveler" through all pages in prologue or use other self-references as well. | |
| Aug 17, 2017 at 14:58 | comment | added | Henry Taylor | Each point of view character comes with their own set of initial and accumulated knowledge. So a self-reference to the character as "the traveler" in the prologue can be considered to be based on the character's existing knowledge of himself. In later chapters, when seen from other point of view characters, that knowledge would not exist, so a new reference, such as "the reader" would be preferred there. You then need to tie the two references together with a physical detail... "The traveler with the dark eyes" from the prologue becomes "the reader" only when the new pov notices his eyes. | |
| Aug 17, 2017 at 14:43 | comment | added | Acss | Thanks Henry, and Tom also included! That is a very good shift I believe. The only question is, let's say we call the character as "The traveler" in the beginning, but then in the next scene he is shown reading a book (the one where he is alone in the room, scene of a few pages long). Should I keep calling him "traveler"? Seems a bit odd since the better label for him would now be, for example, "The reader". Should I start calling him "The reader?" I guess it works with "The man", or "The figure" but should I stick with a single descriptive noun through all pages? Or use several of them kind? | |
| Aug 17, 2017 at 14:08 | history | answered | Henry Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |