How do I differentiate characters in first person POV when the narrator doesn't know them yet?

Question

Okay, so two women are in a bar and I'm telling the story from one of the women's POV. Two guys come in and the women are watching/listening to them from a distance. They don't know their names or anything about them.

The two guys have the exact same height and build, so I can't say "the shorter guy" or "the heavier guy," etc. They are both in t-shirts and jeans, so I can't describe what they're wearing to set them apart (unless I start off by saying that one guy is in a Metallica t-shirt or something like that). One guy has dark hair and brown eyes, and the other one has sandy blondish hair and blue eyes. I keep using "the dark-haired guy" over and over, but I need to come up with another way to describe him so it doesn't get so repetitive. I even called him "Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome" once, but I can't use that again.

When we switch POV in the next chapter, we'll know their names, so this won't be an issue. Any ideas for how I can differentiate between them? Anyone's help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Well, first thing, how would you differentiate these two people if you met them in real life? Imagine yourself with a group of friends talking about a couple of strangers and think of how you would make it clear which one you talk about.

As far as I know, people would tend to attribute a name or nickname to the unknown person based on their first impression and use it to refer to them.

Another way you can vary how you refer to them it by using their mannerisms. Does one act like's he's always high on cafeine or does his neutral face looks like a permanent frown? Is his companion always serious? It works for voice too.

Answer 2

When the men first come in, have the women invent names for them, make it a game.

"Wow, what's his name, do you think?"

"The dark haired guy? I say ... Richard."

"No way, I say William. Definitely a Will. The other guy, a Maybe!"

"Ha! Okay, Will, and, say, Mark."

"Mark! Okay. What does Mark do for a living?"

"He's pretty fit, I'd guess something active. I want him to be a park ranger."

"You just want to get him into the woods. Please, Mark Ranger, I lost my phone, come help me find it ..."

Fill this in with "color", actions, sounds, laughter and descriptions. But they are in a bar and drinking, let them have a little play fantasy while people watching. It's actually a fun game IRL. (Maybe because I'm a writer.) And, as a writer, it gives you a chance to describe the new characters.

If the men are within earshot and they start listening to the conversation, they can quiet down; but in the POV thoughts and anything she says to her friend, the men are Will and Mark. The joking assignment of names ensures the reader is fully aware these are "temporary" names, so they won't be confused if the real names appear.

The real names, if they ever find them out, can be wildly off, that doesn't matter.

Answer 3

Unless the two men are identical twins who also dress alike, and they speak and act exactly the same, there is some way to distinguish them.

Think about how you refer to people whose names you don't know in real life. You may use a capsule physical description: "the tall girl", "the bald man", etc. Not applicable to strangers met in a bar, but in other contexts I'll often describe them by some sort of role, like "my math teacher", "the guy from accounting", "the policeman", "my neighbor's brother", etc. If all else fails, you can always call them "the first man" and "the second man".

In most conversations, it isn't necessary to repeatedly identify who you're talking about. You might say, "And then the blond guy said ... and after that he ... and then I said to him ... and then he ..." etc. That is, the person quickly becomes "he" or her" or whatever.

If your characters are meeting these people, then in real life they would likely give their names early in the conversation. For a fiction story you might have them give names especially early just to avoid the problem you're describing.

If you talk about third parties in a context where your characters wouldn't learn their names, like if they're sitting at the bar talking about these two strangers they see across the room, in real life they'd likely quickly come up with short-hand descriptions or nicknames for each. Like they start out saying "the guy with black hair" but after saying that two or three times it would be as awkward in real life as in a story, so they quickly start calling him "Blackie". Or someone says, "Hey, doesn't his beard make him look like Abraham Lincoln?" and then the other person calls him "Abe" and they both laugh but then they start calling him that regularly.

In other contexts, I often fall into regularly talking about someone by a short name for their role. Like I call someone "the librarian" or "the HR guy" or whatever and then start using that regularly like it was their name.

Once the characters start using a nickname, unless it's very extreme in some way, it's easy for the narrator to start using it too. By "really extreme", I mean like, if one of the characters decides she really hates some guy and refers to him as "the Lying Scum", it would sound strange for the narrator to calmly use the same term. The easy solution is to avoid making up that kind of nickname. But for the characters to call someone "Baldy" and then for the narrator to say, "Then Baldy crossed the room and picked up a glass" or some such doesn't sound particularly strange to me. You might put the nickname in quotes the first time or two to emphasize that you're using a nickname, but then just drop the quotes.