When you are writing a story and refer to a character by a physical trait, occupation, age, or any other attribute, rather than that character’s name, you are bringing the reader’s attention to that particular attribute. That can be used quite effectively to help your reader to focus on key details with just a few words. However, if the fact that the character is “the blond,” “the magician,” “the older woman,” etc. is not relevant to that moment in the story, this will only distract the reader from the purpose of the scene.
If your only reason for referring to a character this way is to avoid using his or her name or a pronoun too much, don’t do it. You’re fixing a problem that actually isn’t one. Just go ahead and use the name or pronoun again. It’ll be good.
Someone finally spelled out the REASON for using epithets, and the reasons NOT to.
In addition to that:
If the character you are referring to in such a way is THE VIEWPOINT CHARACTER, likewise, don’t do it. I.e. if you’re writing in third person but the narration is through their eyes, or what is also called “third person deep POV”. If the narration is filtered through the character’s perception, then a very external, impersonal description will be jarring. It’s the same, and just as bad, as writing “My bright blue eyes returned his gaze” in first person.
Furthermore,
if the story is actually told through the eyes of one particular viewpoint character even though it’s in the third person, and in their voice, as is very often the case, then you shouldn’t refer to the characters in ways that character wouldn’t.
In other words, if the third-person narrator is Harry Potter, when Dumbledore appears, it says “Dumbledore appears”, not “Albus appears”. Bucky Barnes would think of Steve Rogers as “Steve”, where another character might think of him as “Cap”. Chekov might think of Kirk as “the captain”, but Bones thinks of him as “Jim”.
Now, there are real situations where you, I, or anybody might think of another person as “the other man”, “the taller man”, or “the doctor”: usually when you don’t know their names, like when there are two tap-dancers and a ballerina in a routine and one of the men lifts the ballerina and then she reaches out and grabs the other man’s hand; or when there was a group of people talking at the hospital and they all worked there, but the doctor was the one who told them what to do. These are all perfectly natural and normal. Similarly, sometimes I think of my GP as “the doctor” even though I know her name, or one of my coworkers as “the taller man” even though I know his. But I definitely never think of my long-term life partner as “the green-eyed woman” or one of my best friends as “the taller person” or anything like that. It’s not a sensible adjective for your brain to choose in that situation – it’s too impersonal for someone you’re so intimately acquainted with. Also, even if someone was having a one night stand or a drunken hookup with a stranger, they probably wouldn’t think of that person as “the other man”: you only think of ‘other’ when you’re distinguishing two things and you don’t have to go to any special effort to distinguish your partner from yourself to yourself.
This is something that I pretty consistently have to advise for those I beta edit for. (It doesn’t help that I relied on epithets a lot in the earlier sections of my main fic because I was getting into the swing of things.) I am reblogging this so fanfic writers can use this as a reference.
A good rule of thumb: a character’s familiarity with another character decreases the need for an epithet (and most times you really don’t need one at all).
I’ve been posting Soulmate AU Lists. Since I’ll get tired of linking every list individually on each and every post I make, and because it’s pretty disorganized, I decided to compile them all into one big list. So that means this post will constantly be edited and whatnot.
– Each soulmate has one half of a quote that is important to their relationship.
-A timer for when they shall first meet
-A timer for when the other dies
-Writing that says how old your soulmate will be when you meet
– Everyone is born with a unique number only they and their soulmates have.
-Writing that says what your soulmate is most passionate about
-Your soulmate’s feelings about you is written on your body
-Your soulmates first impression/thoughts about you is written on your body
– Each year imprinted on your arm, whispered in a dream, sent in a mail or whatever, is a hint to who/where is your soulmate.
– Each day on your arm is a particular event your soulmate will face today. (Examples: Promotion, family death, new pet, meeting soulmate…)
-Every night you receive a message about a random sentence your soulmate has said that day.
-You have a watch that says the timezone your soulmate is in
-The first drawing you see from your soulmate is tattoo-ed on your skin
–Changed Vision–
-See colour for the first time when you meet, fades away when they die
-Will only see shades of your soulmate’s eye colour until you meet
-Can only see colour to places your soulmate’s been/touched
-Everyone is technically “blind”. You can only see what your soulmate sees (until you meet them maybe)
–Different Abilities–
-See/hear/speak/etc for the first time when you meet
-Being next to soulmate heals injuries
– You stop aging at a certain age, until you meet your soulmate and grow old together.
– Everyone has super powers, but when soulmates are together their powers are nullified by each other.
– Everyone has weak powers, but when soulmates are together their powers are amplified
–Sharing–
-Get the same emotions as your soulmate does (They’re sad, you’re suddenly sad)
– Get the same injuries as your soulmate does
-When you get sick, so does your soulmate
-Soulmates share the same handwriting
-Soulmates share the same fingerprints
-You share your knowledge with your soulmate
-You share your temperature with your soulmate
– Songs sung by your soulmate is stuck in your head.
– Whatever music that is stuck in your soulmate’s head is stuck in yours too.
-There’s a radio in everyone’s heads that they share with their soulmates, the two(?) of you can change the tunes
-Have the same tics at the same time (verbal tics, drumming fingers, humming, etc)
-Cellphones between soulmates are in the same condition (cracked screens are in the same places)
-If you’re having a good/bad day, your soulmate will have the same amount of good/bad day. (Or alternatively, the opposite)
– There’s a small screen only visible to you that allows you to see what your soulmate is seeing (think kind of like those video games with splits screens)
– Soulmates share the same afterlife
–Communication–
– Telepathic link with your soulmate.
-Write something on your own skin, appears on the other’s skin as well
-Meet soulmate in dreams every night
-Before you die, you get to send one last message to your soulmate
-You can send one item to your soulmate every year (or whenever)
-You have this limited stack of sticky notes. Write whatever you want on it, and that note would magically appear somewhere in your soulmate’s line of sight during that day.
–Changed Physical Features–
-Your eyes are your soulmate’s hair colour, changes when they dye it
-Everyone has heterochromia, one eye is your natural colour the other is your soulmate’s natural colour. Once you meet all eyes return to natural colour.
-Your hair colour is your soulmate’s sexuality flag (remember that there can be platonic soulmates, and that sometimes you can be soulmates with someone but they’re not soulmates with you)
–Restrictions–
– It is impossible to lie to your destined soulmate.
– Under a curse until you meet your soulmate
– They have to say each other’s name to figure out they’re soulmates.
– Only your soulmate can kill you.
-The only voice in the world you can/can’t hear is your soulmate’s
-If you don’t find your soulmate by your #th birthday, you die
-Everyone wears a mask. You get to finally take it off when you meet the one with your identical mask, your soulmate.
-You’re stuck in a room filled with clones (with maybe slight differences) of your soulmate. You need to kill all except your soulmate or else you won’t get out/be together.
– On top of everybody’s head is the name of their soulmate. You can’t see your own. If you tell somebody their soulmate’s name, something unfortunate/death will happen to them/yourself/a soulmate.
-Your soulmate is invisible to you until you figure out a certain trigger.
–Experiences/Actions–
– When you meet your soulmate, time stops for a month for everyone besides you two.
-For a month, you and your soulmates have to go through different soulmate AUs each day (ooh you can use my lists for ideas *cough cough*)
-Each year at a certain age, soulmates are paired together into some sort of battle royal thing, best OTP wins
-At the corner of your eye, you can see a blurry vision of whatever your soulmate is doing (like sitting down drinking coffee in your living room, even though they’re doing this in another area)
-Soulmates can switch lives whenever they feel like it
-When you meet your soulmate for the first time, you get a flashback/relive their entire lives
-Similar to above, except you get glimpses of their future
-Before you die, you flash through your soulmate’s entire life (what they were doing before they met you, if they’ve ever lied to you, etc
–Compasses–
– A red string tied around your pinky is connected to your soulmate’s pinky (when the two of you are in a certain distance)
-Temperature gets hotter the nearer they are, colder when they are further away
-Each person has a spirit animal that can lead you to your soulmate
–Hints–
-You get a photograph of your soulmate and vice versa, somehow (Could be yearly, could be at a certain age, could be a photo of when you first met, etc)
-The voice in your head (example: your conscious) is your soulmate’s voice (by that I meant that they have the same voice, not that’s it’s your soulmate’s personality in your head– y’know, take it as you will)
– Every year, you receive a puzzle piece. The whole picture is your soulmate’s name/appearance/location/etc.
–Your Soulmate–
-If you and your soulmate possess the same item, it’ll glow
-Everyone has a special pen/marker/drawing utensil. Using it, the lines are thicker when their soulmates feel strong emotions, thinner when they’re feeling weak, run out of ink when they die, etc.
-There’s this special block of clay that represents your soulmate. It has a special colour and changes forms depending on how your soulmate is feeling.
-Reflecting in the mirrors is the appearance of your soulmate
—–END OF LIST—–
Okay yeah my organization skills kinda stink, but I did my best. And hey, categories! You can ask me for more of a specific category if you’d like and if I can, I’ll think up some more for that specific category. (I also know that some AUs fit in multiple categories but blergh…)
Enjoy! You can use any of these without permission, half of these are’t mine anyway (but if you do tell me you’ll use one I’ll be giddy that you read this and it’ll make my day, I swear). Happy writing! 😀
Morally grey: A character who does too much bad to be a good person, but does too much good to be a bad person.
Sympathetic villain: A character who is a bad person, but whose backstory/character arc makes you feel sorry for or sympathetic towards them.
Anti-hero: A character who does bad things to achieve a good goal.
Anti-villain: A character who does bad things to achieve a goal that they believe to be good, but is actually messed up.
Just plain annoying: A character who does bad things to achieve a bad goal but has one throwaway line about a hard childhood that is expected to put them into one of the aforementioned categories when in reality it just makes them annoying
how is it that loki is all of these at the same time
This idea that people should never relate to villains is so bizarre to me? Like? A villain that’s 0% relatable is a failed villain because part of the horror of villains is the way you see the steps that led them to where they are.
A good villain should leave you wondering what, exactly, separates you and the protagonist from them. A good villain should make you feel empathy, should make you understand how they got to be where they are, should be a little bit uncomfortably close-to-home. That’s what makes villains interesting
M-most people don’t t-talk like th-this when they st-stutter from n-nerves.
It’s more…it’s more like going back and…and starting over. Maybe repeating some, some words.
Bonus tip: this is ESPECIALLY true in thoughts. Thoughts are a lot more fluid than speech because there’s no physical barrier to get past when they form into words.
I’ve never realized how true this is. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
yup
Uh, also, they might, like, use filler words, possibly. Or maybe, like, phrase things as questions instead of, um, sentences? I don’t know, I just, um, sorta know what it sounds like, kinda?
This idea has been on my mind for months and now I finally made it – Click&Drag fanfic ideas. Take your OTP or any other pairing, set your AU and drag pics for romance plot.
Crowfanity's Tumblr 