How do I better handle my nameless main character when trying to retain mystery?
I have written a short story, and the main character is referred to as "he" right the way through - the idea being that this character is very guarded and mysterious. My plan was to not reveal the name of the character because that would be too personal and would allow the reader to "get to know" the character, which is undesirable when trying to maintain an aura of mystery.
However, I'm not sure I'm pulling it off as well as I'd like to - I feel I'm overusing the word "he" and I'm stuck for ways to refer to "himself." I've attached a small extract for you to perhaps see what I mean.
The alarm on his watch beeped.
His eyes crept open as he was slowly roused from his light slumber, he knew he had work to do, and now he felt ready to start.
His job was very stressful and had little rewards, but he did as he was told; just a pawn a very large game of chess. It was however, not a large company, which is why a lot of the stress landed on him and it's terribly difficult working for a boss you've never seen nor heard. Strange as the concept was, he and his boss kept in touch by e-mail and text messages. It wasn't ideal, but it was definitely necessary; being that his field of work was a slightly less than reputable one. He only knew his boss by one name, and he knew it was an alias.
Can anyone offer any assistance, perhaps give me some ideas on how to reword some sentences, help that I may then be able to apply to the rest of the short story?
Well, there is a book and a movie adaptation :- '12 Angry Men'. That one exactly does what you have in your mind. none o …
14y ago
How about using the second person instead of the third person?
14y ago
I wrote a similar story recently, leaving the character nameless as a method of dehumanisation as opposed to implimentin …
14y ago
Some Preliminary Words... I'm not entirely sure that withholding a character's name is the best way to go about produc …
14y ago
"The man" also works. The man's job was very stressful...The man only knew his boss by one name... If you give him any …
14y ago
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5 answers
I wrote a similar story recently, leaving the character nameless as a method of dehumanisation as opposed to implimenting mystery. I think the best way to do it is to use more thought-based 1st person interjections. This makes events more interesting, with added variation in the form of narration and allows the reader to get some idea of the character, limited by the way you choose to portray his monologues. If you are trying to incorporate mystery as a theme, you could always make his thoughts conflicting, giving the reader added interest and questioning as to why he is like he is.
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How about using the second person instead of the third person?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/1278. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Some Preliminary Words...
I'm not entirely sure that withholding a character's name is the best way to go about producing an aura of mystery. In fact, this is something that I've seen in a lot of early writers (and I even did it a few times myself back in high school), but which almost never works. Usually, the reader just finds it incredibly annoying. Even if you can pull off the "no-name mystery" grammatically so that it doesn't sound awkward or repetitive, the reader would almost always like something to remember him by.
A lot of writers (I struggle with this, too) decide to retain little details - name, location, whatever - to try for an air of mystery. While we have all probably read books that do this at the beginning, it's usually not for very long - rarely for entire stories. If the aura of mystery hinges on these details, then it's not going to be mysterious enough to keep the reader reading. It will just be annoying.
My Answer, Though...
If I were you, I would work on making sure your story has such a strong "mystery" element to it that you could reveal more about your character if you wanted to, without destroying that element. Then, you can decide what you want to reveal and what you want to withhold, and perhaps the mystery elements themselves will lend you ideas.
In this case, you wouldn't need to give his real name. He could have an alias, too, just like his boss. Just one idea.
Another is to consider the first person perspective. Difficult, but if he is always thinking of himself in terms of "I" and "me" and doesn't run into anybody who uses his name, then that could work.
Regardless of whether you add an alias or write from first person, I would (if I were you) make sure that your information you're giving has more of his attitude behind it. If we aren't allowed to know your character, we should at least "experience" him. Rather than simply being told about his job, we should almost definitely find out about his work via his attitude about it - or something along those liens. If you want to maintain that aura of mystery, then we'll have to be invested in the character enough to care about him, even if we don't know his name.
Definitely eliminate any unnecessary words - include "he" and "him".
In other words, without a name, you gotta pull double duty to keep the reader sucked in! That alone could potentially overcome the repetitiveness of "he" and "him" and such. If done well enough. This won't be great (and it definitely has my tone and attitude thrown in), but here's a quick example of what I mean:
The alarm beeped.
His eyes crept open as he slowly roused himself from his light slumber; he had work to do, and it was time to begin.
The damn job was too stressful, with too little rewards, but it wasn't like he had a choice. Just a little pawn in a large game of chess. A pawn who doesn't even know his king. As one of the few members of such a small organization, most people would have assumed he knew his boss. He'd never even met the man. No, he was expected to do the work of ten men, communicate solely by e-mail and text, and chug along as best he could with the orders he was given.
You know your story, though, so I'm sure you can think of something much more imaginative (and mysterious!) than that. :-)
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Well, there is a book and a movie adaptation :- '12 Angry Men'. That one exactly does what you have in your mind. none of the character's names are used. there are 12+ characters in the plot! Hope this link helps - 12 Angry Men
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"The man" also works.
The man's job was very stressful...The man only knew his boss by one name...
If you give him any other identifiers, like "tall" or "with sunglasses," that will allow you some variety.
(also, use a semi-colon after "slumber" in the first sentence, not a comma.)
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