Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How do I differentiate characters in first person POV when the narrator doesn't know them yet?

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 ...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Kelvinator‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:33:19Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/44132
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Kelvinator‭ · 2019-12-08T11:33:19Z (over 4 years ago)
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!

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-03-28T05:55:09Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 5