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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 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:33:19Z (about 5 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 (about 5 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 (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 5