Naming Names
by Celeste Ng
I was once in a workshop where a fellow student had written an entire story with no proper names–the main characters were referred to just as “she” and “he” for fifteen or so pages. Most of the class felt the characters needed handles: to make things clearer to the reader, to make dialogue less awkward, to make the characters feel like real people rather than abstractions. All of these things were true, but I sympathized with the author. I hate naming things too. In the internet era, at least, you can find help. Long common among writers of sci-fi and […]
