Writer question? Book about unnamed characters?

Question

I have a story that I want to write but I'm not sure how to do it, because my characters don't have any names. So here's the thing, there are 8 siblings, and the story centers around the relationship between two of them. The other 6 are barely even characters so I think it won't matter that they don't have names. My dilemma comes in with the two sisters, because if one sister is the POV character, then she can simply refer to the other as "my sister." But I'm having trouble telling the story from only her POV because important things happen to and because of the other one. But you can't have a non-character omniscient narrator if there's no names for them to differentiate who's doing things. They can also appear as whatever they want and don't really have their own physical appearance so they couldn't even be referred to by that. I'm just very confused lol and ready to give up

2019-02-11T08:08:13Z

When I say they don't have names, I don't mean that I haven't thought of any, or don't want them to be revealed, or anything like that. They literally don't have names. They don't speak, or have a language, or address each other the way humans do (they are gods if that helps).

bluebellbkk · Answer

Have one of them refer to the other as 'Sis', and have 'Sis' refer to the other as 'Sib'.
I mean, even if they don't use names in the way we do, they must still have some way of mentally distinguishing individuals in the group of sisters. And they presumably also have some way of addressing any of them that shows WHO they are addressing.

They Pelted Us With Rocks And Garbage · Answer

Why would they use a term like "my sister" which is loaded with human relationships then?  Why would they think in English, using English terms and English social nomenclature, if they had no language?

Anonymous · Answer

It can be done. Many great writers have written books and stories that feature unnamed characters - McCarthy's "The Road" and many of Hemingway's stories spring to mind; however, you have to be able to make the distinction between the two girls clear to the reader, and you certainly can't hope to do that by referring to both of them as "sister" if the work in question is being composed in the third person. But it could be done easily in the first person as the narrator would quite obviously be "I" and then "my sister" would work perfectly well for the secondary character. The rest of them could be referred to as "the other sisters." People have names so that we can distinguish between one person and another. If you choose not to bestow names on your characters, that's fine, but you need to make sure that your readers will be able to follow along with who's doing what, so whatever method you decide to use to differentiate between the characters ought to remain consistent.

Writer question? Book about unnamed characters?

Trending Questions