When it comes to how your characters refer to each other, like in real life, it should be natural. In The Vase, I have a lot of characters, and some of them have titles, like Professor, or Captain, and the question is how should they refer to each other. They are colleagues, but they are also friends, but not best friends. They don't hang out or anything, and may even go a year or more without having seen each other. So do they call each other by first name? Or by their titles.
I would think both, but then there's the issue of consistency, and POV narrative, and dialogue tags, and when this is all mixed together it can get confusing. The appearance of flip-flopping could happen, and that means in one scene, say a character calls the other by their title, but in another scene, or even in the same scene, it's a first name basis. That can seem inconsistent.
To correct that, I have changed it to a consistent basis, until an impacting event occurs making the characters bond and thereafter they're on a first name basis. It makes sense and eliminates inconsistencies. And it becomes better writing to boot. And that's the bottom line.
No comments:
Post a Comment