Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Quick tips #4 - Character names

Here's some quick advice that will be appreciated by everyone who reads your script - try not to give female characters names that are typically boys' names. Over the years I've seen many a writer try to be cute by doing this, including female Mickeys, Mikes, Davys, Bennies, Bobbys, and the list goes on.

And for the love of all that is holy, if you MUST do this, please, please, PLEASE make it abundantly clear in the description - from moment one - that the character is a female. It helps the reader out a lot. I should not get past the first line of a character's introduction and be confused as to if the character is male or female.

6 comments:

  1. Very good advice! Confusing a reader is probably not a good idea!

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  2. Another good character names tip is not having rhyming names or names that have similar letters. For example, having a Jack and a James is confusing to a reader. Or two lovers, Tim and Kim...the reader will quickly forget who's who.

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  3. Very good point, cind! I recall giving this note in a script I read that had Jack, Josh, Jimmy, Timmy and Tommy as character names. I know... sounds too ridiculous to be true. And for whatever reason, when it comes to alliterative names, ones that start with J are the most frequent.

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  4. How do you feel about scripts that hide whether a character is male or female, like a motorcycle rider with a helmet on? If the other people in the scene are meant to think it's a boy, should the writer also use a male pronoun, should it be ambiguous, or should they tell you it's a girl but looks like a boy?

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  5. In that case, I'd use an ambiguious pronoun, or just refer to the character as "the rider" until the reveal happens. If you use "he" when the character will turn out to be a she, odds are it'll cause a lot of unnecessary confusion.

    Usually this trick is fairly well-telegraphed, and I know some readers who are annoyed with the "*GASP!* That helmeted rider was a girl!" moment that results, but that's a separate issue from the naming thing.

    For me personally, I think it's a tired gag. I saw a movie a few weeks ago that did this and my friend and I had much fun mocking the "shock" that our daredevil turned out to be a girl after she removed her hoodie.

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  6. I was so guilty of this in my early scripts.

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