Dear Author:
Nov. 7th, 2010 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverflight8- context - I am re-reading War and Peace. The first time I read it, I had no idea about naming conventions in Russian. I spent the whole book confused about who was who. In the meantime, one of my friends explained most of the conventions to me, and I'm still having trouble keeping them all straight.
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Mr. Tolstoy, I'm really sorry, but I can't keep up with all the names. For one, you have many many many variants of names (Anna, Anna Pavlovna, Annette, her title, Scherer, or x's wife) . I get that characters X and Y have a different relationship than X and Z, which necessitates all these variants. But you have a novel (huge enormous thing that can be used to fend off an attacking octopus if I ever had the misfortune to meet one) that really does deserve the title of "epic" and the cast of characters reflects this. Plus you introduce them in huge lumps.
So!
I propose a new system for writing character names! How about, after every name that's in a book, we have a little number after it? That way, readers (i.e. me [*wail* surely there must be others!]) can actually keep track of names. Like, since you mention Anna first, she could have a 1 after her name. In thinking about this, I think it would be awesome if there were an option to hide the number (like an electronic screen or just different editions *dreamily*). Imagine the possibilities! You could even twist their names 'round and still not confuse readers.
Impossible, but one can dream.
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Mr. Tolstoy, I'm really sorry, but I can't keep up with all the names. For one, you have many many many variants of names (Anna, Anna Pavlovna, Annette, her title, Scherer, or x's wife) . I get that characters X and Y have a different relationship than X and Z, which necessitates all these variants. But you have a novel (huge enormous thing that can be used to fend off an attacking octopus if I ever had the misfortune to meet one) that really does deserve the title of "epic" and the cast of characters reflects this. Plus you introduce them in huge lumps.
So!
I propose a new system for writing character names! How about, after every name that's in a book, we have a little number after it? That way, readers (i.e. me [*wail* surely there must be others!]) can actually keep track of names. Like, since you mention Anna first, she could have a 1 after her name. In thinking about this, I think it would be awesome if there were an option to hide the number (like an electronic screen or just different editions *dreamily*). Imagine the possibilities! You could even twist their names 'round and still not confuse readers.
Impossible, but one can dream.
