Putting alternatives for a character’s name to good use.
For the use of epithets, where you’re using something other than a name to refer to the character — the other man, the blond, her elder, the policeman, etc — it’s good to think about WHY you want that epithet.
Why would you use an epithet instead of that character’s name?
Firstly, does the POV character know that character’s name?
If the POV character doesn’t know it yet, they’re likely to fixate on the most obviously unique or identifiable aspect of that person’s character to use as an epithet, and then stick with that epithet.
(I’m going to focus on first- and second-person narration and limited third person, where we’re generally either limited to one person’s perspective, or we’re “head-hopping” between different people’s biased and individual perceptions of an outsider. I’ll talk about omniscient narration later.)
A uniform or position of authority is often the clearest — the policeman, the nurse, the flight attendant, the postman, the grandmother.
When your epithet focuses on aspects of the physical, for a character that the narrator doesn’t know yet, the descriptor chosen might depend on intimacy.
You might start at the most obvious identifiable aspect from afar. Why does that detail stand out to your narrator, and why is that the detail they use to describe them?
The tall woman, the very little boy; the man in red, the woman in the big hat; the guy with the cane; that prick in the hairnet.
When we start to get a little closer — when the camera “zooms in” — our narrator might focus on particular details. Why do those details stand out? Is our narrator attracted to, or enamoured by, or disgusted by, or angry with this person? Do they respect them? Find them strange, off-putting?
We often get “the dark-haired man” or “the blonde” or “the bald bloke” or similar; “the pale man”, “the girl with the freckles”. Then, we get even closer.
A narrator might notice a character’s teeth or fingernails, the details of a tattoo, the dirt or grease on their body or clothes, their scent.
People often focus on a character’s eye colour, but how often do you notice a person’s eye colour unless you’re very up close with them? It’s worth considering the setting for this as well — a character’s eye colour might really stand out in a very bright environment, but not in a darker one.
They also might notice dark eyes or light eyes, but not the particular colour. They might notice a character’s jewellery from afar, but might not notice the particular details of that jewellery until they’re much closer. Might see the colour of clothes, but not the fabric or the cut or the value.
The choice of epithet doesn’t just tell us about the character being described — normally, we have the character described, and then a detail is picked out of that description that our narrator fixates on. It’s that detail they use to earmark them in their head, and thus their narration.
An older man obviously wearing foundation, slim and in expensive clothes, who keeps touching his hair and glancing at himself in the mirror, adjusting his posture, glancing at his nails.
To one narrator he might become “the vain man”. To another, “the ageing queen”. To another, “the pretty one”.
To the first narrator, perhaps there’s an element of judgement there. Perhaps they think it’s silly or pathetic or embarrassing to see a man wearing make-up and worrying about his appearance. To the second, there could be familiarity — they know gay men like this one, and they see the archetype. To the last, there might be attraction or desire, the narrator noticing the effort that man is going to fuss over his appearance, or there might be an element of envy and desire to emulate that man, wanting to be as pretty as he is, to age as he has.
These are mostly physical aspects — another detail a narrator might focus on, the most identifiable one, might be an extension of the uniform I mentioned before. They might focus on that person’s position of authority — the cop, the priest — or personality — the chipper young thing, the miser.
Class or nationality or religion might come into it — the nobleman, the Greek, the Muslim.
We might slide into the realm of insults and slurs — who amongst us hasn’t been referred to by a relative stranger as “the Jew” or “the homo”? — or otherwise a tone of disdain or adulation or what ever else.
When we use an epithet to refer to someone we don’t know, one thing is ordinarily true — the characteristic we are using is unique enough to distinguish that individual from others nearby or in relation to them, including ourselves. I, a gay guy, won’t think of someone as “the gay guy”, am I?
What is the epithet for? To distinguish that individual from others.
If the narration is in our own head, we’re unlikely to worry about what other people will think of our choice of words, meaning we might be offensive or show our desire obviously in a way we might not to an outside party.
If we’re looking at a piece of epistolary, like a diary entry or a letter or a blog post, or a first-person narration where the narrator is considering an audience, their language might be a bit different, more edited. They might use kinder language, or show off with funnier language, etc.
All the above is if the narrator doesn’t know the character’s name. If we DO know the character’s name, why aren’t we using it?
The non-diegetic reason might be “I’ve used her name too many times in a short while but ‘she’ isn’t going to distinguish her from other women in the scene”.
And that’s a perfectly fine reason to use an epithet from time to time — but we also want a diegetic reason for the epithet. Not just why we’re using an epithet at all, but why are we using THAT epithet?
If I’m in bed with my fuckbuddy or lover or whatever, I’m not thinking of him as “the blond”.
Presumably, I know that guy. Unless I’m going through a veritable parade of sexual partners of recent, all of whom happen to have every other hair colour imaginable, I’m unlikely to think of him as some fella with blond hair, am I?
In some religions and superstitions one uses an epithet to refer to a deity or demon, or other higher power, in order to avoid somehow drawing its attention by making use of its name. In some cultures or situations, a name might be considered too holy to use, and so you might use a title or epithet.
An epithet, in short, creates distance between the narrator and the so-titled; it might create distance between the described character and their own identity, OR forge connection between the describer and described.
The latter is easy — “the other man”, “my fellow doctor”, “my sister-in-arms”.
In the first and second cases, why might that distance be desirable? “The professor” or “the bitch” or “the submissive” create distance in different ways.
The first might draw attention to authority — “the professor” might represent their university, or their area of study, or the narrator’s kink.
“The bitch” is rather different — it might be used for humorous effect, or to indicate disgust or anger with the titled character, showing misogyny, especially if they’re the one female character amongst men. “This bitch” or “that bitch” might add to the distaste indicated.
“The submissive” is all about the titled’s position in the scene — their identity is in their action, and in their submission to the narrator, or within the narrator’s awareness. Again, it might be the narrator’s kink — we can add to that kink by using a more targeted piece of language.
In a BDSM scene or a fight between dogs, “the submissive” means different things — or maybe it means the same thing.
In a BDSM scene, you might use an epithet that in-context means “submissive”, but carries higher or different connotations. Supplicant. Slave. Subject. Patient. Puppy.
And then, of course, there are epithets that carry elements of possession — “his lover”, “his sweetheart”, “his nemesis”, “his coworker”, “his neighbour”, “her maid”, “her enemy”, “her mother”, “her darling boy”, “the pain in her fucking backside”.
These latter can be useful for omniscient narration — depending on if you’re head-hopping (as in Pratchett’s Discworld) between different characters and a broader, more distanced narrator. In general, it depends on how much personality you like to inject into your omniscient narration.
How much does your omniscient narration / narrator like the characters involved? How much do you want the reader to like them, or distinguish between them? Do you want your narration to feel possessive of your characters, parental toward them, disgusted, superior, inferior? Etc.
A lot of people understandably get irritated when they read a sex scene between two characters and they’re suddenly referred to as “the blond/e” and the “brunet/te” instead of by their names, and a lot of that comes from people focusing on what “the camera” would see.
This is the view of these two characters from the outside, the same colour, the same weight, two bodies in a sex scene that might be mistaken for one, or at least, you might not be able to tell at a glance where one body begins and the other ends, but their hair distinguishes them.
But that’s NOT all that distinguishes them. Even if they’re both white skinny pricks in their 20s with chronic samefame, one has a nicer arse than the other. One has freckles on his chest, or more hair on his body. One is prettier. One is more gangling, less graceful, or stronger, or whatever.
Epithets themselves aren’t the enemy, though. People might be amateurish or clumsy about using them, and they’re definitely easy to overuse — as with any other narrative or literary device, the best epithets are the ones where you don’t even notice them unless you go back and really LOOK.
And honestly, that’s just a matter of time, effort, study, and practice, again, as with any other narrative or literary device you might work to use and understand.
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