I’m not going to discuss using names a symbolic clue as to the nature of a character or  story, though that is an important and very difficult aspect to naming things for an author. Instead I’m going to rant a bit about something that irritates me endlessly.

I hate it when a writer, or writers, skip out on naming something that really should have a name. This happens most often in film and television, but the unforced error can occur in any kind of writing, regardless of medium or genre.

This was brought to mind for me because this week at The Viewscreen we re-watched the Next Generation Episode “Haven.” In it, during a painfully bad exposition scene, really it was so bad that I could sense J. Michael Straczynski wincing in pain, the character recounted the history of a doomed world and people the Tarellians. Naturally because TNG loves to lecture, we got a speech, broke up over several characters but really it was just one long speech, about how on this planet there were two groups on different continents, they hated each other, went to war and one group used bio-warfare to attack the other and in the end everyone ended up sick and dying. (Wow, bio-warfare is bad, that’s an original thesis.) Notice that the group do not have names, that not an artifact of my synopsis, that had no names in the script. These characters knew the planet’s  history, it’s a favorite of study at their academy, but no names, just one group and that other group. Who write the course material atStarfleetAcademy, Vizzini? (Move that thing! And That Other Thing!) It’s unrealistic dialog and destroys an already dreadfully weak scene.

Another example comes from a show with really stellar writing, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. In the episode “Faith, Hope, and Trick” third season and the introductory episode for the Third slayer of the series, Faith, the emotional pivot of the story is about Faith’s hesitation and fear at the vampire that killed her Watcher. Faith, her never shaken by having witnessed her Watcher’s murder, with the help of Buffy, manages to find her nerve and overcomes her fear. That’s a good strong story – but the Watcher is unnamed.  Every reference to him – presumably a him – from Faith is simply ‘My Watcher.’ Damn it, if someone is so important that their death unnerves a slayer, that character deserves a name.

The reason names are so important is that names are a great vehicle to specificity, and specificity is a great tool for making a work of fiction feel real. Consider the case where three characters sit down for lunch. That tells us almost nothing, but if we detail what is ordered, say one orders a Ruben sandwich, the second orders a salad w light dressing, and the third a complex dish made to exacting directions and we have a handle on the characters with no other data.

When in doubt, name things, name places, name characters, the world is filled with proper nouns so should your fiction be.