Naming Pokémon and Uniqueness

[Synidfar]

Would you prefer fanfiction that had more or less named characters?

I caught the writing bug. That is the main reason for my return to social media. So, I've been skimming old fanfiction for inspiration.

I started wondering if I should name less characters. Ambyssin's work is one that I actually still remember. I binged it over the course of 16 hours. At the average human reading speed of 300 words/min, that strangely means I genuinely read less than 30%, but I enjoyed it tremendously, enough to actually remember it.

My theory is that it has six central OCs (five if you want to be pedantic, since Selene is present in the main games), and the rest is an imaginative expansion of the PMD world that I already know. I can actively visualize the Pokemon speaking as the story goes, and it really helps with the immersion. Most of the characters do have names, but only when they speak to each other. They are usually referred to as the original Pokémon species in the narration.

There are many, many other aspects that make it a good story, obviously, but this was one of my takeaways.

It is probably controversial, but this was my conclusion. I know, gal. What is PMD without being proud of your OCs and their identities. That's the entire point, isn't it.
Still, I'm increasingly feeling like I am reading... A bunch of talking heads. The names don't seem to have meaning to me when I am reading. I don't know if something has shifted in my psyche over the past 6-8 years, but I can no longer enjoy most of them.

Of course, being unable to derive enjoyment from reading fics is due to many shortcomings of my own. Things like a rapidly shrinking attention span, probably just being a poor reader in general. Maybe I simply think this because I am a poor reader, I know that many authors put a lot of effort into their characters.

I want to tell an immersive story. I have no issue sacrificing the unique identity of the characters for that.

I know most people here are writers, but... Reddit won't let me post. If you read a lot of PMD fanfiction as well, I'd love to hear your input. What do you think?

 

[Negrek]

I am pretty neutral on number of named characters. I do think that stories with large ensemble casts are relatively more difficult to do well, because it's often hard for authors to make a very large number of characters interesting, distinct, and memorable. Since a lot of PMD fics follow the general premise/plot of the games, they are often epic in scope with many named characters, and as many fanfiction authors in general are young and inexperienced, I don't think it's super surprising that they can have characterization problems. Talking heads that are hard to distinguish from each other is definitely a prominent failure case for stories with a lot of characters.

I think there are some good practices when it comes to wrangling a big cast. With pokémon fics especially mentioning the species now and again rather than just the name of the character is definitely helpful for readers. You also want your pokémon to behave distinctly enough that their species is clear even without it being stated! If an electrode and a pidgey interact with the world in the same way, there's a problem. Some other tactics that you mentioned are having a strong core of a relatively small number of familiar characters, and then a broader cast of minor characters who can be quickly reintroduced when they show up, and using canon characters or characters that feel similar to them to make it easier for readers to remember your OCs based on past associations.

But it also might be partially on your end--not because you're a bad reader, but because you're getting burnt out, whether on reading in general or on PMD fics specifically. Or your tastes may simply have changed, like you suggested! These things aren't anyone's fault, but it sucks if they're getting in the way of your enjoyment. It might be worth taking a break from reading PMD fic for a bit, or try instead reading shorter PMD stories, one-shots or fics that focus just on a very small group of characters or literal retellings of the games you already know. If you come back to bigger OC PMD fics later and find you enjoy them more again, then maybe you were just getting exhausted by reading a bunch of big stories with lots of characters and it's not a problem with the stories themselves as such.

I hope the writing bug takes you somewhere fun, in any case!

 

[Ambyssin]

I think it ultimately comes down to the kind of PMD story you want to tell. The lack of names in Guiding Light was deliberate since A) it was a sort of AU to the main line games, and B) it was meant to foreshadow the fact that the partner had an ex-human parent. Many of the characters starting to adopt names at the end of the fic was also a sign of change and breaking away from traditions that had indirectly contributed to the world's present state.

Some adaptations of the canon world will actually name canon characters. And I don't usually have a problem with that. With purely original PMD stuff, most of them will name all the characters. Talking head syndrome is a concern yes, but it can be mitigated if you remind the readers of characters' species every so often. It's what I do for Path of Valor, where the entire cast is named. Even for the large chunk of characters with unique designs, including the fusions.

 

[Synidfar]

I think it ultimately comes down to the kind of PMD story you want to tell. The lack of names in Guiding Light was deliberate since A) it was a sort of AU to the main line games, and B) it was meant to foreshadow the fact that the partner had an ex-human parent. Many of the characters starting to adopt names at the end of the fic was also a sign of change and breaking away from traditions that had indirectly contributed to the world's present state.

Some adaptations of the canon world will actually name canon characters. And I don't usually have a problem with that. With purely original PMD stuff, most of them will name all the characters. Talking head syndrome is a concern yes, but it can be mitigated if you remind the readers of characters' species every so often. It's what I do for Path of Valor, where the entire cast is named. Even for the large chunk of characters with unique designs, including the fusions.

Hey Ambyssin. I just want to say that your story was really cool. I don't even understand why I find it cool, but thank you for writing it. ^^

 

[Ambyssin]

Aww, shucks. Thanks!

 

[Venia Silente]

There are only two hard problems in fiction:

• getting exposure feedback
• naming things (characters, places)
• writers having no sense of math

Negrek has the gist of it in pretty much the opening of the second para, I feel. And that points to a thing that also relates to the thread title that I wanted to get on.

Now, everyone writes their PMD differently yeah, but there are some things that are... I don't want to say "structurally universal" but they do are handy shortcuts... tricks to make "Having names" be easier to handle. Things like "employ 'Name the Species'", "give characters names that describe their function in the story" or "names are Chekov's Character Tags" are useful to get your point across to the reader. But they can also break immersion (the 2nd one in particular) because... well, names are given to characters in-universe for in-universe reasons, not for OOU ones.

Overall, that a character has a name or not and how memorable it is should be orthogonal to whether the character is or feels unique. "No one names their baby Lewis with the express purpose that they become Emperor of France in adulthood", etc.

This also touches with the talking heads aspect: if what you sense of the story is "a bunch of talking heads", then the story is at that moment already un-memorable enough to you that things like adding nametags to the characters, or the framing equivalent of adding lampshades to tropes, is not going to fix that.

That does not imply there's an objective problem with the story. It *can* still be a symptom of the moment, and in general it is a symptom of at least something, so sometimes it helps to take a step back, go look at what other stories are doing, and come back later.

Coming back to the question proper: I'd prefer stories have more named characters if it fits in-universe that people go around by their names. Just becase someone has a name doesn't mean others go by that name most of the time: after all, ill fitting be of a worthy Lancer / Rival to not try and stick the trend of going by "hey you!" (or even "asspin" if you want to have some fun and the rating allows) instead.


So... yeah?

 

[K_S]

Honestly, entering a fic, the status of named characters (PMD setting or otherwise) is kinda a meh point. I'm not going to call fowl if someone 'mon or otherwise is needlessly named, and it's not a turn-off to see a fic without names attached as long as it's written well enough I can follow what's happening...


Now, on the other hand, if you toss me a name and don't give enough details to figure out what mon it is/or a few points of identification for me to distinguish the character from everyone else in the room... my attention can wander. Also unless the story is riveting, having more than twenty main characters can be a bit overwhelming.

Talking head syndrome can be an issue, but there are ways to work around it. Have the cast be active while talking, small things like that, can help. I'd suggest if time and interest permits finding a story that is dialogue-heavy heavy that avoids talking heads might be a good idea to pick up pointers.

As the rest of the post is pulling a bit away from the base technical questions and gets a bit personal I'm gonna bow out on further commenting. and hope my snippet helped. Good luck with further writing projects and I hope you find joy in what you produce.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Would you prefer fanfiction that had more or less named characters?

It's less the number of names in a story and what you do with them. Since names have the benefit of helping characters to stand out, but too many names at once risks making them all go by in a blur, and some parts of the fandom just flatly don't like them (e.x. a non-trivial portion of trainerverse fandom actually dislikes names being used for Pokémon). Like if you're writing a story where your cast is entirely Pikachu, it would be remiss not to give them names to distinguish them between each other, even if it's something as simple as naming them after standout visual features of them (e.x. Notch-Tail, Swiftfoot, etc.), and naming schemes can be used as tools for fleshing out a setting and making it feel more alive (Power Trip did this very well as a PMD fic, while otherwise remaining very close to the official games for presentation).

I myself err towards being a bit more generous with naming characters, but that's partly because I use it as an opportunity to work in references and gags and when listening in on a conversation between background characters that are close to each other, it just feels logical that they'd address each other on a named basis. Not everyone agrees with that approach, but it works fine for me. One of the more popular methods of squaring the circle that I've seen these days is to run off a rule of Nominal Importance, in which one reserves explicit names mostly if not entirely for characters that are actually important to the story. If nothing else, it's handy for cutting down on the number of talking heads moment as long as your named cast itself is on the smaller side.

Just make your names (or lack of them) stand out to the readers and give some reminders of who the named speaker is that's talking periodically. That alone should do the bulk of the work for you.