: Re: Is there any limit on how long a story can progress without the reader knowing the name of the character introduced so far? So far, I've written about 10,000 words or so and have yet to

@Merenda569

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It is easier to do this is your character is the narrator, since they will always refer to themselves as "I," and in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I don't remember ever learning the narrator's name. This also works best when the story is a very clean reader-self-insert like Japanese Light Novels, where the characters actions and description can fit practically anybody (although that is also bad writing for having a main character). Some video games, such as Half-Life, fall halfway between by giving their character no personality, but instead having the characters talk to you as if you were that character.

Additionally, in Aesop's fables or other (generally sci-fi or fantasy) stories, characters are often referred to physically (tortoise, haire) or by title (The Engineer, The First Mate). Because there is an infinite combination of words, you can go an infinite number of words without any mention of the character having a name.

OPINION: My practice, because I prefer third-person, is to give my characters very contrasting names based on their roles in the story. When I write first-person stories, I tend to give the character a name anyways just for storyboarding purposes.

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