??

[sholio]

Let us say, simply for the sake of argument, that one might be writing a short Dresden Files story from Murphy's POV, in the third person. Which would be a more natural-sounding name to call her, "Karrin" or "Murphy"? I started out with "Murphy" because it's how I think of her, then decided that most people probably don't think of themselves by their surname and went through and replaced it all with "Karrin", but now it reads a bit odd to me since the books always call her by her surname. Thoughts?

ETA: After trying it both ways, I think I'm going with Karrin because that's what sounds right for the story and for the level of third-person that I'm going for here. Thank you for the input, everyone; I'll be back to answer comments but right now I'm rushing off for work! :)

Comments

Popping in from /network

[jackandahat]

First: The world needs more Murphy-centric fic.

Second: If she's around people who usually call her Murphy, or at work, I could see her thinking of herself that way. So as long as you pick one and stick with it, I don't see it as being jarring. Some people are rarely addressed by surname, it would be weird then, but she gets it all day long at work, plus from Dresden

Re: Popping in from /network

[sholio]

Hi! And I TOTALLY AGREE about Murphy-centric fic. (Because Murphy rocks like a rocking thing!)

Someone on the LJ version of this post made the same point about consistency, and I think I agree with both of you that the most important thing by far is probably just picking what you're going to use and then sticking to it. I've rarely noticed if an author used first name or surname unless it waffled all over the place or was blatantly wrong for the character, like using surname for a character as a little kid or whatnot.