Naming with Intent: Why Not Every Character Needs a Name

How to avoid cluttering your cast with false promises

Naming a character is a declaration: “This person matters.” It’s a signal flare to the reader that says, Pay attention. But when names are handed out like party favors to one-scene baristas and shuttle pilots, the result isn’t clarity—it’s cognitive clutter.

🚫 Why Over-Naming Hurts Your Story

• False Expectations: A named character implies narrative weight. If your protagonist chats with “Lieutenant Brask” in Chapter 2 and Brask never returns, readers may spend the next ten chapters wondering when he’ll reappear with a plasma rifle or a secret agenda. In Juxtapose City by Tricia Owens, names are used with precision—each one signals a role in the unfolding tension, whether political, romantic, or tactical. That’s the kind of narrative gravity that earns a name.
• Cognitive Overload: Every name is a memory checkpoint. If your reader has to remember “Todd the clerk” who sells a datapad and vanishes, that’s mental bandwidth better spent on your actual plot. In The Silver Ships series by S.H. Jucha, the cast is lean and purposeful—named characters tend to matter, and that clarity helps the story move.
• Streamlining the Narrative: A focused cast keeps the story tight. If your vampire queen meets a one-scene blood courier, he’s “the courier,” not “Derek.” Unless Derek’s going to betray her, seduce her, or turn out to be her long-lost brother, let him stay anonymous. Joely Sue Burkhart’s Queen series is a great example—named characters are either emotionally resonant or plot-relevant, often both.

✅ Naming with Purpose

• Name characters who shift the plot, deepen the world, or carry emotional weight.
• Let minor roles stay minor—“the medic,” “the archivist,” “the grumpy werewolf.”
• Use naming as a signal, not a habit.

In speculative fiction and paranormal romance, names are more than labels—they’re narrative promises. Make sure yours are worth keeping.

Grounding in Multi-POV Narratives: Keeping Readers Oriented Across Shifting Perspectives

Multi-POV storytelling is a gift—and a challenge. Done well, it gives readers a panoramic view of your world, deepens emotional resonance, and lets you play with tension from multiple angles. Done poorly, it’s like being yanked through a revolving door with a blindfold on.

Grounding is what keeps it all coherent. It’s how you help readers reorient every time the narrative (POV) lens shifts—without losing momentum or emotional clarity.

🧭 What Is Multi-POV Grounding?

Every time you switch perspectives, you’re asking the reader to recalibrate. Who’s speaking now? Where are we? What matters to this character in this moment?

Multi-POV grounding is the art of answering those questions quickly and smoothly. It’s not just about labeling the POV—it’s about emotionally and narratively anchoring the reader so they can feel the shift, not just see it.

🛠 How to Ground Each POV Shift Without Repeating Yourself

• Start with a sensory or emotional hook: What does this character notice first? What’s their emotional filter? In The Expanse by James S.A. Corey, Holden’s POV often opens with moral tension, while Amos’s starts with visceral observation. One’s worried about ethics; the other’s worried about whether the ship explodes.
• Use voice and rhythm: POV shifts should feel distinct. Naomi’s internal monologue shouldn’t sound like Bobbie’s. Grounding helps establish that difference without over-explaining.
• Reestablish stakes: Remind us what this character wants, fears, or is reacting to. Even a subtle cue—“He scanned the wreckage, hoping the others hadn’t made it this far”—grounds us in motive.

🧙‍♀️ Genre Examples That Nail It

• Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley: POV shifts often reflect cultural tension—grounding helps readers track who’s aligned with what values, especially when characters from different traditions clash. Bonus points for psychic drama and political angst.
• Zones of Thought by Vernor Vinge: When the narrative jumps between human and alien perspectives, grounding through sensory detail and internal logic keeps the reader from getting lost in translation. If your alien thinks in fractals, we need a little help.
• Hellhounds of Paradise Falls by Arden Steele: This M/M paranormal romance uses POV shifts to explore emotional stakes from both leads—whether it’s the alpha’s protective instincts or the other protagonist’s struggle with identity, trust, and transformation. Each POV opens with visceral cues—scent, sensation, memory—that ground the reader fast and deepen the emotional pull. Also, hellhounds. Enough said.

🚫 Common Pitfalls

• Head-hopping without warning: If you shift POV mid-scene without a clear break or cue, readers may not notice until they’re confused. Then they’ll reread the last page muttering “Wait, who’s talking?”
• Samey voices: If every POV sounds the same, grounding becomes harder. Readers rely on tone, rhythm, and emotional lens to track who’s speaking. If your stoic warrior and your sarcastic hacker sound identical, we’ve got a problem.
• Repetitive re-grounding: You don’t need to reintroduce the entire world every time. Trust your reader to track the broader story—just make sure each POV shift reestablishes who’s speaking, how they see the moment, and what lens they’re bringing to the narrative.

✍️ Editorial Takeaway

Multi-POV stories thrive when each perspective feels like a doorway into a lived experience. Grounding isn’t just helpful—it’s essential. It’s how you keep readers from feeling like they’ve been yanked into a new room with the lights off.

So before you switch heads, ask yourself: What does this character bring to the moment? What’s their lens, their tension, their truth?

Because when grounding is done right, multi-POV fiction doesn’t just expand—it immerses.

Scene-Level Grounding: How to Keep Readers Anchored Without Slowing the Story

You’ve probably heard the phrase “don’t leave your reader floating.” It’s the editorial equivalent of “don’t start a scene in a white void.” Scene-level grounding is all about giving readers just enough context—where we are, who’s present, what’s emotionally at stake—so they can settle in and follow the action without confusion or whiplash.

This isn’t about dumping exposition or painting every blade of grass. It’s about strategic anchoring. Think of it as the narrative equivalent of checking your GPS before hitting the gas.

🧭 What Is Scene-Level Grounding?

At the start of a scene, readers need orientation. That means:

• Where are we? (Setting)
• Who’s here? (Characters)
• What’s the mood or tension? (Emotional tone)
• What just happened or is about to happen? (Continuity, or when the scene takes place in relation to other story events)

If you skip this, readers may feel like they’ve been dropped into a fog. Even in fast-paced fiction, a few well-placed cues can make all the difference.

🛠 How to Ground Without Dragging

You don’t need a paragraph of description. You need a few smart signals.

• Setting through action: Instead of “They were in a forest,” try “She ducked under a low branch, boots crunching through damp leaves.” Bonus points if the leaves are glowing or whispering secrets.
• Character presence through interaction: A glance, a line of dialogue, a shared task—these can reestablish who’s in the scene. No need to roll call the entire cast unless someone’s gone missing.
• Emotional tone through sensory cues: “The air felt tight, like the moment before a storm.” That’s tension without telling us “everyone was tense.” And if the storm smells like brimstone, we’re definitely in speculative territory.

🧙‍♀️ Genre Examples That Nail It

• The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold: Bujold often opens scenes with Miles reacting to his environment—whether it’s a military briefing or a romantic entanglement. We know where we are and what’s at stake within a few lines, often with a dash of wit and a looming disaster.
• Liaden Universe by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller: Scene openings often use cultural cues—formality levels, gestures, spatial awareness—to ground us in both setting and social tension. It’s like etiquette with a side of space opera.
• Hellhounds of Paradise Falls by Arden Steele: With its blend of supernatural intrigue and romantic tension, this M/M paranormal romance uses POV shifts to explore emotional stakes from both leads. Whether it’s the alpha’s protective instincts or the other protagonist’s struggle with identity and trust, each scene opens with visceral cues—scent, sensation, memory—that ground the reader fast and deepen the emotional pull.

🚫 Common Pitfalls

• Floating heads: Dialogue without setting or movement can feel like disembodied voices in a void. Unless your characters are literally ghosts, give them a room.
• Time jumps with no signals: If it’s “three days later,” say so. Otherwise, readers will assume continuity and get confused. Temporal whiplash is real.
• Over-grounding: Don’t reintroduce everything every time. Trust your reader to carry some context forward—just offer a clear entry point into the moment. Think of it like stepping through a trusted portal: the gravity’s calibrated, the air’s breathable, and the scene isn’t buffering like a second-rate holodeck.

✍️ Editorial Takeaway

Scene-level grounding is a rhythm. You don’t need to hit every note every time, but you do need to keep the beat. A well-grounded scene lets readers relax into the story, confident they know where they are and why it matters.

So before you dive into snappy dialogue or high-stakes action, take a breath. Ask yourself: Have I given the reader enough to stand on?

Because when grounding is done right, the story doesn’t just move—it flows.

Missed last week’s post on emotional grounding across the whole story? Go check it out—it’s the deeper anchor that makes speculative fiction linger.

Beyond Scene Openers: Grounding Your Story with Emotional Weight

You know that moment in a book when everything clicks—not because of a plot twist or a flashy reveal, but because you suddenly feel the story in your bones? That’s grounding. It’s the emotional anchor that makes speculative fiction resonate beyond the cool tech, the dragons, or the interstellar politics.

Quick note: This isn’t about grounding at the start of every scene (though that’s important too—hello, floating heads in empty rooms). This is about the deeper kind of grounding: the emotional and narrative anchors that make your story matter.

Grounding isn’t just about setting or exposition. It’s about giving the reader something real to hold onto—something that makes the story matter.

🧭 What Is Grounding, Really?

In editorial terms, grounding is the emotional and narrative context that helps readers orient themselves. It’s the “why should I care?” factor. Without it, even the most inventive worldbuilding can feel like a tour of someone else’s dream journal.

Think of it as the gravity that keeps your story from floating off into abstraction. It’s the difference between “This planet has three suns” and “She watched the third sun rise, knowing it marked the end of her brother’s sentence.”

One is neat. The other hurts a little. That’s grounding.

🛠 How Grounding Works in Speculative Fiction

Speculative fiction loves to play with the unfamiliar—alien cultures, magic systems, time loops. But readers still need emotional footholds. Grounding gives them that.

Let’s break it down:

• Emotional stakes: What does the character want, fear, or love? In The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, Miles’s physical vulnerability and relentless drive ground even the wildest political machinations.
• Relatable reactions: How does the character respond to the weirdness? In The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, Essun’s grief and rage make the apocalyptic setting feel personal.
• Sensory detail with purpose: Not just “the air smelled like ozone,” but “the ozone stung her throat, reminding her of the last time she’d run from a breach.”

Grounding isn’t about slowing down the story—it’s about making the story stick.

🧪 Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)

• Over-explaining worldbuilding: If you’re spending three paragraphs on the history of your magic system before we know who’s using it and why, you’ve lost the reader. Ground us in character first.
• Floating dialogue: Snappy banter is great, but if we don’t know where the characters are or what’s at stake, it’s just noise. Even a quick line like “She whispered, hoping the guards wouldn’t hear” can re-anchor the scene.
• Emotional vagueness: “She was sad” doesn’t cut it. Give us the cracked voice, the clenched fists, the memory that triggered it. Bonus points if it involves a cursed heirloom or a forbidden love.

🧙‍♀️ Genre Examples That Nail It

• Liaden Universe by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller: The Korval clan’s sense of duty and family honor grounds the space opera in emotional tradition. Also, they make bowing look badass.
• Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley: Telepathic powers and feudal politics are cool, but it’s the tension between personal freedom and cultural expectation that gives the series its bite.
• Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon: Yes, it’s blue aliens and spicy romance, but the emotional grounding—trauma, trust, survival—makes it more than just fun escapism. Plus, who knew tusks could be tender?

✍️ Editorial Takeaway

As an editor, I look for grounding early in a manuscript. If I’m floating through the first chapter without emotional context, I know readers will be too. Grounding doesn’t mean dumping backstory—it means giving us a reason to care, right now.

So before you launch your protagonist into hyperspace or summon the demon prince, ask yourself: What’s anchoring this moment? What’s the emotional truth beneath the spectacle?

Because when grounding is done well, speculative fiction doesn’t just entertain—it lingers.

Next week: We’ll dive into scene-level grounding—how to orient readers at the start of each scene without slowing your momentum or losing the magic. Stay tuned.

Styling Sci-Fi (and Fantasy) Ships & Spacecraft the CMOS 18 Way

Spaceships (and fantasy vessels) deserve the same formatting respect as historical vessels—whether they’re sleek starfighters, planet-hopping frigates, or galaxy-spanning warships. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS 18) helps keep ship names and classifications consistent.

Because let’s be real—an improperly styled Millennium Falcon or USS Enterprise can disrupt immersion faster than a hyperdrive malfunction.

Italicizing Sci-Fi Ship Names

✔ Full ship names are italicized – Millennium Falcon, USS Enterprise, Rocinante.
✔ Prefixes remain roman – USS Voyager, SS Heart of Gold, ISS Discovery.
✔ No quotation marks – Not "Serenity," but Serenity.

If Han Solo is bragging about the Millennium Falcon, you bet it needs italics. The prefix "USS" for Starfleet ships stays roman, just like naval vessels.

Prefixes & Sci-Fi Designations

Military & Fleet Ships:
✅ USS (United Star Ship / United Space Ship – Starfleet)
✅ IAV (Interstellar Alliance Vessel – Firefly)
✅ ISS (Interstellar Ship – common sci-fi use)

Civilian & Commercial Ships:
✅ SS (Space Ship – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Heart of Gold)
✅ TS (Trade Ship – various sci-fi universes)

🚀 Example: USS Discovery (Not: “USS Discovery” or USS Discovery).

Referencing Ships in Sci-Fi Narratives

✔ Use “it,” not “she” – CMOS prefers neutral pronouns (The Rocinante sustained damage, but it kept flying).
✔ Lowercase generic mentions – The starship carried refugees.
✔ Historical or well-known ships follow standard rules – Serenity flew under radar, but the serenity of deep space stretched before them.

Sci-Fi Ship Classes & Types

✔ Do NOT italicize class names unless derived from proper nouns – the Nimitz-class carriers, the X-Wing-class fighters.
✔ Capitalize classes named after specific entities – Apollo-class explorer, but stealth-class corvette.

Example? The USS Enterprise is a Galaxy-class starship, but a general exploration-class vessel.

Hull Numbers & Designations in Sci-Fi

✔ Follow real-world naval formatting – USS Voyager (NCC-74656) conducted long-range scans.
✔ Keep identification numbers in roman text – NX-01 Enterprise, BB-63 Missouri.

Final Thought: Keeping Sci-Fi & Fantasy Ships Shipshape

Sci-fi and fantasy ships deserve accurate styling, whether they’re darting through asteroid fields or waging war across the stars. By applying CMOS 18 rules, you ensure clarity while keeping immersion intact.

Trusting Context and Order in Dialogue

How Readers Naturally Follow Conversations Without Excessive Tagging

Dialogue is the heartbeat of speculative fiction—it unveils personality, fuels tension, and moves the narrative forward. But too many dialogue tags (like he said, she replied) can bog down pacing and distract from what really matters: the exchange itself.

When context, voice, and rhythm work together, readers instinctively follow conversations without needing constant reminders about who's speaking. Speculative fiction thrives on immersive dialogue—where clarity comes not from tagging, but from trust in the reader’s ability to track the scene.

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🔍 Why Context Strengthens Dialogue

• Clear character voices naturally signal who’s speaking.
• Logical turn-taking builds conversational rhythm.
• Strategic action beats clarify speakers without relying on repetitive tags.

Writers often worry that dialogue without attribution will confuse readers—but readers are smarter than we think. In scenes with two characters, the rhythm of back-and-forth is enough to guide them. Tags become necessary only when that rhythm breaks—such as when a third voice enters or an action interrupts the flow.

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📖 The Fifth Season – Rhythm and Clarity Without Excessive Tags

N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season offers a masterclass in subtle, context-driven dialogue. In scenes between Essun and Hoa, Jemisin minimizes attribution, relying on voice and pacing to signal who’s speaking:

"You should eat something."
"I'm not hungry."
"Still."

No “he said” or “she replied”—yet readers track each line effortlessly. The characters’ personalities, emotional subtext, and the order of exchange create momentum and clarity. Jemisin weaves in action and internal reflection to maintain rhythm without clutter.

Later scenes deepen this technique with layered emotions and unspoken tension, still keeping tags minimal:

"You don’t trust me yet."
"I barely know you."
"You barely know anyone anymore."

This kind of fluidity rewards close reading and amplifies emotional weight. It’s also genre-appropriate—speculative fiction often demands subtext and character-driven revelations that benefit from sparse tagging.

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✏️ How to Strengthen Dialogue Without Tags

Let the structure do the heavy lifting:

• Distinct character voices
  If your telepath speaks in clipped, emotionless phrases and your smuggler favors sarcasm, you won’t need to tell us who said what—we’ll know.
• Dialogue placement as rhythm
  Alternating lines between two characters builds cadence and clarity. Disrupt only when the narrative needs it.
• Strategic action beats and internal thoughts
  A sigh, a glance at the sky, a shift in posture—these subtle cues anchor speakers without drawing attention to themselves.
• Reserve tags for disruption, not continuity
  Dialogue tags are scaffolding, not spotlight. Use them when rhythm breaks or clarity demands a nudge.

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🧪 Writing Exercise – Dialogue Without Tags

Invite readers into the craft:

1️ Write a short dialogue between two characters—one human, one non-human (a stone eater, AI interface, interstellar diplomat, etc.).
2️ Limit yourself to one dialogue tag every six lines.
3️ Use personality-driven speech, action beats, and pacing cues to signal the speaker.
4️ Read it aloud: Does the rhythm and tone naturally identify who’s speaking without confusion?

Optional Bonus: Replace a tag with an internal reaction or sensory description to enrich atmosphere.

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💬 Final Reflection

Mastering context-driven dialogue invites readers into conversations without holding their hand. Speculative fiction, more than any genre, welcomes this trust—it’s where alien minds, magical bonds, and revolutionary ideas unfold in voices that are distinct, compelling, and confident.

No need to say “she said” when the tone already says it all.