labelling a character

[Alexis]

I will offer this bit, hoping it helps.

You wrote:

1. "trying to arrest him" / "It wasn’t as funny when the words were repeated in the room behind him."

And then

2. "The move caught the officer, the figure was sure the shape was a police officer rather than one of the hospital’s security guards,"

My thoughts: A police officer would usually identity himself as such when arresting someone, "This is the police, move away and put your hands on your back" (or something along that trend) which means the figure would have known it was a police officer without having to pay any attention to shapes etc. The officer told him already.

[Alexis]

What is your problem actually? I'm a bit slow this morning lol

[Jane]

You could always use a very old device and call him X. Or use The Killer capitalised.

[Ken]

Alex wrote: "I have a bit of a dilemma and could do with some help, I have a scene, several, in which my killer features but I don't want to use the killer's name or anything else that might easily identify him..."

I'm reading the third Cormoran Strike novel at the moment (J K Rowling, aka Robert Galbraith) and there are several chapters written from the killer's POV in third person. Nowhere is he identified, except for his gender. I recommend taking a look at it if you can.

[M.J.]

Hi Alex.

I have often found that the best way to hide a character's identity is to change the POV. I feel that by doing this, I'm not only able to conceal the character's identity, but also add some mystery to the scene.

Something like:
"The constable saw the grin on her attackers face. He seemed to be laughing at the fact that she was trying to arrest him before he started strangling her."

Further, using Alexis' suggestion, you can switch the POV to the other character entering the room.

Obviously this only works if you want to change the POV. Hope this helped.

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

Jane's suggestion of calling him "The Killer" is good.

I agree with M.J., too. In both my published novel and the one I'm currently working on, there's a lot that needs to be kept a secret for some time. I found it tough to do that until I changed the point of view from an omniscient third to first. Play with it a bit.

[Isaac]

I'm all for the idea of using "The Killer" as a surrogate name. Using "he" is always fine, but can become confusing with a male officer. Do we have a name for said officer? All in all, it isn't terrible as it is, especially if this happens in little sections or scenes. A whole chapter could get tedious.

[G.G.]

I also have seen similar things done using the pronoun he with a capital letter to differentiate the two. So the officer would be he, and The Killer would be He.

[Jessica]

Referring to him as "the man" could work too. Another way to differentiate him from other he/him characters in scene.

[G.G.]

Alex wrote: "G.G. wrote: "I also have seen similar things done using the pronoun he with a capital letter to differentiate the two. So the officer would be he, and The Killer would be He."

Now that it's been m..."

Don't worry about that. We all learn along the way. That's how we grow and get better! :)

[Noor]

As soon as I read your original post I couldn't help thinking of a Charles Dickens description that I absolutely love. It was a similar situation where a criminal kept popping up in random scenes and interacting with characters briefly. The only way you could tell it was the same person in all those scenes was because whenever he smiled, I think (it's been a while) the description says that "his mustache went up and his nose came down..."

I can't even remember which book this was from - possibly Little Dorrit, but I could be wrong - but it worked really well.

So maybe try using a descriptive cue like that to identify him. I also agree with those posters above who suggested you switch POV so that someone else is observing him/describing him to us and that person doesn't necessarily know his identity yet so it wouldn't feel weird to say things like "the figure" or "the man".

Good luck!

[Alfred]

I think I remember a similar situation in Dean Koontz' book "Hideaway". There is a killer who calls himself by a diabolical nickname so you never realize who he really is until the end of the book. There is quite a bit of action featuring the killer, but it's still mysterious and leaves you wondering until the end because of how he wrote it.

[Christie]

Could he have some kind of alias that he goes by as a killer? Like the NightHawk or something like that?