Leaderboard

I’m in the middle of writing something and I noticed that I have been very unstructured in how I refer to a particular character. They’re the mayor of a town and in canon we know their full name. But when I write about them I often use just a piece of their name. For instance: “Mayor John Smith says” “Mayor Smith declares” “Mayor John suggests” “says John Smith” Part of me worries that while I have established their full name within the context, if I’m constantly switching like that, I might confuse the audience. How do you go about figuring out this problem? Or do you not worry about it?

I’ve been trying to look this up but get very vague answers. It’s part of a story I’ve been working on. More often than not, what I read is “several hours” or “last for hours”. The most I can find is 6 or 8 hours. But that’s usually from sales websites and things like that. Not clear if it’s actually real or not. Whether it can be longer or shorter.

@Deadman’s recent post brought this question to mind: What do you consider the best way to write an orgy scene? My usual approach is this: After I make a list of the participants and who will be getting it on with whom, I describe the action in round-robin fashion, writing a few paragraphs about what each pair or group is doing and then moving on to the next until I’ve come full circle and then starting at the top again. I feel like this approach provides the reader some sense that the action is all going on simultaneously. However, I’m also concerned that the constant jumps from one group to the next are too disruptive for at least some readers. Thoughts?