![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fiction Pet Peeve: A Horse With No Name
Jan. 13th, 2024 10:53 amA character is traveling from point A to point B. Method of transportation? A horse.
I want to know the name of the horse. This is not supplied as often as you might think.
Unless there is some reason for why the character doesn't actually know the horse's name, lack of it will trip me up like a missing note in a song. In spite of the fact this has no bearing on anything related to plot mechanics or descriptive skill or anything else remotely important to the form, and does not deduct any points from the quality of the tale or my enjoyment thereof, it raises a question never answered. The few old westerns I've read are especially prone to leaving the protagonist's horse as nameless as a taxi cab, despite said horse often gracing the cover.
When I was a small child in a big city, I obsessed over horses as some children are wont to do. I used to look through my mother's gardening catalogues in search of flower, fruit and vegetable varieties which would make good racehorse names, so it's possible I may be overly invested in this concept.
Note: The Black or The Sorrel or any other descriptor can work perfectly well as a name if appropriately capitalized (or owned by e.e. cummings). So can Horse. My grandfather had a cat named Cat, so I accept that not all people are creative in this way. But no name is not acceptable to my brain. Obviously.
When I wrote my Brian Cullen story, I had no recourse in the matter, as canon declared he killed a young dandy and stole his horse. They probably didn't stop to chat about the equine's provenance before the battle. I couldn't very well have him run the kid through, then have second thoughts. Seize the dying dandy by the hair. "Wait, what was your horse's name? Tell me! Dammit!"
But with A Crime Spree, I gave Matthew a scene on a legitimately acquired horse and I realized I could finally give the creature whatever overly ornamental name I might wish. I picked Gerineldo in a flight of Sephardic fancy, and absolutely no one who has ever or will ever read this fic will stop to appreciate this entirely pointless fact, but there it is. I gave that horse a name.
Okay, I'm done now.
I want to know the name of the horse. This is not supplied as often as you might think.
Unless there is some reason for why the character doesn't actually know the horse's name, lack of it will trip me up like a missing note in a song. In spite of the fact this has no bearing on anything related to plot mechanics or descriptive skill or anything else remotely important to the form, and does not deduct any points from the quality of the tale or my enjoyment thereof, it raises a question never answered. The few old westerns I've read are especially prone to leaving the protagonist's horse as nameless as a taxi cab, despite said horse often gracing the cover.
When I was a small child in a big city, I obsessed over horses as some children are wont to do. I used to look through my mother's gardening catalogues in search of flower, fruit and vegetable varieties which would make good racehorse names, so it's possible I may be overly invested in this concept.
Note: The Black or The Sorrel or any other descriptor can work perfectly well as a name if appropriately capitalized (or owned by e.e. cummings). So can Horse. My grandfather had a cat named Cat, so I accept that not all people are creative in this way. But no name is not acceptable to my brain. Obviously.
When I wrote my Brian Cullen story, I had no recourse in the matter, as canon declared he killed a young dandy and stole his horse. They probably didn't stop to chat about the equine's provenance before the battle. I couldn't very well have him run the kid through, then have second thoughts. Seize the dying dandy by the hair. "Wait, what was your horse's name? Tell me! Dammit!"
But with A Crime Spree, I gave Matthew a scene on a legitimately acquired horse and I realized I could finally give the creature whatever overly ornamental name I might wish. I picked Gerineldo in a flight of Sephardic fancy, and absolutely no one who has ever or will ever read this fic will stop to appreciate this entirely pointless fact, but there it is. I gave that horse a name.
Okay, I'm done now.
