In my story the bad guy is named "The Dark Lord" (yes it's generic, it's humor-fantasy so it's just funnier that way). My main character calls everyone by a nickname, so he calls the bad guy D.L. But it looks weird when "D.L." is written like that, at least to me. It seems like it would almost be better as "DL" but I don't think that would be correct. I have an excerpt of dialog here, can someone tell me if I'm handling the nickname properly or if I should change it: He turned the headmaster to point out the door. “Out there the Dark Lord waits. I know, because I was doing the same thing there that I'm doing here. He's evil, he's powerful, and he's rich. Now, let me emphasize that last one. He's made a lot of good investments, mainly in pillaging hoards. You've heard how they raid the country side, the guy is making money hand over fist from that. He worked hard to get where he is. D.L. over there came from a slave pen, now look at him! I couldn't take that away from him. That would be cruel.” You'll probably find some other errors in this excerpt as well, I haven't rewritten this part yet So point out anything you feel like, but I'm really looking for opinions on how to handle this nickname.
It is a nickname you can write it however you like. I have a Lord of Evil/Matriach of Evil in my books and it isn't meant as humour lol it just stuck.
There's nothing wrong with generic names, as far as I'm concerned What I'm worried about with the nickname is whether the periods break the flow of reading. It does for me, but I've also read it about a million times and I don't remember if it's been a problem since the first time I read it or not.
When I write my intials I don't always put a period in - as it is a nickname you don't really need them. It would be like AJ, LJ, OJ etc
I, like you, think it works better without the periods. I think your first introduction of DL works very naturally and rather effectively in the above excerpt. I would be pretty pretty tempted, though, to call him The Lord of Darkness, since then the nickname becomes LD, which just sounds better.
Ok, thanks! I've been wanting to write it as DL, but I've been hesitant because I didn't know if that would be correct grammar.
forget 'correct grammar' in this case and go with 'author's style'... as long as you're consistent, no one will toss your ms for 'bad grammar'... and if you're lucky enough to snag a publisher, they'll do it their way, anyway...
Thanks, that is a good point. I don't think I'll be looking to publish this story honestly. I might self publish it, but even then it would be under a pen name, and free. It's not a bad story (as far as I'm concerned) but I wouldn't want people thinking that I'm not capable of being serious in my writing since this is really more of a satirical piece about all the bad fantasy I've read. Edit: Maybe I'll post it in the writing workshop later.
If you wanted to take it a step further, you could choose to spell out the abbreviation as a word. In the case of my character named KP Williams, everyone thinks KP is an odd name, so instead of saying the letters, they say it as a word--Kip. DL would be a little odd in this manner, though. Diell? De'el? Or possibly Daniel or Danielle, since they sound sorta close. Perhaps that's what the hero calls him as a way of making fun of The Dark Lord. I realize you said you're wanting to use DL, but I'm posting this all the same. Just another possibility to consider. Anything goes with character names, so there's no need to fear being "wrong" or bizarre, meaning my suggestion is fair game.
Actually the "hero" personally knows the Dark Lord, and finds him charming and pleasant. He keeps telling stories about DL that make the good guys look unthoughtful and unfriendly in comparison (even though the Dark Lord murders entire villages ). I was trying that out for a bit on the first draft, I had come up with Dee-el, but I wasn't really feeling it for the story, it didn't mesh well with the other nicknames he was using.
