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I'm considering writing a first-person narrative story with a villain protagonist whose personal identity is indeterminate. The story follows the protagonist gradually self-actualizing through the stories and lives of other characters.

The first-person narration avoids using any name for the protagonist until the very end. They refer to themselves only with first-person pronouns like "I". Descriptions of the protagonist’s physical features are contradictory at first but become more defined as the story progresses. Their true name is mentioned sparingly but is always censored with black censor bars (███████). The protagonist never refers to other characters with their names but simply uses variations of "Not I", leaving the readers to guess the characters being mentioned through dialogue alone.

The narrative frequently shifts to other characters' perspectives. Unlike the main character, the characters follow conventional narration. When they interact with or discuss the protagonist, each character uses a distinct name, title, and description for them.

Would this narrative style confuse readers?

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    Not an answer; but I would give up on it within a chapter. I might tolerate it longer if it was clear it was an alien or new life form or new AI, to which gender, "name", and even a notion of "self" might not apply. And I would probably put it down when you started using "black censor bars", I don't like stories that rely on gimmicks like that; where everybody in-story knows something I am not permitted to know just because the author wants to hide it from me. It would ruin my suspension of disbelief; it becomes too obviously contrived. Commented May 5 at 18:41

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As a small frame challenge

Based on my own attempts to do 'clever' gimmicks within the writing, like writing around my main character's pronouns (consistent name but unspecified gender), my beta readers were not confused... and also not impressed.

They tolerated the gimmick, assuming it was important to me to say something 'artistic', but eventually in discussion they all more or less revealed it was annoying. The gimmick was noticed immediately and never had a pay-off. It actually became more annoying over time because it was like a 1-note joke that never got to a punchline, and wasn't particularly interesting to begin with.

In the end I dropped it because it became distracting to readers, not confusing. They saw what I was doing right away, and they eventually were irritated because every sentence I contorted to hide a reference to gender through natural language, was more and more obvious the longer it went on – not that I got worse at it but never changed.

My advice is to try it, but consider if it is actually contributing anything of value to the character/story itself. Get reader feedback before you commit the entire story to a 1-trick gimmick.

Is there a next level, or a pay-off?

Once you've established this story-pattern, how does it evolve? How do you break the pattern in an interesting way?

My readers were mildly annoyed/bored because I had nowhere to go with the idea. It didn't develop into anything more than what it was on the 1st page.

To have more than a 1-trick 'gimmick' you'll need a way to 'twist' your own game. Once the readers follow the concept, then what?

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  • Something to add to this though - where there is an in-world justification as to why a name isn't used (thinking of saying Shaitan in Wheel of Time incurs real-world ptoblems) and so there is a whole host of alternate names that are used (which I rather enjoy) same with Tolkein's world. Commented May 4 at 22:59
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Too confusing? That's impossible to say without reading your text. Somewhat confusing? Probably. But then maybe that is your intention.

Think of a mystery novel with multiple suspects and multiple witnesses. The hints and witness accounts will contradict each other, confusing both the detective and the readers. This is intentional and part of the appeal of such a story.

What is important is that the average (!) member of your target audience – with an average attention span, average memory capacity, and average intelligence – will be able to eventually come to the right conclusion. So make sure you:

  • repeat your clues often enough for the readers not to miss them even if they read a bit inattentively (redundancy),
  • you state the revelation clearly enough (clarity),
  • and you repeat key moments from your story when you reveal the solution (explanation).
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