Blue Rinse Brigade Dilemma

[AnyaKimlin]

I suspect there isn't a right answer, but I'm editing so entering silly season when it comes to questions:

All he had wanted was three custard slices and a crusty bloomer but he’d been treated to the tale of Mrs Arbuthnot’s daughter’s hysterectomy. She was part of his mother’s blue rinse brigade so he was forced to be polite and listen.

Now my main character, Ian, just calls them the blue rinse brigade because they are a group of elderly people so I've placed in lower case.

However, The Blue Rinse Brigade is, unbeknown to Ian, a witches coven. They use capital letters. In other POVs they will be capitalised but without an explanation for about half the story.

I don't know whether I should be consistent or how to even ask the question in a coherent fashion! Will it look bad if Ian uses blue rinse brigade whereas Pete, Matt and John use The Blue Rinse Brigade?

 

[VinceK]

I hope I've understood you correctly. Is there any reason why Ian couldn't say they were part of his mother's bridge club?

 

[Biskit]

I read, I giggled, did the dishwasher and decided I think you should use The Blue Rinse Brigade for all POVs, purely because I think that were I in that position, I would mentally capitalise my nick-name for my relatives/friends. Of course, people who know me have, on occasion, suggested that I am a little strange.

In the context you have given, where it is more a descriptive term, the lower case perhaps works better, but anywhere he thinks/says references to his mothers friends it feels like a group name - The Blue Rinse Brigade.

For many years we had a group of four elderly sheep who hung out together, cadged treats together, and were known as the Ladies Wot Lurch - definitely capitals. When two of the them died, the remainder were renamed The Baggages (or sometimes Les Baggage, just because franglais seemed to suit.) and again definitely capitals.

Now, if The Boys (Oatmeal and Piper, 2x 6.5kg of tom cat, definitely capitals) have stopped squabbling in front of the stove and gone out, I can have the kitchen to make supper.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I hope I've understood you correctly. Is there any reason why Ian couldn't say they were part of his mother's bridge club?

Ian unintentionally named them. They adopted his nickname. And not entirely sure Granny Black plays bridge. I know she plays strip Scrabble with Mr Falmouth but there's never been any mention of bridge

 

[Biskit]

And I have to say I like the deliberate confusion/misdirect of different POVs knowing the same group by the same title for different reasons.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

If I were editing it, I would likely put it lower case for his POV because he doesn't mentally capitalize it, and capitalize it for people who know that it's actually an official name. Otherwise it's confusing because it looks like he knows something that he doesn't. I've had a couple of those in Explorations just now, where one usage is capitalized and another of the same thing is not, for reasons similar to yours. It's all about how that character thinks about what they are saying or thinking.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I've had a couple of those in Explorations just now, where one usage is capitalized and another of the same thing is not, for reasons similar to yours. It's all about how that character thinks about what they are saying or thinking.

That's what I thought - I was just wondering if it was messy if I didn't do it especially as he later starts to capitalise them.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

And I have to say I like the deliberate confusion/misdirect of different POVs knowing the same group by the same title for different reasons.

It was one of those unintentional thing that kind of works better than I could have intentionally conceived

 

[Biskit]

It was one of those unintentional thing that kind of works better than I could have intentionally conceived

Been there, done that, and sometimes I confess all when the Biskitetta says 'That was really clever'.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Been there, done that, and sometimes I confess all when the Biskitetta says 'That was really clever'.

It was like the repetitive bit of the first draft I realised if I divided up the repetitive bits between their sons it would make each one a little different but emphasise their connection to Ian and Wilf.

 

[Biskit]

I've been writing a multi-part time-travel completely-bonkers space-opera (it was only supposed to be one little book) and I was just getting towards the end of the second part and trying to figure out how one of my heroes gets out of one predicament and into position to kick-arse in the third. I can't remember what set me off but I just wrote a throw-away scene where one of the villains offers the hero a job, pretty much a 'join me or die' offer, and she says yes. And means it. (You kind of have to when facing a mind-reader.) I knew where the third book had to go, but had no idea how to do it, and all of a sudden it's turned on it's head and works.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

That's what I thought - I was just wondering if it was messy if I didn't do it especially as he later starts to capitalise them.

I don't think so -- it reflects his changing perspective on the subject. He doesn't know it's a proper name to start with, and then he does. It's accurate to the changing circumstances as the reader sees them.