I Used To Fall For This Trap Like, A Stupid Amount. I Was So Worried About Being Repetitive In My Writing

I used to fall for this trap like, a stupid amount. I was so worried about being repetitive in my writing I forgot to make it easy to comprehend. And the more I thought about it the more I realized that I never noticed when writers only used a characters name unless I was actively looking for it.

The POV thing is such a great way to put it and it really helps you to immerse yourself in the world of the character. Plus, if a character is mentally referring to someone as “the doctor” you can have a fun moment with the shift from using that to their actual name when the MC finally learns what it is.

using a descriptive pronoun ("the doctor" referring to a doctor who has already been named, "the brunette" referring to a brunette who had already been named) is simply bad writing. it creates a momentary rift in reader comprehension and does not help the story in any capacity. don't do it