Describing Heyes and Kid

Okay, so I'm trying to get a bunny or two to hop for me. As I was reading the little I wrote, I realized I used "Heyes" and "Kid" way too much. So, I was curious, what other ways do you indicate its Heyes or Kid without using Heyes or Kid?

Sometimes I'll use something to let the reader know who's talking by saying something like "His blue eyes flashed angrily" (Kid). Or if I'm referring to Heyes, I might say "The smile widened, revealing two dimples."

Sometimes in the narrative parts I like to describe their looks or use Hannibal or Jed but when I have them speaking to each other (in most cases) I have them use Heyes or the Kid.

But, remember they do not have to actually say each others name. Think how often you actually say your best friends name when you are with them.

Hope that helps some

Alternatives that I have used in place of their actual names are: partner, friend, cousin (since I'm in that camp), the blond, the dark-haired man, the gunman, the older man, the younger man. Other possibilities coud be: the blue-eyed man and the brown-eyed man (and any version of blue/brown you can think of), the poker player. Hope this helps!

Some idiot actually used all these descriptors in a story:
cherubic, curly blond-haired, baby blue-eyed, deep warm cocoa-eyed fella, warm brown-eyed fella, the handsome brown-haired man, soft brown (n. any of a group of colors between red and yellow in hue) eyed man, really really blue eyed fella, aquamarine eyed fella, fella with eyes like two M ‘n Ms without the candy coating, deep really blue-eyed guy, cute brown-eyed man, fella with the crinkly dimpled smile, etc.
I mean, you can really overdo the hair and eye color bit. Oh wait. That was me.
Seriously, I prefer friend, partner, the other fella(of course you have to know which fella is which to begin with), and Curry (but not coming from Heyes in dialog).

Another way we would know it's the Kid talking is the language and the dropppin' of "g"s in some of his words. The Kid doesn't talk "dumb" but Heyes uses a bigger vocabulary.

I do not see either of them as talking dumb. However, I have noticed Heyes will pick up dilaects of who he is with. Furthermore, he seems to slip more into a traditional western dialect. Example.... I ain't seen any one nearly as pretty as that girl in ages. I feel Heyes has worked to improve his speech through education and reading further seperating himself from who he was and who he wants to be. Hence, being around him Curry has picked up on some of these speech habits although his day to day linguistic habits seem to require word structures which drop letters and as a writer you end up using more hyphens on his speech. Or maybe I am simply seeing to deep into an issue. Of course as a writer, do we not all tend to over analyze the boys so we can make them more real in our mind which consequently allows them to be more real in our stories. What would Huggins, Murphy, & Duel think if they realized that people try so very hard to understand the comings and goings of their characters all to make them so much more three dimensionally real.

Thanks for all the suggestions and sorry for the late reply (real life!). I think I may have to use all of yours BJ, especially like the eyes like m & m's without the candy coating!! That most certainly should find a way into a story, Actually I think it would be a challenge to put them all into a story! Perhaps if I tried writing a story without every saying Heyes or Kid it would actually get completed as opposed to fizzling out.

I'm guilty of the over use of names. I never even realized I was doing it until Penski kindly PM'd me and pointed out, very gently, too, that I'd used their names in way too many sentences of dialogue in my Moving On story. Boy, did I appreciate that help!!

I try not to over-describe people in my stories. I was told a long time ago that it is far better to under describe and let the readers create their own pictures of the characters in their heads. Unfortunately, that probably prompted my abuse of their names.

Now, I try to look at the scene I am writing the dialogue for. Are there only two speakers? If so, that's pretty easy. If there are more than two, I do use he said, she said. That same teacher said that when using 'said' you should minimize the use of descriptors such as 'said angrily' or 'muttered Heyes', again citing that strong dialogue makes this unnecessary and it becomes distracting. He said that a reader's eye will skip right over 'he said'; the eye becomes trained to ignore it, but more descriptive language stops the eye. I took that class 25 years ago and never actually wrote until last year so perhaps a lot of what I learned is obsolete now, but these two things still ring true for me.

"That same teacher said that when using 'said' you should minimize the use of descriptors such as 'said angrily' or 'muttered Heyes', again citing that strong dialogue makes this unnecessary and it becomes distracting. He said that a reader's eye will skip right over 'he said'; the eye becomes trained to ignore it, but more descriptive language stops the eye." SAID Inside Outlaw.

This is all very true. Not saying there are not times to add them but they should be used sparingly. I always recall what I learned reading Stephen King On Writing, King said, "The road to hell is paved in ly's." It keeps me remembering, you and the ly's always mean well but they can swiftly take your story and writing skills on a down hill plummet. Don't believe us -- read a Tom Swift tale.

I'm always struck at how often the boys do use each other's names when they're talking to each other. I struggle to know how to describe them. I either get too much 'Heyes and 'Curry' or an excess of 'He'.

Anyone who has ever read any of my fanfics knows that I’m deeply into angst and emotion. I’m an enthusiastic amateur, not a professional author, and as such I make no pretence of being any kind of expert in grammar, punctuation or sentence construction. I write a story how I feel it, and that is the enjoyment of it for me. If other people enjoy reading it too, that’s a bonus, but I make no apologies for it not being grammatically/descriptively perfect.
If I had to keep stopping to consider if I over-described something or used someone’s name too many times I would lose the feeling of what I was writing and then probably lose interest. Similarly, if I read a story, if I’m enjoying the storyline I wouldn’t even notice any grammatical/descriptive errors.
Respect to all those who are keen to get everything grammatically perfect I admire your dedication, but it’s not that important to me.