Pen Names

[Dibs]

Would you ever use a pen name? Do you use a pen name? How would you come up with one? Do any of your favourite writers use pen names?

I'm thinking of using one myself, but I only want to change my first name for the vibe's sake. I think my approach would be naming myself after one of my DnD characters! What would you do?

[J. Soda]

For sure I've considered, I like the idea of privacy, or if I ever did interact face to face with people interested in my work, it would be some sort of barrier between that and me. If that makes sense!! I'm not entirely sure what it would be, maybe the same as my music stuff? Something not entirely serious if I came up with something new, similar to my name online! Either way, naming yourself after one of the character's seems so cool! It would be fun to see which character, and how that persona would relate to your writing :)

[stinkzilla]

I have multiple pen names but I can't ever seem to decide which to use  The way I come up with them is to just google some names and combine them here and there. The website: behindthename.com has a whole database of names which I occasionally use for naming my characters.  Yeah, having a pen name after your dnd character sounds cool!

[BlazingCobaltX]

My username started out as an attempted pen name once, now Cobalt is basically my new name. I don't think I will ever seriously publish in writing, but for music I have cycled through many names until I finally found one that speaks to me. The name needed to be general enough that it can fit music of multiple genres. Somehow, going on vacation gave me just the right inspiration.

...It's not in use yet because that would mean I have any finished work to share. However whenever I do publish stuff I am intending to use that name, as it is something I'm content with if both IRL and online people were to find it.

[Finnialla]

I'm currently writing a pulp novel right now that I hope to turn into a series. When I started it, I had never thought of using a pen name. Earlier this year, when I wanted to start writing queer erotic romance novels, I realized I would probably want one, so I decided to put all my writing under one, even though I don't plan on keeping it a secret about who I am.

For me, my pen name is what my mom was going to name me before she made up Finnialla and her maiden last name, so it's Claudia Logan. I think that pen names are cool and it does give authors a sense of privacy, plus it's cool to just kinda change who you are.

Chuck Tingle is one of my favorite writers right now, and he uses a pen name. He also wears a pink bag over his face with the eye and mouth holes cut out and love is real written on top of it. He explains that he does it for his privacy. You absolutely don't have to go that far, but privacy is doable in the literary world.

Whatever you decide, it's about how you feel using your real name. I know it can get scary having so much of yourself out in the world. If you would want to write under a pen name, everyone here supports you 100% and so does most of the literary world. If they don't, I'll come and fight them.

Also, heck yeah. Naming yourself after one of your DND characters is super smart. I love that idea!

[Swiftpaw]

We'd probably use pen names if we ever published anything. My system doesn't use our real first name at all online and we'd probably also like to add a separate separation for creative works to give our irl self an extra layer of privacy.

[apricior]

Hii

As a writer, it is very likely that I'll end up publishing under a pen name. Mostly because of privacy reasons, but also because I've worked in the publishing industry for the last 2-3 years and there's a lot of people who would recognize my name (I have a very uncommon name + surname convo XD) and tbh I don't want them to find my stories.

I've been trying to come up with a pen name for a while and it's very likely that I'll end up using initials + made up surname, but I guess we'll see!

[Rosaria Delacroix]

I'm using one right now! It's been sort of a given, growing up, that people would adopt online monikers- and the intimacy of knowing someone's first name was something reserved for later on in the friendship. It also is because of wanting a distinction between the personal and private, for me- giving the trickiness of being closeted in largely conservative, professional/academic circumstances, and wanting to be open and explore things I'm passionate about: horror, eroticism, and LGBT protagonists- all of which could cause issues for me in real life.

Part of the reason I've distanced myself from my previous work, asides from the burnout, is because I accrued some deeply parasocial weirdos, and I'm very thankful that I didn't use my actual legal name in those circles- especially after an attempted doxxing sent my way... And, it's just fun, to pick out something pretty to go by: I'm very happy with the name that I've chosen for myself (I'm nonbinary, I do not use my legal name socially), and it's very meaningful to me, but it's distinct from my creative life (the handle you're seeing here.)

One of my favourite authors uses another name, Mira Grant, to separate out her science fiction works from her fantasy ones, which I found pretty neat. Makes it easier to sort through her large catalogue.

[PurpleHello98]

When I (God willing) public the romance novel I started writing several years ago (which I meant to pick back up on over my Christmas holiday until I got sick  ) I'll probably use a pen name. Not that I wouldn't want it attached to my real self, but I think it just seems cool. It wouldn't be too far off from my real name---probably just my first two initials and either my last name, something similar to it (because nobody can pronounce my last name) or my mother's maiden name---I feel like the second two would be less weird after I I (again, God willing) get married, because I feel like it'd be weird to still use my maiden name for artistic works (because I'd want to be consistent) whilst using my husband's last name in real life.

[invader_gvim]

Would you ever use a pen name? Do you use a pen name? How would you come up with one? Do any of your favourite writers use pen names?

I'm thinking of using one myself, but I only want to change my first name for the vibe's sake. I think my approach would be naming myself after one of my DnD characters! What would you do?

I recommend using the text editor that you write with as the basis for your pen name. My favorite writer is Lyn Flewelling and I am 70% sure that isn't a pen name. However a whole lot of my favorite political writers used pen names and they're way more influential than her.

Steven King once used a pen name when he was insecure about the extreme popularity of his novels and wanted to test himself. I think pen names are super kewl.