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.