Different penames for different stories.

[Guest Knorg]

There's a few published authors out there who put out, or who have put out, different types of work under different names. Stephen King and his Richard Bachman personality is a pretty famous example, less well known to many of you no doubt, English author Kim Newman wrote some books as Jack Yeovil and of course Anne Rice as Anne Rampling & A.N. Roquelaure.

In some cases it's because writers don't want their usual name to be associated with hack work, in others it's to try and establish a distinct personality to go with a written series. There's no doubt lots of other reasons for lots of other published writers who've gone down that route - some have talked in detail about their reasons. Others have cursed being found out.

How many of you have put out stuff under different names? (You don't need to tell us what they are, of course!) What's your reasoning for it? Do you have multiple story accounts here or on other servers? Or is it maybe just that you used to write under one name, and then started writing under another for some reason?

A lot of people have known me writing various stuff as Pax, which was the name of a freeform roleplay character I had for a while. Obviously, Knorg is a name I've put out a lot of stuff under here. I also currently write other stuff under another name - with a lot higher output than as knorg, depressingly - because there are people who know I write as Knorg, who I wouldn't want to see some of the other stuff. Romantic slush, much of it. Tragic, really.

Edit: If this is considered better suited to the writing section, where I mistakenly thought I'd clicked to post it, pray move it. It does seem kinda aimless though.

[Guest echtrae]

I've written stuff under other pennames.

[NightScribe]

I almost wrote under another name. I was having a bit of a fit after completing a lengthy fic and getting no responses. I came up with a clever pen name and was going to write absolute shit, (with spelling, grammar errors, the whole works) as a sociological experiment. Glad to say, I regained my sanity and never did it. I'm extremely attached to my pen name, I don't think I'd "feel" right going by another. Even if I did, my style of writing and the themes I work with would be a dead give away, I wouldn't fool anybody.

[Keith Inc.]

I can also see it as a way to avoid nasty surprises.

If someone writes children's stories, and becomes a kid's favorite author, you don't want a doting aunt ordering his gay smut novels off Amazon for them.

That's extreme, but still, i've gotten some feedback from giantess fans who were disappointed in my shrunken woman stories. Despite the warnings offered, they blazed in expecting more of what they expected.

Donald Westlake writes crime humor stories, but also wrote as Richard Stark for more...gritty crime stories. Bodies on the floor stuff. People expecting another 'Hot Rock' or 'Bank Shot' may not have been as happy with the body count in 'Payback.'

[Guest Big Samurai]

On the Internet, I'll admit to keeping a couple of different pen names, just in case, but I tend to own up to all the bad things I do in writing.

[redsliver]

Online I use Redsliver, but everything done offline is under J. K. Rowling.

[NightScribe]

Online I use Redsliver, but everything done offline is under J. K. Rowling.

ROTF

[Guest .:Deathbringer:.]

All my fics are under one pen name.

Although that actual author name changes. It's sometimes Sly, Infamous Myo, Deviant Myo...

But only under one penname.

[StoryJunkie]

er, yes, yes I do.

Now piss off before my alternate personality takes over.

You wouldn't like her.

She's real square.

[foeofthelance]

I actually have two names on the site, Foeofhtelance and reddragon. I only use the second though, because I lost the name and password combo for the first. Which is why anytime SJ refers to me she does it with two names.

[AmyMcClair]

If someone writes children's stories, and becomes a kid's favorite author, you don't want a doting aunt ordering his gay smut novels off Amazon for them.

That reminds me of when my mother bought the "Sleeping Beauty" series, because I liked Anne Rice stories, when I was in Junior High.

Anyway, to the question. I have posted some stuff under Ari online, because that is what I went by in high school, but mostly I am AmyMcClair.

[Nanaea]

That reminds me of when my mother bought the "Sleeping Beauty" series, because I liked Anne Rice stories, when I was in Junior High.

My mother bought me the Beauty trilogy, but I was in my early 20's and she knew that they were erotica (although, I doubt she realized just how...explicit?...they were).

[AmyMcClair]

Yes, Anne certainly likes her spankings.

[Nanaea]

That she does.

[Iggy_lovechild]

Huh...thought I'd replied this thread.

I too have used a second penname, when I was experimenting with the SesshoumaruxKagome pairing in the "InuYasha" fandom. Up until that time, I had pretty much only written canon for the fandom and was a little nervous when I signed up as an author on A Single Spark. Really, I'm not entirely a fan of the couple, I just happened to like the challenge of making it work (and of Resmiranda's writing).

Anyway, I was using the name Demona Leigh.

[dest]

yeah i have a couple names. i write long romantic stories that some people like. i have basically smut that some people like. and i have stuff that are neither one really that people like. i like many different ways of writing. usually people find something they like and keep up with it. this way if someone likes something i wrote and wants to read more of the same it is easy for them.

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

My first fic on FF.net was under a different penname. It was a really bad X-Men fic and the only clue I'll give you is that the title of the fic is related to the penname.

Another penname I used was Coinin, though, I only used it on Livejournal and I think on FF.net.

By the time I got to AFF, I was already using Pixagi.

[EveKnight75]

The stuff I've published in those by-kids-for-kids collections was under my real name because there was simply no way around it. I convinced them to leave my middle name out because I never use it. My middle name is a dead give-away to my gender, ethnicity, and the religion I was born into. Frankly, I don't want people to judge my writing based on those factors if those factors don't play into the writing.

Everything I've done on-line is under EveKnight75. I had briefly changed it to Eve Knight, but that lasted less than a month before I switched back without leaving a trace.

[JayDee]

Ooh! I used  Kizurial for fanfiction.net because all the variations of JayDee that I could be bothered trying,  like three of them, were already taken. 

Yes, I have written fanfiction that was acceptable to FF.net’s guidelines. Took me a while though.

[Desiderius Price]

I’ve got a total of two pen names, the one here, and “Dragon Voldemort” for my Harry Potter fanfics.  (I made the DV one first, but once I started writing originals, it no longer fit).  Yep, I’m on FF.net and AO3 with the DV penname.

[JayDee]

If you’d done a co-authored fic with a Dragon Albus, you could have put it out as DVDA.

 

 

[CloverReef]

When I was into fanfiction, I went by Chlover. But then drama happened and I had to leave that persona and fan fiction in general behind real quick so CloverReef was born. But lately that penname has been feeling a little too feminine for me, so I became a plague. Everybody likes plagues, right? 

But now, since all I write is erotic original fiction, it’s the same on every site. 

Edited September 6, 2018 by CloverReef

[BronxWench]

BronxWench was my gamer name for ages, and I kept it as my name over on FFN. Because I am seriously creative, it’s also my pen name everywhere else, except fro what I publish. Then I turn into Morwen Navarre.

Honestly, I sometimes don’t answer to my real name…

Edited September 6, 2018 by BronxWench

[CloverReef]

Quote

Honestly, I sometimes don’t answer to my real name… 

IKR? I’ve been going as “Chloe” online since I was 13. I’m 32 now. Hearing people call me by my real name feels super weird by now. 

[BronxWench]

I tell them to put “Bronx” on my Starbucks cups…