Why Do I Use A Fake Name?

Surprise! Little Read Writing Hood isn't the name I was born with. Sorry to burst your bubble if you didn't know that already 😜

I was talking to someone about my blog today and revealed that I use a fake name. Their first reaction was that's so cool, immediately followed by, but why though?

That's a good question. Why DO I use a fake name? I thought I knew, and it surprised me how much I had to think about it before answering this person. I'm still not sure if either of us were fully satisfied with the answer I gave, so like always, I shall use this space and all of you as a scribbling board to get my thoughts down on paper and try to understand the twisted inner workings of my brain.

First, some background!

For those of you who aren't familiar, a fake name, or a pen name, or a pseudonym if you want to be fancy, is a different name that an author/writer uses in place of their own actual name.

Nowadays, with the internet, people do this all the time, using cleverly crafted fake names on things like Twitter and Instagram. (P.S. A moment of shameless self-advertisement. Here's MY Instagram)

You might be surprised to hear that writers/authors have actually been using fake names since WAAAY before the internet was invented.

For example, and it's a pretty famous example, Stephen King used the pen name Richard Bachman to publish a collection of short novels between 1977 and 1982. Apparently, (according to google so don't come after me if I mess this up) King wrote under a pen name for two reasons. Reason 1: at the beginning of his career, authors were only supposed to put out one book per year, so using another name would let him break the rules a little. Reason 2: King wanted to know if his success was based on talent or luck, so he published under a different name and gave his Richard Bachman novels little to no marketing, just to see what would happen.

To use an even older example, have any of you ever heard of Michael Field? Well, I bet you think Michael is a man. WRONG! Michael Field is actually the pen name for two mid-19th-century poets, Katharine Harris Bradley and her niece Edith Emma Cooper. They were also rumored to be lovers, but that's beside the point. They said they wanted to use a pen name so that their work would be judged with the same critical eye that would be used to judge a man.

So there are plenty of different reasons to use a fake name, but I think the biggest reason I do it is because I have this irrational fear of seriously offending someone with my work. I mean, in reality I think my stuff is pretty tame. I certainly don't write anything with the intention to bash anyone. But still, I worry that I'll write something entirely innocent that someone will take the wrong way.

Now having a fake name isn't going to keep this from happening, and I know that. But a fake name almost creates a buffer between myself and any judgments or negative reactions to what I post. It's almost like a security blanket for me to hold that soothes my fears and lets me write honest content. It's actually very freeing in that regard.

The thought of someone finding out my name and reading my work knowing that it's in my voice isn't really that terrifying though. In fact, there are people reading this right now who know exactly who I am. Some people I tell, and some people I don't. It's not a life or death secret.

I will say however, that if, WHEN I get my first book published, it will most certainly have my REAL name on the cover! And who knows, maybe that will be the day I tell everybody who Little Read really is...

So what do you all think? Does it bother you, not knowing who I am? Do you think using a fake name is good or bad? If you use one yourself, why, and what made you pick the name you did?