ever typed your own name for one of your characters?

johnzakour · Dec 23, 2007

Okay, today I'm diligently working away on my on my 6th, Zachary Nixon Johnson novel and I mean to type the line:

"Are you going to come quietly, Mr. Johnson? Or do we have to hurt you?"

Instead I type:

"Are you going to come quietly, Mr. Zakour? Or do we have...."

So, has anybody else out there ever substituted their own name for one of their characters?

inanna · Dec 23, 2007

No, but it would scare me muchly if I ever did.

Stijn Hommes · Dec 23, 2007

Sorry, you're on your own there.
Perhaps it's a good sign. It means you identify with your MC which can only be good for the story's voice.

Gillhoughly · Dec 23, 2007

No, but I noticed an important supporting character's first name had the same consonant-vowel-two consonant- vowel pattern of my first name.

In reviews and fan mail people misspell it the same annoying way they do mine, too, by ending it with two vowels, both wrong.

Same thing for my hero's last name, they're always plopping in an extra consonant. How much trouble is it to look on the back cover to get the spelling right?

Makes me wonder if they bothered reading the books.

Straka · Dec 23, 2007

Sort of. One story where the main character is a duplicate of me and put into a "what if" scenario. I have him a first name I liked and my middle name for his last.

johnzakour · Dec 23, 2007

Gillhoughly said:
No, but I noticed an important supporting character's first name had the same consonant-vowel-two consonant- vowel pattern of my first name.

In reviews and fan mail people misspell it the same annoying way they do mine, too, by ending it with two vowels, both wrong.

Same thing for my hero's last name, they're always plopping in an extra consonant. How much trouble is it to look on the back cover to get the spelling right?

Actually, Publisher's Weekly did sort of the same thing to me when they were talking about my latest book, they said it was by, "Zachary Zakour."

So they gave me my characters first name...

johnzakour · Dec 23, 2007

inanna said:
No, but it would scare me muchly if I ever did.

Ah, it takes a lot more than that to scare me. ;-)

I'm chalking it up to an inflexible memory pattern misfire. After all the two names I type the most are "Johnson" and "Zakour" so they both flow off my fingers without me thinking at all.

Siddow · Dec 23, 2007

I know somebody who intentionally gives her MCs her own name. :Shrug:

Maprilynne · Dec 23, 2007

I think Zachary Zakour has a nice ring to it . . . .

Stormhawk · Dec 23, 2007

Siddow said:
I know somebody who intentionally gives her MCs her own name.

Did you point them in the direction of fanfiction.net?

...sorry, that was bitchy.

That can be dangerous though, if someone reads her stuff, and doesn't like the character, she may take it as a personal attack.

Gillhoughly · Dec 23, 2007

Stormhawk said:
Did you point them in the direction of fanfiction.net?

...sorry, that was bitchy.

That can be dangerous though, if someone reads her stuff, and doesn't like the character, she may take it as a personal attack.

If it's a fic writer I know about, then they didn't and she did.

In nearly all her stories the MC has her name, carrying Mary Sue-ism to its logical conclusion, made worse when she insists she is not, not, NOT writing those. She's been quite nasty on the whole business, even in response to kindly phrased suggestions to give the old spell-check feature a try to see if she likes it.

The fact that she clearly failed every English class from 4th grade onward doesn't help.

I suspect Asperger's Disorder, but minus the charm of Boston Legal's Jerry Espenson.

"Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

chroniclemaster1 · Dec 23, 2007

I agree. There's wearing your heart on your sleeve, and then sewing a pocket beside for the spike to drive through it.

But I think all of an author's writing is in some way self referential. That's certainly nothing new or surprising in that. It sounds like there aren't many of us who've made the Freudian slip though.

johnzakour · Dec 23, 2007

chroniclemaster1 said:
I agree. There's wearing your heart on your sleeve, and then sewing a pocket beside for the spike to drive through it.

But I think all of an author's writing is in some way self referential. That's certainly nothing new or surprising in that. It sounds like there aren't many of us who've made the Freudian slip though.

I don't think it was Freudian, I don't have the stomach to lead my main characters life. So I don't think I secretly long to be him, I just can't take a punch anymore.

This is just my sixth novel written in the first person with this character, plus there are a bunch of short stories, a comic and a screenplay. So have I typed his name a lot more than I have my own over the last ten years. After all I usually only type mine once a book. So my fingers just glided over the wrong keys.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Now if you don't mind I have to go fend off a couple of attacks from some crazy mutant androids. ;-)

PeeDee · Dec 23, 2007

My last time is "Tzinski,"

It's amazingly difficult to accidentally type that in place of, er, anything else.

maddythemad · Dec 23, 2007

No, but I often will write something like this:

Hey sis!
I'm off for coffee downtown. There's leftover muffins in the fridge, if you want them for breakfast.
Love,
Madeleine Johnson*

This is clearly the fault of spending time in school.

* Yeah, my last name isn't Johnson. But I never know who might be out there, WAITING TO TRACK ME DOWN AND KILL ME.

PeeDee · Dec 23, 2007

maddythemad said:
* Yeah, my last name isn't Johnson. But I never know who might be out there, WAITING TO TRACK ME DOWN AND KILL ME.

It's so cute, how you think that's going to stop me. Heh. Heh. Heh.

*sneeze*

johnzakour · Dec 23, 2007

PeeDee said:
My last time is "Tzinski,"

It's amazingly difficult to accidentally type that in place of, er, anything else.

Until today I always thought the same thing about, "Zakour".

Scribhneoir · Dec 23, 2007

johnzakour said:
So, has anybody else out there ever substituted their own name for one of their characters?

I've never done that, but I did recently send an e-mail to one of my characters. I didn't notice what I'd done until I got the bounceback saying it was undeliverable.

NicoleMD · Dec 23, 2007

I once accidentally signed a character's name to an email I was sending out. Double crazy points since the character is a guy.

Nicole

Varthikes · Dec 23, 2007

I have. Though, not first and last name for the same character. And, my last name is fairly common anyway.

johnzakour · Dec 24, 2007

Varthikes said:
I have. Though, not first and last name for the same character. And, my last name is fairly common anyway.

I only typed the last name...

PeeDee · Dec 24, 2007

The solution now is to change your own last name to something unlikely, and yet fun to type. That way your odds are good you won't make the mistake again, and if you do then you'll have something fun to type. Easy!

Unfortunately, every suggestion I can think of is obscene, so you're on your own.

farfromfearless · Dec 24, 2007

PeeDee said:
Unfortunately, every suggestion I can think of is obscene, so you're on your own.

Now you decide to withhold??

spacejock2 · Dec 24, 2007

The general manager at my publisher is called Clive. The junky old know-it-all robot in all my books is called Clunk. I'm used to typing the latter several hundred times per book, and more than once I've written to 'Dear Clunk' when writing to my publisher ...

Then again, HE's introduced me as Hal more than once, even when he meant to call me Simon. So, we're as bad as each other really.

larocca · Dec 24, 2007

I've had other authors based characters on me, and that is some seriously cool shit in my opinion.

ever typed your own name for one of your characters?

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