two names the same

[Foxtrot]

I know this has been discussed before but can anyone help.
In chapter 1 to 20 I have a artist called Jane so she is well established but my niece has asked me if she can be a character and I said yes.
Guess what her name is, Jane but she dose have a middle name of Edwina, was thinking to use that or swop the two around.
As Jane the artist and Jane Edwina will read the book, if I ever finish it, just wish I did not get my self in a pickle.

 

[blacbird]

Change the first name. And make sure your book is written and punctuated more clearly than your post.

caw

 

[SiennaBloom]

You could use a find and replace feature to change "Jane" to "Anne" (or something else) in the first 20 chapters already written. I changed a character name in my WIP and that's how I handled it. Find and replace is in the edit section of my word processing software. (I had to carefully review every replacement to make sure that those letter combinations were not a part of another word. It took some time but not that much time.)

 

[LJackson]

Why not just use Edwina as a first name, or change Jane to something else? I don't like two characters with the same first name. Confusing.

 

[Brightdreamer]

I'd suggest writing a new story for Jane-the-niece.

Or pit Jane-the-niece against Jane-the-artist in a cage match; winner take all.

Though, TBH, it sounds like this story is just a light hobby thing to you, if you're adding in characters at the whims and requests of friends. Whereas an outside reader (or an agent) would demand more clarity, if your Janes can tell their characters apart, I wouldn't stress too much over it. (If need be, use a nickname.)

 

[jaksen]

You know, I've done this. One of my short stories, in EQMM, has two characters with the same first and last names. Of course, one is dead. Just the same the story is about both of them. I wrote it so long ago I had no idea that certain things simply are not done, but then there wouldn't have been a story if there hadn't been two of them.

That particular story got a 'cameo' in a Johnny Depp movie, when he's leafing through a copy of EQMM looking for the short story he wrote. And there's my story, it's one-millionth of a second of fame!

So it all depends on many things, the story, why there are two with the same name, etc. If it's vital to the story, you do it. If it's not all that important, you don't.

 

[Asha Leu]

The easiest solution would be to change artist-Jane's name, however if you do really want both characters to be called Jane, there are ways to avoid confusion. I don't what POV you're writing in, but think about how your POV character(s) might mentally mentally differentiate the two Janes. For example, they might think of the one they are closer to as just Jane, or have an affectionate nickname for them, while the other would be referred to as "Jane (last name)". Depending on their roles within the story, a character or two may even note how confusing it is to be dealing with two different people named Jane, and come up with nicknames for both.

Eg.
Char 1: "Jane's meeting us for coffee later today."
Char 2: "Huh? I thought she was still in hospital."
Char 1: "No, not that Jane. Janie Smith. The redhead."

There's a Doctor Who episode that uses this as a plot device. There are two members of an small archeology crew both named Dave, so the rest of the crew refers to them as Proper-Dave and Other-Dave. George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books also have a lot of characters with the same names, and in many cases one character was named after another (Jon Snow and Jon Arryn, Robert Baratheon and Robert Arryn, the several dozen Walder and Walda Freys). It can be confusing at first, but characters with duplicate names tend to be referred to by their full names, by titles or nicknames, or are simply differentiated by characterisation, the roles they play in the story and / or hundreds of miles. For example, there's Lord Walder Frey, a man close to a hundred years in age, and then, in a seperate subplot, two of his preteen grand-children/nephews with the same name, who are called Little Walder and Big Walder.

 

[gp101]

Are you a serious writer looking to make a living from writing or are you writing a piece to satisfy your niece? Make up your mind. If this is a hobby, then name as many of your MCs Jane as you want, if all you're gonna do is read your story to your niece--more power to you, more people should write stories for their little ones.

Otherwise, DON'T MAKE IT DIFFICULT for your reader to keep track of your characters by using the same first name for major characters. Your niece will get over it if you hit it big. Or, if you must, use her middle name Edwina. Could YOU follow a story where one or more of the main charcters was named Chris? Or Joe? Or Diane. Gets a little confusing, doesn't it?

 

[neandermagnon]

As it's fairly common in real life to have two people with the same name in the same place, it's fine in writing so long as at least one is known by a distinctive nickname in the story, as happens in real life. For example years ago I worked in a computer factory type place where I had three colleagues named Tim. They were known as Clean Tim (he worked in the clean room), Semi-clean Tim (he worked in the room where they cleaned components to go in the clean room) and there was Warehouse Tim (guess where he worked!). People with the same name are given separate nicknames that distinguish them from each other in real life - you would need to do this in your story. You can't just have Dave and Dave. It has to be Biker Dave and Library Dave or something. Or maybe his real name's Dave but everyone calls him Barry because he looks like someone off the TV called Barry. Or something. There's a lot of potential for being creative with this.

My main concern though is whether it's a good idea to add real people into your book on their request. Basing characters off real people is something all writers do to some extent (whether consciously or not) but often they're only loosely based with different characteristics added in, the names and details are usually changed enough that you wouldn't know who they're based off, or characters may be an amalgam of several different people such that any individuality is long lost. Characters tend to take a life of their own in a book - you may originally base them off someone real, but they morph and mutate into someone different. If you're basing them off real people on their request, you're strait-jacketed in that you have to make them always just like this person, so no chance of character development, and even worse you can't portray their flaws or weaknesses, or have them making bad decisions or doing anything wrong, because of the risk you'll offend the person. You'll have to do like the portrait painters of old (and photoshop of new) and gloss over the faults and portray them as being an unnaturally good, perfect character....... which makes for a very weak character in a story. Even if you do that, they might still be offended by the way you portray them. Seems to me that it's a total minefield...

 

[Foxtrot]

I have got it and it was all due to you or some at least.
As the first Jane is an artist I will call her arty Jane, the later Jane is from France so French Jane.
I had better explain my bad writing as some one commented, some years ago I was paralysed and spent 1 year in bed then they decided to operate on my spine, it took 3 months to learn to walk, 1 year to use my right hand, I still have trouble typing 1 finger only on my right.
Sorry to bore you all with this but I feel better now I have told you.
Thanks for all the help you have kindly given me in the past, Reg

 

[Jamesaritchie]

The easy thing to do is change the fictional Jane's name. Far too much stock is placed on a character's name.

But having two character's with the same name is not the huge problem many seem to think it is. It can be used to great advantage. It's all in how and why you use the names.

 

[Tazlima]

You know, I was wondering if it was problematic that two of my PB protagonists in different stories shared a name (spelled differently but pronounced the same, May and Mei). They both had good reasons for their names, one indespensible to the plot and the other meaningfully tied to the theme of the story, but I worried about it.

I feel better now.

 

[Rhymes with Clue]

When I wrote my first novel I unconsciously named so many of the characters with names starting with the same letter that it looked like I was auditioning to be a Duggar or something.

When I sold it, my editor made me change most of them so that no two characters had a name starting with the same letter.

So now I run a spreadsheet. Nobody gets the same letter, even though of course this happens all the time in real life. (And if there had been a plot reason, I'm sure the editor would have understood. But in my case, there wasn't.)

 

[RKarina]

When I wrote my first novel I unconsciously named so many of the characters with names starting with the same letter that it looked like I was auditioning to be a Duggar or something.

When I sold it, my editor made me change most of them so that no two characters had a name starting with the same letter.

So now I run a spreadsheet. Nobody gets the same letter, even though of course this happens all the time in real life. (And if there had been a plot reason, I'm sure the editor would have understood. But in my case, there wasn't.)

OK, that made me chuckle!
And I keep a running spreadsheet of all my characters - their names, ages, description, and any other pertinent information that I might need to quickly reference at some point.

 

[Tyiako(JDC)]

A lot of good ideas in here. I'd probably do the nickname thing, or at least a spelling thing. Have Jane, the artist, who is a professional and therefore spoken to formally, and 'Janey' the niece to whom one is close. What matters is that you have some significant way for readers to differentiate them apart, and hopefully some clever reason for having two same named characters.

 

[Judg]

When I wrote my first novel I unconsciously named so many of the characters with names starting with the same letter that it looked like I was auditioning to be a Duggar or something.

When I sold it, my editor made me change most of them so that no two characters had a name starting with the same letter.

So now I run a spreadsheet. Nobody gets the same letter, even though of course this happens all the time in real life. (And if there had been a plot reason, I'm sure the editor would have understood. But in my case, there wasn't.)

In real life, we get to see faces, hear voices, and have all those other cues to help us keep people straight. Seeing as we don't get most of those in novels, we have to find other ways to prevent people from getting confused. I also keep track of all my names and make sure that characters with more than a cameo have names starting with different letters. (I'm not arguing with you here, just expanding on what you said. I know you get it.)

 

[Loverofwords]

I would go with Edwina, or change the first Jane's name to something else.

 

[Reziac]

I really like how "Jane Edwina" looks. If it were me, I'd use that!

 

[WeaselFire]

I wrote a short story ages ago where the dead guy shared the same name as the investigator of the murder, thinking I was clever that I played on the similarity. The editor of the anthology made me change it for publication and I never managed to get the story right because the dual names were part of the narrative. Just another unpublished story in my career...

If similar or identical names are part of the story, it could work. After all, the Terminator hunted all Sarah Connors in the phone book to make sure he got the right one. If it's not part oif the story, then it's just confusing clutter. If you're just writing to make friends and family feel good, why not write two separate stories? Or write whatever you want if your goal is not publication and mainstream readership.

Jeff

 

[Reziac]

I wrote a short story ages ago where the dead guy shared the same name as the investigator of the murder, thinking I was clever that I played on the similarity. The editor of the anthology made me change it for publication and I never managed to get the story right because the dual names were part of the narrative. Just another unpublished story in my career...

If similar or identical names are part of the story, it could work. After all, the Terminator hunted all Sarah Connors in the phone book to make sure he got the right one. If it's not part oif the story, then it's just confusing clutter. If you're just writing to make friends and family feel good, why not write two separate stories? Or write whatever you want if your goal is not publication and mainstream readership.

Jeff

And see, I find these intriguing notions, and would closer rather than reject out of hand.

 

[Chase]

I had better explain my bad writing as some one commented, some years ago I was paralysed and spent 1 year in bed then they decided to operate on my spine, it took 3 months to learn to walk, 1 year to use my right hand, I still have trouble typing 1 finger only on my right.

Foxtrot, many people process words on a keyboard using only one finger per hand for many reasons.

If you have to, it's all the more reason to study spelling, punctuation, and grammar so you can get it right the first time without the confusion brought about by misspellings and comma splices, run-ons, and other misplaced punctuation. You won't bore readers with slow yet careful writing.

 

[Once!]

Insist that your niece changes her name. It's the only answer.

 

[Fruitbat]

Now I'm going to write a story where all of the characters have the same name. I certainly hope you people are happy.