Authors may choose to write under an alias for personal reasons or business reasons, and those decisions are often influenced by cultural and marketing dynamics. If you are thinking of using a pen name, consider some of the most common reasons that other authors have chosen to write under a different moniker:

Your Real Name is Too Weird or Common

Is your real name John Smith or something else that is equally common? If you publish under your real name, it may be difficult to stand out and develop your brand. Choosing a pen name will help readers distinguish you from all the other John Smiths, whether they are working as writers or accountants.

Or, on the other hand, is your real name Aparicio Poppocropoulous? If your name is too strange, hard to pronounce, or hard to understand, it will be difficult for readers to remember your name or to find it when they search for your work online.

Your Real Name is Famous

Through some twist of fate or happy coincidence, do you share a name with Angelina Jolie? Or Leonardo DiCaprio? Maybe your parents were big fans of Brad Pitt or George Clooney and decided to name you after them.

If you share a name with a famous person, a pen name can help you to distinguish yourself. That way, when someone sees a book written by “Brad Pitt,” they will make the proper assumption that it is written by THE Brad Pitt instead of becoming disappointed when they find out it is you instead. Don’t let your name get in the way of enjoying your book.

You Want to Protect Your Identity

Even if you start publishing novels or other books, you may not be able to quit your day job. Using a pen name to publish your work can help you to keep your professional endeavors separate – either because you don’t want your boss to think you’ll leave your job once a book sells well, or because you are writing about topics that could be controversial or present a conflict of interest for your job.

On the other hand, you may become wildly successful once you start publishing, quickly earning fame and fortune. If you worry that you won’t be able to handle the scrutiny of fame well, a pen name can help you protect your real identity so that you can fly under the radar when you are out buying groceries or having a meal with your family.

You Write in Multiple Genres

If you write young adult fiction under your real name, it might be advisable to adopt a pen name when you decide to start writing erotica. Or if you write romance stories under your real name, you might decide to choose a pen name when you try your hand at war thrillers.

Your name becomes your brand, and if you want to change your brand significantly by writing in a new genre that differs dramatically from the one in which you are known, using a pen name can help you to distinguish those brands and to ensure that you don’t alienate or confuse readers.

The decision to use a pen name is often a personal one, but it can have ramifications for your brand and your success. Have you used a pen name for your writing? Tell us your reasons in the comments!

About the Author:

Sarah Rexman is the main researcher and writer for BedBugs.org. Her most recent accomplishment includes graduating from Florida State, with a master’s degree in environmental science. Her main focus for the bedbugs site involves answering many questions such as, “what do bed bugs look like?”.

Recently a writer friend asked on Facebook if anyone had ever been to a bad or unprofessional conference, and, if so, what made it bad or unprofessional. I responded with an experience I had at a national conference I attended not long after I started to write.

The content of the conference was fabulous and very professionally presented. However, it was held in a luxury hotel in New York City, and the meeting rooms were on three floors connected by escalators. Unfortunately, at the time I was on a motorized scooter and at least four other attendees were in wheelchairs or scooters. Obviously we couldn’t use the escalators, but the two upper floors of the conference levels had no other means of access.

Workshops were held on all three floors with only a few minutes between each session. I wasn’t able to attend the specific workshops I wanted because I had no way to get to the right floor, so I had to pick workshops that were held on the one floor I could reach. I still learned an incredible amount, even if it wasn’t exactly what I had planned to learn.

At the end of the final conference day, I was so exhausted I could barely sit upright on the scooter. The elevators were so crowded I couldn’t get the scooter in. Although others had to wait a while, eventually everyone else got on the elevators, leaving me alone on the second floor.

I sat there for almost an hour before I finally got the attention of a hotel employee setting up for an  event and told him I had to have help or I would collapse. He said he would send help but no one came. Finally I went back where he was working and asked for help again. He called security, and after what seemed like an eternity, a security guard finally arrived and led me through the kitchens to the service elevator and got me back to my room.

The registration form for the conference even asked about special needs, and I had plainly indicated that I required handicap access.  So it wasn’t like someone shouldn’t have been prepared for those of us who couldn’t handle the escalator/elevator situation.

No matter how wonderful the workshops are, a conference isn’t very useful to attendees who have no access to the meeting rooms.

photo credit: dasu_

The hero’s journey, or monomyth, is a basic pattern of stories from around the world through history, identified by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Later, Christopher Vogler wrote a memo for Disney Pictures giving guidelines for using Campbell’s monomyth, and this seven-page memo grew into the book The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.

There are several other variations of the monomyth developed by other writers.

What follows is my own simple adaptation of the stages of the journey that can be applied to most genres of writing:

• The protagonist begins in her normal world,. A young woman teaches school, but her real passion is running marathons—the only thing that makes her feel competent and complete.
• Something dramatic happens that propels her on her journey. Her best friend and running partner dies unexpectedly. Although the death is officially deemed to be due to natural causes, the teacher suspects something more sinister has happened.
• The protagonist resists the calling. Busy with her teaching and preparing for an upcoming marathon, she doesn’t have time to investigate her friend’s death. Taking time away from training to find out what happened to her friend might result in her losing the marathon she’s set her heart on winning. Besides, she’s not qualified—she has no experience or training as an investigator. In addition, she is afraid for her own safety.
• Finally, she realizes she is the only one who can fulfill her destiny. She accepts her calling and begins her journey. The teacher realizes that everyone else believes the official version of her friend’s death as a heart attack while running in the heat. She is the only one who suspects murder, and thus is the only one who can bring the killer to justice. If she doesn’t take action, her friend’s murderer will go free, possibly to kill again.
• Along the way, the protagonist encounters obstacles and a lot of conflict—physical, mental, and/or emotional. She has some setbacks and failures—the teacher goes down many blind alleys trying to find what really killed her friend. Medical professionals and law enforcement personnel won’t cooperate in providing evidence. Her friend didn’t seem to have any enemies who would have wanted her dead. Leads that seemed promising fizzle out.
• Then there is “Black Moment” when it seems that all is lost. There does not appear to be any way out, and she is destined for failure. A doctor produces a medical record that shows the friend had a heart condition that would make running dangerous, but she kept it secret so she could participate in marathons.
• The protagonist finds a solution to the crisis and achieves victory. The teacher finds that the medical record is a forgery, and discovering why the record was forged reveals the motive for murder. Finding out who created the forged record leads to the solution of the crime—proof that her friend’s death was murder and arrest of the killer.
• At the end of the journey, the protagonist has changed. She is no longer the person she was back in her normal world before he received her calling. The teacher realizes that doing the right thing is more important than winning marathons. She has gained a new-found confidence in her abilities other than running. She has developed a passion for friendship and justice equal to her passion for running.

A good story includes conflict and change. If everything goes smoothly and the hero encounters no obstacles, the story will bore the reader. If the hero is exactly the same person at the end, the story will not satisfy the reader.  So, for a story that keeps readers’ attention and satisfies them at the end, make your hero’s life difficult and challenging, and in the process help him to grow and develop character.

photo credit: soozafone

1. Always come prepared.

Most of the work done while participating in a writing workshop is usually completed outside the group meeting itself. There are three main components that most writing workshops share—reading material written by published authors, reading and critiquing participants’ work, and writing one or more pieces to share with the rest of the group. Many first-time workshop participants spend too much time drafting their piece, effectively missing out on developing skills that are just as important like editing and reading published work analytically.

2. When your piece is being critiqued, listen attentively, take notes, and ask questions.

Perhaps the strangest part about attending writing workshops, the one that takes the most getting used to, is being “judged” by a panel of your peers. In most workshops, the group will discuss your writing aloud, but they will not refer to you by name, only “the writer.” Although it may initially seem like an intimidating process, keep yourself busy by taking extensive notes. Remember that a writing workshop is an incredible opportunity to get feedback from other writers, so respect the time everyone put into critiquing your work by honestly considering what everyone has to say.

3. Learn to take good advice and discard bad advice.

Many writers criticize workshops because you are essentially learning from others who are amateurs themselves. Too much conflicting criticism from a diverse group of writers may cause you to change your work so much that it’s no longer uniquely yours. The best way to avoid this scenario is to consider all criticism first. Analyze each person’s critiques carefully, noting which writers share your vision, and which are more prone to pushing their sense of style onto others. It’s also advisable to keep track of the number of comments that you receive criticizing the same problem. If many people see a problem with a particular scene or aspect of a particular character, then you should seriously consider reworking these specific parts with which many have taken issue.

4. Put time and effort into critiquing others’ work. It’ll make you a stronger editor and writer.

When I first attended a writing workshop, I spent the least amount of time critiquing others’ work because I was so engrossed in writing my own short story drafts. What I didn’t know at the time was that this practice eventually backfires in a workshop setting. For one, if you don’t put much effort into critiquing others’ work, your peers won’t put much effort into your work—workshops are definitely a two-way street. What’s more, carefully reading other participants work helps you to develop your eye for common writing mistakes. Since it’s so much easier to find fault in others work than our own, practicing editing others’ work will make you a better editor of your writing eventually.

If you haven’t yet joined a writing workshop, I highly recommend trying it out. Even if you don’t find the experience very helpful, you will have at least met a group of writers that share with you the joys and frustrations of artistic creation.

If you aren’t sure where to find a workshop or critique group, ask your local library, community college, or arts organization. For writer’s conferences and retreats, which involve participants spending several days in a specific setting with writers from around the country, check out this comprehensive listing. If you need guidance on forming your own critique group, be sure to read Lillie Amman’s previous advice here. Good luck!

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for best online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99@gmail.com.