Why Authors Use Pseudonyms: Part 1

I get asked quite often why I’ve had work published under names other than my own. A thought that often accompanies this question is: “don’t you want to see your name in print?”  Well, there are numerous reasons why someone might use a pseudonym in publishing. The topic is complex enough that I’ve decided to do a short series of blog posts about it. Here’s the first one, with more to follow.

First, I’ll address the “name in print” point. When I first aspired to write and publish, I definitely did want to see my name in print. And it was very exciting and ego pleasing and confidence building when it happened. But, I’ve actually had my name in print hundreds of times now and my goals have changed. What I want more than anything today is to see my “work” in print, and to have it read, and to see how people respond to it. And sometimes, the best way to get these three things is to publish under a pseudonym. Here are the reasons why:

1. The material you’re writing may get you into trouble with family, friends, coworkers, or a job. I’m not specifically talking about writing porn, but that’s in there. When I was growing up in rural Arkansas, and even in some places today, writing science fiction or fantasy was frowned upon, dismissed, and even banned. And the people who wrote such material were gossiped about and sometimes even harassed for doing the Devil’s work.

My own mother wouldn’t display the books I gave her when I first started getting published, and I’m pretty sure it was because she didn’t like the content and the covers. None of this was pornographic, mind you. In fact, my fantasy and SF works firmly honored the good over the bad and upheld all the moral thinking I was taught growing up. It’s just that it often did so beneath the trappings of aliens and monsters and strange settings.

If your writing is going to cause fights and problems with your family, or conflicts with jobs and coworkers, and you’re not fully ready to handle the emotional turmoil, write under a pseudonym and don’t tell anyone.

There are plenty more reasons why authors might use pseudonyms. We haven’t even gotten to the reasons why I’ve used them yet. But more is to come in installment 2 of this series. I hope you enjoy.

A Character's Words of Wisdom

In his short story, "Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity," David Morrell has a painter who is driven mad. But before he goes mad, while he's struggling to find his own vision, he records in his journal the following words:

"Need to free myself of convention. Need to void myself of aesthete politics, need to shit it out of me. To find what's never been painted. To feel instead of being told what to feel. To see instead of imitating what others have seen."

Good advice for any creative artist. Important, and damn near impossible. Also scary as all hell. I'd like to do this, but the courage is hard to come by. And the strength. And always I wonder. Maybe I just couldn't, even if I had the courage and the strength. Because after those come talent.

Assumptions About Writers

As a helpful guide to my blog visitors, I have constructed a list of things that one can safely assume about writers. As a writer myself, I assure you that these things are absolutely true.

1. Writers are eager to hear criticisms from readers about every element of their published work. They especially like it when terms like “sucked” are used. Don’t worry that they might get their feelings hurt. Writers are toughened to criticism.

2. A published book sells a lot of copies and makes the writer a lot of money, so they will usually be happy to give you a copy for free. The mere fact that you’d like a copy of their work is reward enough. In fact, most writers have a large number of copies printed up at their own expense for just such a purpose.

3. Writers typically only work 2 or 3 hours a day. Part A: If they aren’t typing, they aren’t working and can be freely interrupted. Part B: If they are reading, then they aren’t working and can freely be interrupted. Part C: Writing isn’t a real job anyway.

4. Writers never have enough ideas of their own and are desperate to hear more “great” ideas from perfect strangers. The writer will, of course, be happy to write that idea up and share the profits with said stranger. This benefits both parties.

5. Much like medical doctors, writers are eager to give free advice and consultations on their area of expertise to total strangers. After all, when you work only 2 or 3 hours a day you have a lot of free time to fill. They are especially happy to fix someone’s grammar troubles so that the work instantly becomes salable.

6. Writers are superb party guests. They are good with words, after all, so they are always prepared with witty repartee. If you really want to see them at their best, make sure you put them on the spot by asking them to get up in front of the guests and tell a spur-of-the-moment story that is both poignant and funny.

7. Writers lead exciting lives, filled with frequent jet trips to New York for champagne brunches with their agents, and with blockbuster, multi-city tours where they dine at only the best restaurants and sleep at only the finest hotels.

8. Writers are, of course, crazy. (At least the good ones are.) But this is why they are entertaining. Feel free to ask them such questions as: “What happened to you in your childhood? Or, “I’ve always heard that writers are mostly gay. Is that true?”

9. Writers believe everything they write. For example, if a writer has a ghost in their story you can be assured that they believe in ghosts. Similarly, you can judge a writer’s personal philosophies from their characters. If the writer has a character who is racist then be assured that they themselves share such thoughts.

10. Writing comes easy for those who have the talent. One just sits down and words and sentences unspool from the storage center in the writer’s magnificent brain. Why, it’s scarcely work at all.

And now, I must leave you, my fellow travelers of the blogosphere, for my muse has called and I sense an epic trilogy coming on. That could take me most of the rest of the day. Then it’s off to chat with Brad and Angelina about my script for their upcoming movie. Where’s my secretary with the coffee?

Short Story, RIP

Stewart Sternberg is talking about what is happening to the short story over on his blog and that inspired a few thoughts. He believes the short story as a form is dying, and I tend to agree with him. But I will mourn that death until my own last breath.

I like short stories. I like to read them and I like to write them. Along with poetry, I consider them a different kind of art form from novels, and sometimes they are the "perfect" art form. No novel could express so perfectly the ideas behind Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations,” or Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Nine Billion Names of God.” No novel could equal the absolute horror of “Hangover” by John D. Macdonald. There are reasons why “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes and “Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov were better as short stories than when they were expanded to novels.

We humans live our lives as moments. Just as novels are made up of scenes, so too are our lives. Even if our lives are epic, we don’t experience them that way, we don’t know they were epic until--usually after we are dead--someone writes about us. And none of us are ever going to be trilogies. The short story is really more like the way we actually exist. We lose it at the risk of losing ourselves.

And at the risk of sounding a little harsh, those of you who never read poetry or short stories should remember a little quote, which I’ll paraphrase here:

First they came for the poets, but I wasn’t a poet so I did nothing. Then they came for writers of short stories, but I never read or wrote stories and so I did nothing. Then they came for the novelists and the readers of novels, and I was one of those. But by that time there wasn’t anyone else left to help us.

Good Advice from One of Our Finest Writers

In an essay called "Gone So Long," James Sallis gives some advice for writers that you don't often see. He says: "Write about the things that hurt you, write about the things you don't understand." This sounds easy, but I'll tell you it's not. Especially the first part, the "hurt" part. I've tried, in a slightly different way.

In writing horror, I always heard, "Write about what scares you," but I've always struggled in doing so because those things are so personal. I'm not personally afraid of vampires and werewolves, or invasions from outer space. I'm afraid of losing my son, of losing my health. I'm not particularly afraid to die; I'm afraid to suffer.

What hurts and scares you also defines you. These things are at your core, and they do not want to be dredged up. They will fight you tooth and nail. But Jim's advice is good. I believe that. I believe I should do precisely what he says.

Damn it's hard.

Where Has All the Literature Gone

In an essay in 2000 called "Pushing Envelopes," from Gently into the Land of the Meateaters, James Sallis writes about the small magazines and how they seem to have changed. He says: "Years ago I wrote a piece for American Pen suggesting that, abandoned by mainstream publishing, our literature--even then we'd begun to miss it, you see, and to go looking--had fled to these magazines. Like those remote islands in science fiction upon which prehistoric life has survived into the present. Now I don't know where it's gone. I've looked. I can't find it. If anyone's seen it recently, please call. I'll pay for information, photos, confirmed sightings."

I decided to post this passage for today, partly because of its humor, and partly because it dovetails nicely with my post yesterday about cryptozoology. Perhaps literature has become a mythical land, and we writers are sasquatches who leave only our footprints behind as we pass through it and out of the world of common experience. The passage also calls a question to my mind, not about where "literature" has gone, but about what is happening to "readers."

My son is 19 and doesn't read very often. Few of his friends read, and when they've been over to my house and seen all of my books most of them display looks that combine elements of awe and "damn-what-a-weirdo-this-guy-is." My college students laugh at me when I talk about having so many books that I have to have them organized alphabetically within genres. People in lines at Walgreens look at me funny when I bring a book to read while I'm waiting, despite the fact that they are the ones twiddling their thumbs with boredom.

Is reading valued anymore? I don't mean the need to scan My Space pages or to translate phone text-speech into English, I mean "real" reading, sitting down in a relatively quiet place and working your way through the intricacies of wording, tone, character and dialogue that make up a novel. In a world dominated by TV and movies, people seem less likely to read for entertainment these days, but there is more to reading than just for entertainment, or even for information. Reading really is a way of disciplining the mind, and of opening it to possibilities. On a simple level, reading expands our vocabulary. And human thought is largely verbally based. We think in words inside our heads. If we don't read, how much will our thinking become impoverished? If thinking is impoverished, how much more our lives?

Do the human race a favor and pick up a book to read today.

Someone?

Anyone?