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Should I change her name?
I've hit a very slight snag when it comes to my main character. I am actually a teensy weensy bit mad at myself for not checking in the first place.
I named one of the characters in my book some time ago...but last week I decided it would be best if I brought her to the front and made her a, if not the, main character. She is the amateur sleuth of my tale [as there is a male police detective in there too].
However I have just discovered that another writer [more famous than I] has a saga which involves a female sleuth with the same first name - beginning practically in the same year! To try to rectify it I have pushed when my characters story is to about 5 years earlier than originally planned. As far as I can tell my character is based in a different country to the other one too.
Is this enough? Or should I put the date back a little further? I do have an alternative name for her [it was one of her middle names] which I like but I had my heart set on the other...plus it is part of her mother's name. I don't think there are any more major similarities...but then I haven't read the other writer's books...only her website.
'Oh poop!' said Chippy. Or words to that effect. ;)
Comments
Her name is Amelia. The other option for her name if I really have to change it is Charlotte.
a quick google search tells me that there appears to only be one other Victorian female sleuth of the name Amelia from recent times - the one I mentioned earlier.
You could do it after the book is written so that you are writing about the same person in your mind. I think it would be unwise to have the same name as another protagonist in the same genre. A publisher might think, well if they are not careful to avoid similarity in that, what else is not original?
I'll have a tantrum!!! :)
On the plus side it means our ideas are good because they're out there and people are enjoying them. Just not with our names on them :(
But I'm still a little on the p***ed off side of things about having to change the name. To the point that it has actually taken me two days to officially change it in my notes.
But you never know one day my heroine could be really really famous and popular and I can go up to the author who beat me to it and I can say thanks! Is that a silver lining I see peeking through the clouds? Or is it just lightning? ;) :)
Must be one of those names that is coming back into fashionable favour.