Character name overlap?

[Ireth]

I intentionally reused the names of some minor Fae characters in Winter's Queen (eg. Loegaire) and made them more major characters in Tenth Realm. The reverse is also true, with supporting characters created for TR being back-added into WQ (eg. Urien, Llucheden, Liadan). The two stories are not meant to exist in the same timeline, nor are their plots in any way related, other than that they both involve Fae and humans. (I've tried to think of ways they COULD coexist on one timeline, but found it to be impossible, due to major things like maiming and death, not to mention drastic personality change/character development, that do not carry over from one story to the other.) The characters who exist in both are the same people, just under different circumstances.

For anyone who has read excerpts of both stories in the Showcase, or seen me discussing them around the forum, would reusing the characters like that throw you off? I can't conceive of simply changing the names in one story or the other, since for me, once a name "sticks" to a character, the two are inseparable. Thoughts/comments on this?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

To be honest, if I saw an author referring to characters by the same name, yes, I would find that to be very confusing, regardless of whether or not they appeared in the same timeline or even series. Names have power - power of personality, power of identity, and to attach one name to two people under the same umbrella (i.e., your own name as author) I think just invites needless complications.

We have a LOT of characters spread over an extremely long series timeline, with side stories and prequels and histories. At no point do we repeat names. And when we finally do branch out into our other two planned series, we will still not repeat names, all to avoid reader confusion.

But that's just our opinion and the way we plan things out.

 

[The Dark One]

Unless there's a really compelling reason for doing it (which you've not articulated here) then I'd say why bother? Everything to lose and nothing to gain...for the sake of inventing a few more names.

I can imagine how it might work, irrespective of the conflicting stories, timelines etc, but you'd have to explain it clearly and readers would have to see the point.

 

[wordwalker]

Unless there's a really compelling reason for doing it (which you've not articulated here) then I'd say why bother? Everything to lose and nothing to gain...for the sake of inventing a few more names.

I can imagine how it might work, irrespective of the conflicting stories, timelines etc, but you'd have to explain it clearly and readers would have to see the point.

"Everything to lose, nothing to gain." Absolutely.

If it's just because you like the sound of the name (or want to be lazy), you might use different forms of it: spellings, surnames or titles, other ways to distinguish them-- and still I think it's too risky to make the most-commonly-written name of any two (significant) characters the same. Of course, it's easier to justify other overlaps if characters are related or come from alternate forms of the same world.

 

[Ireth]

Of course, it's easier to justify other overlaps if characters are related or come from alternate forms of the same world.

Yes, they do. Both stories take place primarily in Faerie, which is naturally where the Fae hail from. Time is very wibbly-wobbly there at the best of times. I pretty much see these as parallel timelines, somewhat similar but very distinct from each other. I'm just not sure how to make that clear in either canon, since the timelines do not intersect otherwise. One takes place in the Viking age, roughly 800-900 CE; the other in the early 21st century. The human characters involved in both are not related either.