My current W-I-P involves multiple characters with multiple names, because they have secret identities. (Yes, I’m writing a very exciting book.) This has caused all kinds of problems during the writing process. I had the primary name for the characters — in other words, the name by which they are introduced to the reader — but I had not chosen the other names. In fact, I spent a lot of time worried that revealing the other names would just confuse the reader, and so I questioned whether it was even necessary, and then avoided thinking about it for a long time. Unfortunately, all that did was cement their primary names in my mind, which made choosing secret names even harder. Read the rest of this entry →