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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33364
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33364
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

If it is your MC that's using a pseudonym, how do they think of themselves? Have they become the mask, adopted a new personality, put their real identity in a closed box? Or do they sometimes forget to respond when called by their pseudonym? You can convey information by the way your narrator calls your characters. For example, in his "Belgariad" series, David Eddings always refers to his MC as 'Garion'. The character's proper name is '_Bel_garion', the 'Bel' part signifying he's a sorcerer and a person of high status in the world. By calling him 'Garion', Eddings tells us that the character is not wholly comfortable with the whole position and power, not quite used to it yet. In the same book series, another character is referred by the narrator as 'Silk'. 'Silk' is a pseudonym of a prince, who lives the life of a spy. Spying is his life, what he does and enjoys doing. Being a prince is, to this character, something random that happened. He prefers being 'Silk' to being 'Prince Kheldar'.

If it's not the MC that's living under a pseudonym, how was the pseufonymed character first introduced to them - under the fake name, or the real one? Does the MC continue thinking of them under one name, having to remind themselves to use the other?

Original score: 1