QueryTracker Community
Writing => Fiction Writing => Topic started by: AVA_writing on May 11, 2021, 11:29:46 AM
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So, a book in my genre just came out where the main protagonist has the same last name of one of my central characters. It is emphasized a lot in the book. Does this mean I need to find a new one?
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If I were you I wouldn't be too worried.
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How unusual or ordinary is the last name? The more unusual it is, the more likely I'd do a search & replace. (Coincidence sucks sometimes... )
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I thought it was unusual enough... I am resigned to the fact I am going to have to replace it.
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I agree that replacing it is the safer option. We can't ever say for sure that a character's name hasn't been used in another novel or, for that matter, on a sports team, a band, in politics, on social media. . . I just had to change a Welsh character's name in a nearly completed ms because it was identical to a hugely popular member of the Wales national football team (a fact I missed since I'm not a fan.) Luckily, there are multiple phonetic spellings of ethnic names, so it was only a matter of changing one letter. :)