B.C. Friday

For a long time, I've written under the name B.C. Friday.

My mom (I think it was my mom) asked me about my pseudonym once.  She asked me why I used it.  I'm pretty sure my answer at the time was weak and probably full of "I don't know"s.  I've given it thought since then and come up with a few basic reasons.

I noticed early on that the most impressive and influential writers tended to use a form of their name involving initials and a legitimate name.  C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien.  I had others at one point, but these were the big ones for me at the time.  I'm more than a little superstitious, so I figured it couldn't hurt to emulate them.  However, this isn't really a reason for why to use a pseudonym as much as a reason for why I chose the one I did.

The next reason was probably more likely the original reason why I started using it:  I'm a sucker for dramatics.

I always loved theater.  I loved becoming someone else.  To me, by using a different name when I wrote meant temporarily becoming a different person.  Since it's not so much a name as a code, it adds a distinct air of mystery to this new character I would get to portray.  It's not for nothing that I was called "Drama Queen" by a group of girls for a week this summer.

However, it would be really easy to argue that using a pseudonym doesn't properly give me credit for my work.  This makes sense, but interestingly leads me into the main reason why I continue to use this pseudonym.

I was having a conversation with someone earlier about story telling.  We started by talking about the differences and similarities between writing a story and telling a story.  We agreed that story telling required an ability to react to your audience and adapt your story accordingly and that writing required an ability to stay focused on the story long enough to get it on paper.

Personally, I've never been good at story telling.  I can't sit down and weave a story in an instant and quickly craft it into a performance worth listening to.  I certainly can't adapt and change my stories once they're on a course.

I think the reason I can't tell stories is because I can't come up with stories.

Don't get me wrong.  I can write stories all day long if I really want to.  However, my firm belief is that I have never once come up with a good story.  That's not my gift.  I can't sit here and give you a sequence of events off the top of my head and them both make sense and be interesting.  Furthermore, if I could, I know I wouldn't be able to convert them into words that would be worth reading.

My gift is characters.  I can meet a character and in an instant give you their entire backstory.  If you asked me about almost any event in the life of any one of my characters, I could probably tell you about it.  I like to believe that my characters are separate and individual entities with lives of their own, but I would like to point out that at the beginning of this paragraph, I used the word "meet", not "make".

The truth of the matter is, I don't really think you can "make" a good character.  A truly great and believable character, is either raised, met, or a combination of the two.  I can't honestly tell you which most authors use.

Raising a character means taking a character from a particular point and weaving the world around them so that they grow into the character you want them to be.  As I mentioned earlier, I'm not very good at creating stories, so this doesn't really work for me.  Meeting a character involves encountering a character at a particular point in their life and then learning their backstory.

I usually meet my characters.  I will be going along in a story and suddenly run into a point where a character must be, and, conveniently, a character will be there.  I can almost guarantee you when a story needs a character, there will be one there.  The hard part is getting to know them.  I can't tell you how I do that, but I do.  Typically, when I write a story, I have a starting point.  Usually it's a particular moment in a particular character's life.  As this protagonist encounters other characters, I meet and get to know them.  I typically just let these characters lose and follow them around.

I've now finally circled around to my point.

One of the main reasons I continue to use a pseudonym when I write is the fact that I don't feel like I have much more right to the story than you.  The only reason I would even begin to convince myself I do is because I met the characters before you.  I believe that before me, the credit for my stories should go to God and the characters.  They're the ones who made the stories.  They're the ones who presented themselves to me when I needed them.  I just wrote the thing down.

Thus, B.C. Friday, for me, represents so much more than just me.  It's my subtle way of taking the credit out of my hands.  B.C. Friday is the culmination of every character that got even the briefest of cameos in one of my stories, God's generous blessing to me of a glimpse into these characters' lives, and finally, little me, translating it all into a form you people can actually read.

I'll admit, while this last reason sounds really good, I honestly started using a pseudonym because I'm a superstitious drama queen.  However, that doesn't change the fact that this post ex facto reasoning is the reason I continue to use a pseudonym.  I tried to quit using it, and it just felt wrong.

I felt like a traitor.

So, out of gratitude to God for giving me the opportunity to glance into someone else's life if only for a moment, and in honor of every person who ended up in a life interesting enough for me to enjoy, I will continue to write under the name B.C. Friday.

It's the least I can do.