: Re: Is it too late to change a character in the story? I have this chimera-type character whose name is Ryu, but at this point I think it best to change his name. But I've already grown used

I would argue that it is never too late to change a character's name, but I think your question is more about changing the nationality of your character. It is one thing to go back through your manuscript and do "replace all" with the names - that's pretty simple, actually. It's another thing entirely to change their background.

For example, I called my MC John starting out but now I think I prefer Jack. This doesn't really pose any consistency issues, because Jack and John both insinuate the same or similar backgrounds. But if I change John to Ryu - suddenly I have completely different preconceptions about his character. I would probably write Ryu differently to John - his experience in life has been different because he comes from a different culture. As much as the world has become homogenised, those cultures are not simply erased.

And if you don't see any difference, why have you made him Japanese in the first place? Why have you made any of your characters the nationalities they are? If none of the names in your story say anything about the characters' backgrounds, having two or more Japanese names would really make little difference to the reading experience. They would simply be names. It could be that that's what your aiming for, but if not it might be good to think more about why you have two Japanese characters, not two Japanese names.

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: Re: Is it too late to change a character in the story? I have this chimera-type character whose name is Ryu, but at this point I think it best to change his name. But I've already grown used

More posts by @Courtney562

: Is it okay to have a character that has the same first or last name as another famous character But not like having the same full name but rather same last name like for example having a

: How to casually reveal the relationship of two recently introduced characters? I have two characters near the beginning of my story, who are brother and sister. I want the reader to know right

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: How to present a human protagonist from a narrator who does not know what a human is? My protagonist is an average human as we know it in a world populated by different animal-like species.

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