Bookshelf Battle

Hey 3.5 Readers,

Your old pal Bookshelf Q. Battler is bummed out.

Actually, can you forget that I’m Bookshelf Q. Battler for a minute?

I’ve heard rumors that this blog isn’t actually run by BQB.  That there’s just some random anonymous person behind this all.  “A man behind the curtain” if you will.

Poppycock, I know, but just pretend I’m that guy for a minute.

Pop Culture Mysteries has become such an enjoyable part of my life.  Am I counting the riches from possible PCM novels?

No.

But I’ve tried writing novels my entire life only to write myself in a corner, wish I’d put in a key detail earlier, decide it needs a major overhaul, and just move onto something else.

Why PCM works for me is that when I write it, I step into shoes and become Jake.  I’m just a guy telling a story about a long, remarkable life.

And if I think of key details later?  Jake just happens to remember them.

The result is that I’ve been writing and building this world since April with no signs of losing interest, gaining more interest by the day if anything, and that’s a record for me.

When I write myself into a corner, Jake just pole vaults over it.

I’m happy and that long yearned for novel no longer seems as out of reach as it used to be.

SO WHY AM I BUMMED?

Here’s what happened to me today that knocked me out like an uppercut from the Jersey Jabber:

1.  While looking for a new book to read, I came across Larry Correia’s Grimnoir series.  It’s fantasy/horror meets hardboiled noir.  In book 1, the hero, Jake Sullivan, takes on monsters and is tricked into thinking an old girlfriend, Delilah Jones, is a bankrobber.

OK, so Larry has written a noir book.  It has characters named “Jake Sullivan and Delilah Jones.”

I’m writing a noir blog with hopes to write noir novels based on that blog.  My characters are “Jake Hatcher and Delilah K. Donnelly.”

The stories could not be more different.  Larry’s Jake Sullivan is an ex-con who wields magical powers.  My Jake Hatcher is a guy who fell asleep in 1955, woke up in 2014, and now in 2015 strikes a deal that he’ll solve 100 mysteries for a blogger in exchange for the information that will lead him back to his own time.

Larry’s is fantasy/horror.  Mine is a parody of pop culture as well as a humorous look at the present as seen through the eyes of a person from the past, how some of the things we do today would seem goofy to a person just getting used to the new world for the first time.

My story, Pop Culture Mysteries,  started as a goof, a hard boiled detective solving “mysteries” like what happened to the first Brady Bunch spouses but then lo and behold, in my mind, a whole world and backstory started for Jake, one where I think actual novels are possible.  It’s also intended as a spoof of noir style itself, Jake speaking in that stereotypical tough guy exaggeration filled, comparison laden cadence that old time detectives are known for.

So the two books are different, but you know how haters and online trolls are.

Probably one dingus out there will be like “Bahh there was a noir novel with Jake and Delilah and YOU wrote a noir novel with Jake and Delilah.”

I had no idea.  Had I never come across the book I’d of gone forward without knowing.

So the first question – does this mean MY Jake and Delilah can no longer be Jake and Delilah?  Do one of mine, either Jake OR Delilah, have to get a name change?

The premise makes me sad because, well, call me sad if you must but it’s almost like Jake and Delilah have become my friends.  My life is made so much better when I sit down at my computer every night to figure out what’s going to happen to them next.

2)  That lit a fire under my butt to do some more research.  Low and behold, there are a ton of detective stories with detectives named Jake.  I debated in my mind – I don’t think THAT reason alone is enough to change Jake’s name because if it’s a parody, then what’s one more Jake?

I mean, Jack, John, Fred, Tom, whatever – if it’s a traditional name, there’s a million stories already where that first name has been used.

3)  But – and this is what gets me, I did find another novel on amazon – “Diabolical” by Hank Schwaeble that’s a mix of horror and noir and the hero’s name?  JAKE HATCHER!  BOOOO!!! BOO!!!!  (Sorry Hank, that boo’s not on you personally, just that I can’t catch a break.

4)  So does that mean my hero can’t be Jake Hatcher?  I mean, how far do we take this?  If I write Steve Smith, can you never have a Steve Smith?

I get it if the name is really unique.  Like I can’t write a novel about an accountant called “Lando Calrissian.”  I almost laughed it off but I guess if this guy wrote a noir-ish novel about a guy named Jake Hatcher, then could that be a problem?

If my novel was about Jake Hatcher the janitor fighting for custody of his kids in a drama then it’s probably fine but I guess I am writing a noir, even if mine is a comical noir.

5)  What bugs me is I did research this every which way and a)  I really don’t want to change the names but b) if I’m going to put all the work in to start a Pop Culture Mysteries site and companion novels, then I don’t want some troll being like “you stole those names!”  even though I didn’t at all.

6)  And then my worry is this – there is SO, SO, SO MUCH written material out there, it’s not only possible that the name of your novel in a character was used before, it’s a given.  What if I go back to the drawing board, name my Jake and Delilah something else, and lo and behold, like what if name them Ned and Carol and someone points to an obscure novel I never heard of and they’re like “Ooo you stole those names from the Ned and Carol series!”

7)  It’s gotten me so paranoid that I’m starting to worry someone’s going to pop out of a bush and yell, “Hey you son of a B$%ch!  I’M BOOKSHELF Q BATTLER!  STOP USING MY NAME!!!

8)  Is this just all in my head?  Are these issues to worry about or not?  Is this just something that happens in fiction all the time?

9)  Can I press forward and just keep calling my dear Pop Culture Mystery friends “Jake and Delilah?”  Is it ever possible to think up names that someone wont have a problem with?

I don’t know.  Help me out 3.5 readers.

I guess if you want me to boil down this rant:

1.  Should I change Jake and Delilah’s names?
2. Or should I bother because unless I call them Jaboozle and Dawoozle, every name has been used in a novel before and I’m just worrying too much?