I noticed it as I was writing, but as it went on it seemed insurmountable as written. I can hardly have a speaker identify my POV-heroine by one name within his or her dialog, then say something like, er, "I said this," said Another Name.

I think I'm going to rewrite the whole scene from third person to first person---I can put "I said" when the POV-heroine is speaking---but I'm amenable to any other ideas. I've had a boatload of characters over the years who are "not who other people think they are"---must resonate with me, I guess, for some reason---so the problem does come up in my writing.

POV Character is John.
Secondary Female Character is Sarah.
Other characters refer to Sarah as Jane, since Sarah looks remarkably like her (either by accident or by design).

Well, how about something like this?

quote:

---

I walked into the bar, not bothering to hold the door open for Sarah. She slipped through before the heavy slab of wood slammed back into its frame. It took a moment before my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the bar.

"Hey, Jane," a voice bellowed out from in front of me somewhere.

Once my eyes finally adjusted, I spotted a booth near the back that was empty and started walking towards it. Sarah's stilletos click-clacked on the wooden floorboards as she followed me. A greasy, barrel chested bartender leaned out over the bar, loooking just behind me.

"Jane, babe. It's been awhile."

I paused and turned. Sarah had stopped once she realized the bartender was speaking to her. "Hey Sal," she said. She glanced at me, then back to the bartender.

"Last I saw of you, some rich kid had you draped all over his arm on the way out the door." Sal pushed himself upright again, so tall his head nearly brushed the beer mugs hanging above the bar. "Still makin' a living the old fashioned way?"

I held my tongue but looked hard at Sarah. She laughed at Sal, the throaty laugh I loved, but the dangerous look she gave me when our eyes met again told me to keep my tongue and play along.

"Sorry Sal, not working any more. A girl can only stomach so many rich kids playing with daddy's money, before she finds herself a real man."

Sal's eyes moved to me finally, a cold, tactile gaze that felt like I was being frisked. "Him, Jane? When you had the choice of a prince like me?"

---

Jayson Merryfield

Actually, I do think you can have person X refer to MC as Y and have MC respond as "Yes," MC said. As long as it is clear. The disconnect between what people call her, and how she refers to herself is part of your hook.

Ways I dealt with it:

1) how the character adopted another name/hidden identities was done in a prologue. It's his POV and the character is referred to by his real name through most of the chapter. At the end, someone calls him by the "real" name and he corrects them with the new name.

2) For the other one, who actually assumes a bunch of different names through the story, when a new name is going to be used I'm in her POV. So, a bit of dialog might go like:

"Lillia, where are you going?"
Falcon turned around. "To check on the horses."

Also, since your MC is pretending to be someone the other characters know, she can think (although this is probably not the best way to do it) "Good, the disguise worked." Or whatever.

You just have to be careful that it is clear who you are referring to and which POV you're in. As long as the reader can follow the name change, you should be okay.