Writing Under The Cloak Of Anonymity

There are a few reasons why you may want to write under the cloak of anonymity. For some writers, they don't like to be in the limelight. For others, they like the idea of creating an alter ego. In my case, I choose to write using a pseudonym, or pen name if you prefer, because a great deal of my content is authentically based on my very own personal history.

I personally have nothing to hide from my past, having never broken any laws or done anything bad to anybody. However, there are quite a few people from my past who have done me some great wrongs and caused me a lot of damage and grief, not to mention trauma. In part, that is perhaps my fault for being so trusting.

One of the biggest problems with wrongdoers is that they do not take kindly to being caught out, and they certainly do not like being outed, especially in a very public way. For this reason, I not only conceal my own identity, in writing and photographically, but I also have to conceal the guilty parties as well as the innocent.

Now if you were to ask any writer worthy of the title writer, almost to a man or woman, they will admit that a lot, if not all that they write, is based on very real people and/or real events. However, what they generally do is mis-describe the characters in their stories by name and by physical descriptions.

Charles Dickens no less, once learned the hard way of not concealing the true identity of somebody he knew by sight only. In one of his stories he very accurately described a crooked old woman he had seen out and about in the streets of London. Dickens went on to describe the woman's persona as evil and wicked. The woman read the story and immediately recognised herself, and, knowing where Dickens lived, she went a knocking on his door to have it out with him. Dickens, suitably chastised by the old woman, had to change some of her details.

In my case, I fear nobody knocking on my door. What I do fear a little is the guilty culprits recognising themselves and taking legal action for defamation of character. However, I have one very important thing in my favour, what I say is true and I can prove it.

If something you say or claim about somebody is true, then by default, it cannot be defamation. Still, to avoid any conflict that might arise, I do my best to conceal the identity of the person who I am talking about. Having said all that, some people are mad enough, and cheeky enough and rattled enough, that they will still try to take legal action and to hell if it is true.

Without naming any recently in the news names, there have been some guilty people who have gone all the way to right a perceived wrong. In the end, they usually get found out. I do remember a certain politician and writer called Jeffery Archer who sued the Daily Star newspaper for defamation and won a substantial amount of money. Years later the truth came out when one of his witnesses decided to set the record straight and Archer was forced to return the money he won, plus interest and legal costs, and was convicted of perjury, for which he was sent to jail.

So, do you conceal who you really are or not? That is up to you. If you feel you have reason enough, go for it. I have one more very good reason for operating incognito; on the off chance that one day I become very rich beyond my wildest dreams, I would rather be rich and anonymous than rich and famous.

I have an incredibly wealthy friend who worries a great deal about his grandchildren becoming targets for kidnappers seeking a ransom. So the gentleman in question has, at significant cost, employed a computer tech company to erase any reference to him on the internet. I cannot say I blame him, since we do seem to live these days in a very wicked world. And that is as good a reason as any for being anonymous.

And a final word of warning, these days the internet is a very dangerous place, most especially in terms of identity theft. Now I cannot think of a single advantage to anybody who might think it a good idea to identify as me.

However, there are those who would do it just to cause me trouble out of some perverted sense of what they would see as nothing more than harmless fun. However, it is well known that there have been very serious, harmful consequences to innocent people who have had their true identity stolen. So for me at least, Ralph Emerson I am.