Hrmm, you could be right. It’s certainly something that I’m aware of and I’m keeping an eye on. But just for now it’s not something I’m going to change (I like my character’s names).

Right now, my priority is finishing the story. Plenty of time to worry about the similarities/differences of Hanna v. Hannah! ^__^

It might be something an agent or publisher would take you to task about – people seem to dislike books featuring characters whose names have the same initial letters, let alone the same name (unless the same-names thing is an integral part of the plot or serves some other purpose). A reader might expect there to be some obvious parallels between the two, otherwise they might wonder at the similarity of the names.

Hanna is actually Hanna Katla and is the name of my Icelandic heroine, and I like her name. But I needed to bring in some companions for Helen when on her holiday, and it being a conservation holiday, two characters from a previous film/novel marched right on into my subconciousness and announced that they were the companions. It felt right. There names were Hannah and Alice and they have some interesting (if unrelated) back stories.

I liked that. Although I do realise the dangers involved with having two characters of such similar names in the same story, it’s something which I thought I would try and get away with. And I don’t see them appearing in the same scenes (much)…