Basic Trope: A pen name used to conceal a woman's gender.
- Straight:
- Alice Troper, a writer of gritty whodunnits, uses the pen name A. M. Troper.
- Alice's pen name is Anderson Teller.
- Alice's pen name is Allistair Teller.
- Exaggerated: Her pseudonym has its own email address, website, and Twitter account, all completely in character.
- Downplayed: The book jacket and the spine are the only places where Alice's pen name is used.
- Justified: Most Writers Are Male
- Inverted:
- Bob Doe, a writer of YA romance novels, uses the pen name B. L. Doe.
- Bob's pen name is Belinda Dallas.
- Bob's pen name is Blair Dallas.
- Subverted:
- Alice uses a feminine pseudonym for her whodunnits. She just doesn't want the books to be traced back to her.
- Alice is FTM Trans, he just hasn't transitioned.
- Double Subverted: Alice gets bored of her franchise and wants to take it in a different direction. She later writes a less conventional whodunnit under a masculine pseudonym.
- Parodied:
- Robin Ribcracker is only known to the media as Jennifer Sexflirt, creator of sappy romance novels. Eventually she writes gruesome horror stories under her real name.
- Alice commits identity theft just to keep the illusion up.
- Zig Zagged: Alice uses several different pen names for experimental writing.
- Averted: Alice does not use a pen name.
- Enforced: Executive Meddling says that a murder mystery written by a woman would be expected to have lukewarm reception at best.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: "A. M. Troper... huh. This guy is too mysterious to even put down his full name." "You're sure the author is a guy?"
- Conversed: "The killer tried to use a female name, huh? Reminds me of those old writers who would always claim to be of the opposite gender."
- Deconstructed: It appears as though there are significantly more good detective stories written by men than there are written by women, because women tend to use opposite-gender pen names more than men do.
MAIN PAGE: A book by M. D. Plume
