Why are so many characters called Jane?
Tom writes: The female lead in “Flying Dutch” was called Jane (a) after a friend of my wife’s, an accountant, who’s called Jane (and is nothing at all like the character in the book) (b) because it seemed to suit her – straightforward, quite strong, dysbimboesque, but with subliminal associations of (i) plain Jane (ii) the dashing & adventurous heroine of the old comic strip (iii) me Tarzan, you… By the time I finished FD, I was using the name Jane as mental shorthand for that kind of female character; and since it’s a character type I find useful, I stuck with the name. Female leads who don’t follow that pattern get called something else; Michelle in “Open Sesame” was a bit too mimsy to be a Jane, Bianca in “Paint Your Dragon” needed to be rather more glamorous, & so on. I called the female #2 lead in “Wish You Were Here” Janice, because she’s almost a Jane – by learning and suffering she moves towards acquiring Janity. The other reason is because it annoys the hell out of my mother
