Comment on Character Cliches to Avoid by GMYuna
What about sometimes calling then by their nicknames in the narrative? But not always
As long as the reader has a reason to know why the character is being called the name they are, it's fine to use them. For example, if my character is called by their nickname by their friends and full name by their parents, there's no problem (it works like that in real life). But something I've seen a lot of is something like so:
"Samantha (blah, blah, real sentence here), called Sam by her friends"
If she's never called Samantha, there's no reason to explain it. The reader already knows it. It's a cliche to introduce us to the character without actually telling us about the character. It's one of the subtler ones in the list.
Now, if you're talking about switching it in the actual narrative voice, I wouldn't do that. You run the risk of confusing your reader (especially if they're only skimming and you have two similarly named characters!), but unless you're in the first person POV, there's really no reason to. Both the reasons to use the nickname (if it's never used at all in the story or ever in the narrative), would include irony, which is a completely different issue.
"Samantha (blah, blah, real sentence here), called Sam by her friends"
If she's never called Samantha, there's no reason to explain it. The reader already knows it. It's a cliche to introduce us to the character without actually telling us about the character. It's one of the subtler ones in the list.
Now, if you're talking about switching it in the actual narrative voice, I wouldn't do that. You run the risk of confusing your reader (especially if they're only skimming and you have two similarly named characters!), but unless you're in the first person POV, there's really no reason to. Both the reasons to use the nickname (if it's never used at all in the story or ever in the narrative), would include irony, which is a completely different issue.