This week’s video suggests some remedies to the common pitfalls of confusion that befall readers who are muddled by your large casts of characters.
Video Transcription: You ever read a book in which a slew of characters was dumped in your lap in a short amount of time? In a historical book I just finished, the author bombarded readers with one name after another, and then expected us to remember all these characters when they’re mentioned rather casually in further chapters. In large books, with large and complicated casts of characters, it can be deeply frustrating for readers to try to keep everyone straight.
Here are a few tips for implanting character recognition in your reader’s brain:
1. When possible, space out character introductions. Doing so not only prevents character overload, it also allows you the space to let each character show at least a little of his personality when you first bring him on stage. If you can give readers time to visualize each character, and attach the proper name to the proper person, they’re much more likely to remember who’s who.
2. If you absolutely must introduce more than a few characters at once, make sure you give them all defining personalities, so they don’t blend together. This can be accomplished through distinctive dialogue or reference to an interesting physical characteristic.
3. Pay attention to character names. Memorable names make characters memorable (although you certainly don’t want to go overboard with them). Avoid giving characters names that start with the same letter or sound similar to one another. Characters are the life’s blood of your story. Don’t trip up their effectiveness by making it difficult for readers to connect with them.
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Lots of exciting things are underway around here. A complete overhaul of my main website is in progress, complete with new developments that I’m thrilled to be able to start sharing with you.
I’m working on several projects to expand Wordplay in new ways to help writers, including a member network, which will include an online consultation of your story, a free audio CD, great discounts on all my books, a supplementary newsletter (which several of you have been asking for), and monthly contests for some great prizes.
So keep your eyes open over the next couple months as construction continues. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on how I can improve my site and my blog to better meet your needs, please leave a comment or drop me a line using the contact form.
Related Posts: The Name Game by Terry Odell
Naming Characters
Describing Characters
Top 7 Reasons Readers Stop Reading
Story by K.M. Weiland
Tags: beginnings , Characters , Description , names
Great! Thanks for the info.
That's great news about the site!
I'm so excited to see the progress, and witness great changes.
I'm also stoked about the consultation and Boooooooks!
:D
Thanks so much for being willing to share these nuggets with us fellow writers.
Everytime I read your posts, I meander all through the site becuase I read several related posts, and the each one is richly packed with useful info.
Much prayer and wishes for all the changes.
Don't get overhwelmed, though!
You're doing so much for us and still writing...you are truly appreciated. :D
Great advice, as always ;o) I'd love to see a newsletter! Some good changes coming up!
Good advice -- and I blogged about character names a short time ago, and shared my system for keeping names straight and less likely to confuse a reader. If you're interested, the post is here
@Kelly and Erica: Thanks so much for the encouragement! I'm really excited about the changes underway, and I hope it's something everyone else will enjoy as well.
@Terry: Brilliant idea! I added it as a link above.
Glad to share. Everyone finds something that works -- usually by borrowing bits and pieces, so I hope someone else will benefit from what worked for me.
Definitely. The writing community works best when we all share with each other. The more we share, the more we learn, the better we write.
Great tips!
On the recent rewrite I started, I realized that while most of my characters names were different, I had 6 character names that ended with an 'N'. Four of them got changed, and I'm much happier with the fact they don't all rhyme now.
Interesting changes to come! Looking forward to it.
I inevitably end up having to change character names, usually due to the whole "sound-alike" issue. Thank heavens for Word's Find feature!
I'm excited to see the changes planned for your site! :D
Me too! I'm having fun with the planning stages.
Good point. Introducing a big bunch of characters at the beginning can really swamp a reader, especially if they're trying to load all sorts of other info too. As for similar names, I find it' not such a problem if the names sound similar - but it is if the words look similar.
Can't wait to see your new site!
Once we've familiarized ourselves with a word, our minds often look at the word as a whole, rather than the individual letters, so sometimes just similarly shaped words can be a problem!
Great advice, as always. :-)
Congrats on the updates...can't wait to see the new look for your site (not that I didn't like the old one)!
Thanks, Jamie! I appreciate that very much coming from you.
Wow. I'm so excited about the new changes. That's very impressive that you're able to do all that.
Thanks! It should be an exciting year - for everyone, I hope.
These are great points! I've had to struggle with myself before on not giving characters names with the same letter or sounding similar as I have a father/daughter pair where one had a feminine name of the other but I worked it out with nicknames.
I agree that it is very difficult to keep track of a bombardment of characters. I would find it hard enough to keep track of so many when I'm writing so I can only feel how difficult it would be for a reader!
Thanks so much for this excellent post. =D
Readers sometimes keep my characters straight better than I do. I've had people remind me of things I've written that I'd completely forgotten about. *facepalm*
Things are looking really great for you it seems :) Thank you too for the great advice :)
The best part of my year has been meeting great writing folk such as yourself!
Good tips as always :) Good luck with the changes, can't wait to see them!
Thanks for commenting!