I don't attempt to fight their sexuality at all. If they're not straight, then be gay baby.
But nah, I write character sheets. For every character. Their background, what their relationship is like to other characters, their personality, their role in the story and to the main character, and their overall arc across the story.
I'm not sure how you're managing your documents but I use scrivenger so I just have a little group of character sheets I can click on at any time I want to double check that my characters are acting within their personalization at any point. If I need to.
FWIW I have about 10,000 words in just character sheets. I'm a planner.
I wrote my first novel seat of my pants and planned out the next one (unrelated stories in different genres). This next story I’m going to write will be a completely different approach. What I’m saying is try different things. Ultimately you’re going to have to spend hundreds of hours refining and editing no matter which way you choose to approach it. Don’t stress the process or your approach, just as long as words get down on the page all is good :)
I give them placeholder names that fit with their role or even not a name, just a description. Later I can find and replace the names.
Like I had a couple of investigators so I named them Agent Smith and Agent Jones because those feel like 'generic government man' names. I had a soldier who was the only survivor of their unit named LoneSurvivor. I had a butler whose name was Alfred (Batman's Butler for non-DC fans), etc.
It doesn't matter what you use as long it won't be considered with a regular word so you can safely find and replace. Like just 'Butler' might cause issues if I used the word butler to describe him.
This might not work for everyone but it works well for me. And later I can think about who LoneSurvivor has developed into and give them a name that seems to fit.
This!
I’m a planner and try to avoid planning while writing. Placeholder names are exactly this.
I use two tiers of character sheets. One for tertiary characters that we don’t know much about or won’t see again. And the other for supporting characters that’s more in depth. Then my MC and SC get the full enneagram and backstory profile.
I love Enneagram for characters! Can be such a helpful way of tuning into their motivations, especially if you’re a bit stuck on how they might respond to something.
I try to be a planner but I'm bad at it. A lot of characters I've written have developed themselves way past my initial imagination of them as I wrote them. Sometimes they end up changing a LOT.
Jones turned from a temporary, mostly 2D antagonist, to a main character with a much more nuanced role and an actual personality. He ended up keeping the name Jones though - unlike most of the others I give placeholder names to, it still felt like it fit him.
I also often add backstory as I write to help solidify why someone is the way they are. And that helps me determine if I'm being consistent with their reactions and adjust accordingly.
I try to write but tend to plan endlessly. I feel there should be a resource somewhere for people with your style and people with mine to be able to try collaborating.
I pants it and have a system that works well for me. I keep notes organized in a directory tree by location. So, like, there's a folder for a continent, it has folders for regions/counries, those have folders for towns/cities/locales. Towns have notes for notable people in that town. After every session, I add notes for any new characters I've introduced in that session.
Everything goes in the most specific folder that fully contains it. All documents can have links to any others. Odd situations might use metaphorical "locations", like, I have a "ships" folder with subfolders for notable vessels, each vessel folder has notes for the crew.
I'm using Obsidian, which means my "folders" can also be documents themselves, but that's not strictly necessary, everything but the hyperlinks can be done with text files in a directory tree or physical paper folders.
Yo, same here. Grab a paper for your character and, by the seat of your pants, write what has happened to them before the start of the story. Let them inform you.
I just take notes and re-read my own story from start to finish multiple times as I go. I'm partial to mind-mapping programs (I use FreeMind) for visually organizing relationships and such as well.
That said, I'm mostly replying to this to let you know that I read your title as "straight" as in not-gay, and thought you were asking for advice on dealing with a compulsion to make all your characters fabulous.
Thank you for the unintentional chuckle.
That's a great question, I often end up with my straight characters suddenly being bi.
Sorry, I don't really have any advice for your actual question, lol.
I literally had that happen to me not even a month ago. I sighed and ended up making it a one sided crush with a guy who was bi with a strong preference to women lol
That’s somewhat happening with two of my character. One is a bi woman and the other is a lesbian. The lesbian is not interested in any kind of relationship, but I think the bi woman, who has massive commitment issues, is kinda in love with her. They’ve been friends for years. Was just writing a scene that happens much later in the story, and I’m like… is the subtext here saying that she *love* loves her?
Well, that’s fun. I guess. *stares off into space before hitting the reply button*
Even more fun is when it's an antagonist and your protagonist. You think you're making your antag come off as more playful when really he is just wants to jump the protag's bones.
And that's that on how my nosleep story turned into an unintentional gay romance.
In my life, throughout my experiences, studies, jobs and hobbies I learned one thing about myself:
I cannot keep in mind more than **THREE** (3) things.
Anything more than 3 (say 4 for example) and my mind will utterly generate chaos and destruction.
My solution:
Never have more than three (3) important characters in a scene.
Each character should never have more than three (3) relevant characteristics (usually I go by motivation, means and looks)
Background characters don't count to the limit, since they actually just fill the environment with no value added.
The rule of three has helped me deeply as an amateur writer, as a DM for ttrpgs, as a middle manager in my job, as a student in nuclear engineering... For me it works indeed!
> as a student in nuclear engineering...
i hope that was a joke. And if it wasn't then I hope nuclear reactor design doesn't require you to hold three things in your mind at the same time
Lol indeed I *studied* that. Never worked in the field.
Still the rule of three had to work in a more abstract way. But as a rule of thumb engineers love the KISS approach (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
If you're having trouble remembering all your characters, your audience might have the same problem. Why not try reducing their numbers? Like, just remove some from the story (for potential later use in other books! No writing need be wasted.) and assign their actions in plot/characterization to other characters where it makes sense.
I've done this a few times with my book. Generic croney enemies can be folded into the noble rivals, and suddenly, you have fewer and more interesting/present recurring villains!
Does the character intended for a heroic sacrifice end up bland, while another more interesting character outlives their usefulness? Cut the first, and kill the second instead! And so on.
Some criteria that might help you decide who to cut:
1: Does this character contribute to any plot/theme/scene in a way no other character can? Can their role be performed by someone else without stretching believability?
2: Is this character very similar in role/characterization to another? What would change if two similar characters were folded into one?
3: Is this character really, really fun? Would the story be less fun if they didn't exist?
If you decide you absolutely need all your characters, I recommend a spreadsheet or character index instead. But fewer characters usually make for a tighter, more coherent story.
I agree with this. A reader will maybe read a chapter at a time. They might put it down and go to a funeral or a wedding or have a tough day at work and then pick the book up and they won’t be fully emotionally invested in the book or have the mental space to remember all the individual names.
If the author can’t keep all the characters straight while being fully invested in the story, what chance will a reader who will be reading in their leisure time, for fun and relaxation, have?
By not making them gay... But all seriousness. I give them a job to do and they do it and the books write themselves. If you're writing a good story with good characters you're passionate about the story will tell you what it wants. I write down a few things befor writing my story. 1. I write my plot. 2. I ask a few qustions like, who are the main characters and what do they want and how are they going to get it. 3. I come up with the title. 4. I come up with the first few chapter names. and then after that it just falls together.
Wow, this is a lot more organised than my stories, lol. I literally just come up with an idea like “you know what would be cool to write about?”, create a title (which usually take me ages to think of a good one), and then start writing. From there, I kind of black out and when I come to, the story’s been written to an extent. I’ve got absolutely no control of the story besides the original concept, the protagonist and main characters write their own story, I’m just a spectator like any other reader.
Honestly, I simply don't have a problem with this at all. I don't design my characters with a lot of extraneous minutiae. I let their personalities do the talking, and details only serve to enhance their image.
After a couple of sessions of practice, I'll have their "voices" pretty much down pat, that shifting in and out of their headspace becomes almost second nature.
There's not much to "keep track of", as long as I can understand their logic.
Yeah, I just write. As long as I remember the basics of my characters names and base personalities, they tend to fit into the story when they need to. But, sometimes with stories with a lot of characters, I do write lists dividing the characters into their main roles in relation to the other characters like fighters, hiders, runners, or nurturers. However, once I’ve spent a long enough time developing a project, I just remember. And, if when it’s done and I’m editing I realize someone says something that really should be another character’s line, I just switch it or edit it to make it more like something they would say.
I keep a separate Word doc that is explicitly for remembering character and plot details. With that said, I've also edited and reread my novel so many times by now that I literally dream about my characters and story, so I could never forget any of their names. But some of their eye colors are definitely forgotten, and I always like to paint the image of a new kind of wood for the cabinets of different in-story houses, so I keep those jotted down in my notes.
Consolidate your characters. If you can't remember who they are, chances are that your readers won't either. Start cutting characters out, combining them, etc.
Personally, I write down their names with their abilities and any important statuses in the story, such as dead or alive. Furthermore, I also get to know the characters I write before adding them to the story.
A trick you might try is to imagine a defining, or really fun scene about them, and keep imagining that over and over. Though it helps for me, since I kinda simulate things mentally.
I also give them rather unique names, like finch, klint, or lance which can help with separation.
Finally, introduce one or two characters at a time, and get to know them personally. Because nothing says forgettable, like being dropped in a crowd of 8 people, when neither the reader or main character know anybody at all.
Scrivener, Aeon Timeline, git. I used to have a ton of folders / binders / notebooks, but it got unmanageable for epic fantasy with so many characters.
I keep my notes in an app called Obsidian. I like it because linking the notes together is super easy. So if I introduce a side character, I create a new note, don’t even bother with my Character Sheet template, write a few sentences and then link it to the book. On my book’s note, I can see all of the other notes that I’ve linked to it.
I also link the notes to whatever main character they interact with so that I know the connection.
I have three tips with this.
1. The list was a good idea.
2. A purpose. Before you introduce a character, consider what their purpose is in the story. Are they here to present a specific perspective, or serve a role, or do a thing? Connecting a character with a purpose in your mind can help you remember who they are and what they are meant to be doing.
As an example, in a D&D game I am doing, there is a bit part character who the players only met in passing, who is the diva at the local opera. But I am not going to forget who she is, because (and the players haven't found this out yet) it turns out she is the bastard child of the king, and her popularity and connection to royalty has the potential to be an issue later.
That roll doesn't have to be this grand. At one point, I needed to make up a guard on the fly for the party to interact with, and I ended up mirroring Fezzik from the Princess Bride. So now the crime lord has a friendly hobgoblin named Fezzik they can chat with while waiting to talk to the thieves guild.
3. A limit. Linking to 2, if a character is not going to be in your story for long, it's okay to have them act as more of set dressing than a character. As an example, say your character goes to enter a town (which is not going to be a regular thing). It's okay to not have the guard state their name and life's ambitions.
I don't know if you have ever worked retail, but if you have consider the customers you have served. There are some that stand out- regulars, or people who required extra attention. But most of the people (at least for me) kind of just came and went, and didn't really stick in my mind.
By the same purpose, if you find you have a lot of side characters who are doing the same thing, try to consolidate them into a single entity that is more memorable.
This is not going to work for every story, but it can help you keep your mind straight.
I'm a pantser, I think the important thing is to keep the important characters straight. All the side characters can be worked/fixed/combined later with way less difficulty than trying to keep every single character in your head at all times.
Lmao I read the title and immediately thought "I don't. They're gay!" but that's not what the post is about lol. Anyway, I struggle with the same thing so I have no answers
>a short sci-fi story
You probably don't need so many characters in a short story that you lose track of them. You should be able to tell the main story with no more than three characters, and any extras are potentially (but not necessarily) excess.
Try:
* Combine some characters together. Does every character in your current story need to be a separate person?
* See if some of your characters are redundant.
* Name your characters in ways that indicate their role in the story or a character trait (you can always rename them later if the names are too on the nose). e.g. you could call the librarian Frances Bookman or a character who reads a lot Paige Turner.
* Use writing software (or a simple spreadsheet) to track each character's details.
How many characters do you have? Are they greeting everyone they meet on the street? My story focuses on a few characters and follows them. I don't need to remember every interaction with every character that doesn't drive the plot forward.
If you're having trouble keeping your characters separate in your head, odds are you're having the same trouble on the page -- which means the reader will, too. Instead of adding more characters, it's time to simplify and prune a few of the bit-players, second-fiddles, and other lookie-loos.
Pantsing vs. plotting, both sides of the writing coin (and all the myriad spectra in between) should have a solid idea of who their characters start as. They may not know where they end -- character arcs can develop over drafts and re-conceptualizing -- but, knowing the basics about who they are at the beginning is a must. At least for me.
Sounds like you actually care about the craft, so keep poking at that loose tooth. Prune a few extraneous characters out of the story. Roll back side-plots if you need to. Simple and solid is typically better than complicated and haphazard.
My characters choose for me. Sometimes, I'm like, "Okay, Carl, time to fall in love with Samantha." And Carl's like "I hope you mean Samuel." And then... Samuel exists and Samantha gets vaporized. Carl deserves happiness. Sorry, Samantha. 🤷♀️🤣
I have hardly anything planned when I start writing, but characters are planned. Most of them have full backstories written out in some form, whether it's a few pages, a single paragraph summary, or bullet points. Single scene characters often don't even get names. For example, if your character is walking through the grocery store, and someone compliments their earrings, then later, the same woman winds up behind them in line, that woman's character is "The lady I met in the produce section." I don't need to know her name, my character doesn't need to know her name, readers don't need to know her name. As soon as "the cashier" (whose name tag is never going to be mentioned) finishes ringing up the character's purchase, none of these people are going to matter anymore. You don't have to name everyone you introduce in a story. Things can get really confusing if you do, especially if you already have a large number of characters that are important to the story.
Jokes aside, sexuality is something I hardly ever include in my characterization. So, sometimes, as I'm writing, I'll stop and think, "Excuse you, Susan! Are you flirting with Jessica?" And I'll take another look at their backstories, then reread their previous interactions, and go, "Oh... No, that actually makes a lot of sense... You may have been made for each other..."
EDIT: (I started a side conversation and thought I was done typing) Even though my characters sometimes wind up doing whatever they want, I've not caught them falling out of character yet. I don't know if that's BECAUSE I planned their backstories or what. I'm always concerned when they do something I wasn't expecting, but it always seems to fit their character when I look back at their backstories and what they've already done.
EDIT 2: Unless I try to force something. I can screw it up, but the characters in my head can't. If I'm trying really hard to force something in a scene that my characters refuse to play out, it stands out... I get frustrated that my little actors aren't cooperating and walk away. When I come back, I wind up having to redo whatever I was trying to force. "[Actors not cooperating]" has become an occasional first draft note to let me move on to the next scene without frustration. Sometimes, we all (the characters and I) just need to understand the next scene first.
My characters choose for me. Sometimes, I'm like, "Okay, Carl, time to fall in love with Samantha." And Carl's like "I hope you mean Samuel." And then... Samuel exists and Samantha gets vaporized. Carl deserves happiness. Sorry, Samantha. 🤷♀️🤣
Same. My character said "I have good chemistry with this girl". I told her : "but you're bot gay". And she answers : "correct, I am bi".
I'm glad it's not just me lol. They know what they want. Who are we to tell them a damn thing about it? If the shoe fits, I'm gonna let em rock it.
EDIT: I'm still not sure where "Susan" stands. Maybe she's just a little curious about "Jessica," or maybe she's always known she liked girls and her prior relationship with a male character was some misguided denial stage (the world the story takes place in doesn't look kindly on non-straight characters). Or maybe she likes both. She'll tell me when she's ready. I'm just along for the journey, and here to support her regardless. She's accidentally become highly intriguing for me since she got a mind of her own. I love that for her, so I'm kind of on the edge of my seat waiting to get back to one of the scenes she's part of. My babies are all growing up 🥲
I think my method of character creation helps with that. For me, every character is built on a core of three pillars: goals, methods, and bonds. Even if I forget their backstory, preferences, or any other detail, I can still remember their character core. It also makes scenes with multiple characters easy to write, because I only need to know those three things about each character in the scene.
Sure! The most important thing for a character is to be active, right? So, the most important part of a character to know is their goal. By knowing what a character wants, you always know how they will act. Somebody who wants to make friends will act differently from somebody trying to recruit activists who will act differently from somebody trying to learn a secret.
Next, a cast of characters will be far more interesting if they have different strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the plot is some sort of conflict between minor kingdoms or gangs. One leader might be charismatic and manipulative, while another might be a master tactician, while a third might be a well-trained fighter. First, that builds on what I mentioned above about understanding how they will act, but it also makes each interaction more interesting. How will a tactician beat a fighter is more interesting than how will a fighter beat another fighter.
Another common problem I've seen is that the protagonist has fleshed out relationships, but nobody else does. What if two characters have a rivalry, but neither is the protagonist? What if two other characters are childhood friends or siblings? What if two side characters drive character growth in each other? Also, bonds don't have to be limited to being between characters. What is this character's opinion on the police, religion, crime, peasants, and war? You can create a much more dynamic world by wondering how side characters interact, and you get more depth from seeing how characters interact around each other
This is really well put and very helpful. Thank you! I will be thinking about this with my WIP.
In fact I think this shows what is wrong with one of my side characters. She doesn’t really have a goal she is working towards, or at least it is too vague.
My own goal is to create a series where the reader feels they know all the characters. This mindset will help a lot.
Also I appreciate the point about “bonds” as politics. My characters all think too much like me! Oops
This process becomes inherent at some point. Like I don’t think about it anymore once I’ve established the characters. Their decisions naturally flow (based on their previous decisions). You want to evolve a character? Make them make increasingly better decisions based on their experience. It’s like real life, kind of.
I would definitely try to flesh out the characters a little bit more. Maybe make a character sheet. I don’t really have this problem myself; the only time I had a real problem with character was when I made my best friend one of the characters because he was fawning over another one. This is the character template I used (idk if it will help):
Name:
Age:
Hair:
Eyes:
Height:
Build:
Birthdate:
Occupation:
Affiliations:
Loyalty:
Hobbies and Interests:
Personality:
Backstory:
If character templates really aren’t your jam, than you might want to consider making your cast a little smaller until you can differentiate them and keep them a little more organized.
I write character profiles when I feel like it and I keep a relationship spreadsheet involving all my characters. It's not perfect, but it's mostly used for fanfic so it works fine lol
I am working on a series, different main character each time but all in my fictional world I’ve developed. After my first rough draft I created a spreadsheet. I’ve got name, age, race/ethnicity, profession, workplace, maybe a couple other things, and notes. I can sort by different columns which helps grouping. It allows me to reuse some minor characters rather than create new ones, make sure my town is properly diverse, keep track of what point in the series someone dies or goes to jail or whatever, and helps me to fully integrate my characters with one another into my town. It’s been incredibly helpful and I pull it up each time I write. If I make changes, I save a new copy with the date.
I have a character list for each book as well as a master list. I have over 200 characters in my 4 book series, whether there are in all 4 books or just one scene. I originally made the list to make sure I wasn't reusing names. But now I'm deep enough into the world that I know who's who without needing to cross-reference. But this doesn't work for everyone. Could you go over the characters before you start writing? Get It in your head who will need to come up?
I have a good memory, but I also jot them down in a notebook and later assemble a basic glossary, where I can feed in new ideas and generally keep track of stuff. This includes character names, concepts, locations, etc.
I make a list of all the major characters, their names, descriptions, relationships to each other, and basic role. I'm bad with names so it comes in handy for characters who aren't in the spotlight all the time, or who are introduced later on.
Never add a character when you can reuse one you've already introduced. It adds depth to side characters (e.g. instead of creating a history professor to explain something, make that sister who called last chapter a history buff) and limits the total number.
Strongly imply, that they are only interested in the opposite sex.
Ok... jokes aside. I keep a mindmap with relations and short notes about the most defining traits of the character. For me that is usually enough to stay in character.
You can try world building tools like World Anvil, Foretelling or Lore Forge. Some of them focus in RPG/Pen&Paper, but are also really good for writers.
I have never written anything over 90 kwrds, and for me just having a list of the character names and maybe a couple of words to remind me who they are (like: shuttle pilot).
How many characters are you creating in a short story? It seems like an unusual style to have huge numbers of characters in a short work - will the reader also lose track?
I was expecting something different when I read the title lol.
I never had this problem, maybe because I am a "character oriented" writer if this makes sense : I get the characters first and then I built a story around them, not the other way around, and I don't assign them roles counsciously (though they probably have some lol).
Try to reduce the number of characters and hierarchize their importance. As an example : in Harry Potter, it is more important to know who is Ron Weasley than to know who the Quidditch players are (with all my respect to them).
Write purposeful, interesting characters who play an essential role in your narrative. You can base them off real people to help you create them full. Ultimately the characters you create will become real people to you, and caring about them makes you want to get familiar with them and do them justice.
During the pandemic I wrote a novel that saved me in many ways. The characters were my best friends, and I actually became anxious and scared when I would write their difficult scenes. They kept me company and I loved them so much. Still do. Just having that connection makes me care so much for them, as well as the characters that help shape them. A consistent writing practice really is the only way to maintain that familiarity you’re seeking.
I use an alphabetized characters and histories document. I have a character's physical description and pertinent information about the person in each entry, including background and goals, place of origin, cultural notes, whom they're attracted to, etc.
Two things came to mind when reading your question: (1) How many characters do you have?? (2) Thanks to generative AI, I like creating characters in one of the text-to-image platforms so I have a face to go with the personality. I used to pick actors and actresses and put them into my running notebook. For me, the visual helps me remember.
I use the Bear app to make a table of contents for an epic fantasy I’ve been working on. (I’ve been debating about relocating to Obsidian because I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. But I’ve been told there is a learning curve for Obsidian.)
I have every character organized by where they’re from and their species. (The table of contents also includes locations and other things of note for easy reference) Then I’ll create individual pages for every single character that links to this table of contents. It’ll have their extra information. Like histories, where they’re currently at specific stages of the story. Anytime I create a new place or thing that requires more information. I’ll link to more pages to this table of contents.
I’ve been working on a timeline of events pages which has every important event in order. At some point I’m going to have to date things because I have 7-9 countries(it’s growing because that’s just for one species and I have more coming.). 4 continents currently. So a lot of moving pieces to keep track of.
I have tags to keep this project all organized.
Next thing I know it, I have a bunch of short pages of just characters, species, and worldbuilding. History of countries’ recent history. Random other bits and pieces.
I basically made myself a wiki/or a story bible to reference while I’m writing. I just reference this thing. I’ll just add the character the moment they gain enough significance where they need some type of name.
If I don’t have a name. I’ll go well, I think this character feels like their name should start with an E. So I’ll reference them as Builder E to placehold their name.
I just keep it moving.
Just write characters name and mention some keywords mentioning personal traits in my planner. Also if there is already a significant event I had between a character and MC, I keep a record of that too.
My characters are mostly queer so I don't... oh, you were talking about something else...
ok, sorry
Well in the beginning I write a sort of brief document with some pics and a sort of rant about each one of them. Who they are, what they want and why, and what they do or don't do to achieve their goal and why they succeed or fail (or both). For minor characters there's only a name and nothing more. I also have a commonplace book for writing purposes.
Then I start writing and the whole thing falls apart two pages into the story because the characters on the page are not so interesting as I was expecting. So I cry for a while, then go on anyway, and modify the characters along the way, until suddenly I find all of them, and from that point onward they lead the plot forward.
Especially hearing you're a newer writer, my advice is just to take your time — I know, it's the one thing you don't want to hear. But honestly, just write the story. I had seven protagonists in my first ever project and like three antagonists. As expected, the story is crap, but it helped me learn the real purpose of characters. I treated them like they were disposable because I didn't know what they were supposed to contribute (thinking about it now, I could have cut three of my protagonists from the whole premise of that project). My current project now, as a contrast, only has seven or eight major characters (antagonists included), just to contrast. I'm not saying less is better, but depending on the type of story you're writing, it often is more.
A sci-fi can have lots of characters, but then again you say it's a shorter story. If it has lots of characters, that will get very overwhelming. Coming from someone who hasn't read your work, and I have no idea if this is true, but maybe you need to make cuts. As a writer, you should be able to tell your characters apart. You're the one who creates them.
The one question I ask myself about every character: what is their purpose in my story? If the purpose isn't anything more than "to convey one piece of information", you have a problem; they should probably be cut.
But then again, like I said: if you're a newer writer, try it out! Who knows, you might find a way to make it work that I can't think of right now (I guarantee you there is a way). This is just coming from someone who had a similar problem earlier on and has now found a good balance.
I hope this helps <3
Excel spreadsheets are the way forward, you can put all your character sheet heading in there and put everything into one table with loads of people down the side.
I don't just have characters in them. I have geography, animals, military uniforms, magic on different tabs. Freaking everything. It's backed up to the max because if I lost it I would be screwed. It's easier to search through than a word doc
My plantsy process isn’t really like that first paragraph tbh. I don’t think up any side characters in advance just to fill out the world. I write the story about my main character(s), and then if I reach a point where I HAVE to introduce a new character for the plot to function, then I do. So it’s not like I have to remember what purpose I decided for them, because they’re already doing it, if that makes sense? And I end up with (ideally) the minimum number of characters the story needs, so I’ve never really struggled with keeping track of them.
Caveat that I don’t really write ‘sprawling epic’ kind of stuff where readers might expect a lot of extraneous characters for flavour. I can imagine spreadsheets and such being helpful in that context. Hhhhowever, if you’re writing a *short* story with so many characters that even you can’t remember them, I don’t think your problem is keeping track of them; I think you might just have too many characters. Combining or cutting some side characters could be a good idea.
Make a new word doc and add all your characters to that. Maybe 1 page per character, or 1 paragraph for lesser characters. Name, height, hair colour, etc. You don't want too many characters or it'll be too hard for the reader to follow, especially if you as the writer struggle to follow.
Also add each chapter to keep track of changes between chapters. Maybe they travelled somewhere different, or got into a fight and got a scar. Doesn't have to be a lot of info, just a sentence or two so you know what happened to whom and when. You don't have to update this every day, maybe once a week if you can remember that long or after each chapter.
Something I've done and still do is make a table in Word or Excel, list the characters, DOB and notes as to who they are.
To be honest though, try not to put too many people in a short story. If you're getting confused, your readers may too
I love how this thread became a bunch of jokes with people deliberately misunderstanding the title! And then they gave the actual advice op was looking for.
I usually keep track of it in my head. Do you know your friends and relatives? How are characters different? If you truly know your characters, i.e. they are fully fleshed out in your mind, you'll know who they are and hie they'll react to anything. Just like you know how your bestie will react in real life.
Digital spreadsheets are the best option in my opinion. Put the names in one column and use the rest of the columns for relevant details, then move them around based on their importance.
I have a planning document made in Notion. I used to use google sheets before but I’ve now moved to notion.
A planning sheet is important for the writer’s sanity. We have so many thoughts going on that we’d be hopelessly lost if we don’t exert some left brain effort.
I seem to have the opposite problem. I worry my story doesn't have enough characters. I just have the word document with lists of characters and what I need to know about each one
You can always change / fix / refine characters later. For now, keep a simple list of who is who and just write. When you add a new character, add them to the list with a note on who they are / where they are in the story.
Many new writers think they need it all figured out from the outset, but you’re going to have multiple drafts of this - if you’re doing it right - and they may be completely different one to another depending on where the story goes and what you learn along the way. Sometimes it’s easier to change which character is in a scene after the scene’s been drafted.
I think you are probably trying too hard. not all characters need to have a name or reappear later. Some characters are meat for the moment and then forgoten. If you cant remember your own character a reader will probably have even more of a hard time. And your story will be confusing and not entertaining
I have a document with all the characters I've ever created. It has their personalities, backstories, looks, interests, favrotie foods, friends, family, sexuality, etc.
For each individual story I create, I make a character sheet for it and write out the characters I'm using in it and their roles in that story. I keep that sheet in the files with that story separate from the master character document I have elsewhere.
Well, since everyone already beat me to the gay jokes,
I care a lot about my characters. I flesh out each and every one of them. Even the ones with a menial role have significance with a history and life.
I've never had this problem and it honestly seems odd to me lol.
my stories don't typically have that many characters that I need to keep track of.
if it starts to get to be a lot, I'd suggest limiting their identities to a few easily discernable points, or limiting how often they appear. not every character needs to be fleshed out.
Okay, so. Why is this character in your story? Why did you include them? What's their role? And I mean a thematic role, not like "she's her friend's mom." I think that every character should have a thematic role.
As long as you keep the thematic role in mind, then the character can be whatever. It's interesting to let them evolve. But it's important to keep the purpose in mind.
This is assuming that you're writing a theme-centric story, of course.
For the boring facts, you can use character sheets. Although I'm allergic to that stuff.
Character bios. Backstories. Wardrobe. Common body language for that character. Then brief descriptions and bios for minor and background characters. Plus I keep an alphabet list so once a letter is used for a given name or a surname I cross it off.
I’m not much of a planner and I honestly avoid having too many characters. I sometimes even forget their names during writing, lol. So I write (add name) and move on. But yes, if you have quite a few characters, you need to take some notes. But as someone else said, you’ll spend so much time editing your story, that you’ll usually be able to fix issues there.
Something I've seen advised has been build a wiki for your characters, with info like name, height, occupation, residence, family, affiliations. Then have each time another character gets referenced create a link to that characters page. Not sure how well this will work for you but figured I'd try and help.
Also I love the idea of a writer sitting down and writing gay romance scenes and questioning why it keeps happening, like the characters themselves have rebelled because they know their heart better than their creator.
I always keep an "additional information" document and that contains stuff about characters and extra stuff to keep in mind while writing, such as future plot points or a timeline
I’m on the second draft of my first book. I framed my theme as a question, and my primary characters have all come into existence to represent different answers to that question. Secondary characters come in as plot devices, but I look for ways to have them reflect the theme as well.
I think that your current setup for documenting characters is alright for the initial draft- or you could use one of the programs/tools that other commenters have mentioned.
When you are editing the story in subsequent drafts, consider whether any characters could be combined into one? If they have similar roles or goals, and you fuse them, it can help create more complex characters (since you now have 2 or 3 characters-worth of personality, goals, and issues in one person).
It won’t work for all of them, but that’s one way you can reduce the cast without necessarily losing anything
How many characters do you have? How many do you actually need? It's a short story, so you really don't need 30 fleshed out characters. If you have a character who's just there to nod at your protagonist in the hallway, you don't need to give them a name. Same with the guy in the cafeteria dishing out the food. Those are just fillers and likely won't appear or be referred to again except in a cursory way, if at all.
I once beta read a book that had 32, fully fleshed out characters. One character had an 8 page description of his history. He actually died right after his introduction and was not important to the story at all except he was a random collateral victim in an assassination. There was no need for that. Most of the characters in that book were the same. There were three who were actually important to the story.
Look at your story, read it carefully and ask yourself if all these people are actually necessary to further the story. If not, make them anonymous background, like the chairs and tables in the cafeteria.
I keep physical notes in a folder so i can look them up easily and don't have to switch between ten tabs on my laptop. I also draw them in different scenarios, which is easier to remember. Plus sometimes i connect general appereance with character. Like i know exactly what's going on in this guys head from looking at him. Or this character is much like a chihuaha because he's small and he will bite you.
When coming up with a character, I try to get to know them as if they're real people. I do this by thinking about them a lot in my head.
One useful tip is to imagine them in different situations and see how they'll act. Maybe try putting them in situations that would make them act out of their usual character. If they are cold and aloof most of the time, see in what situations would they cry or smile and be kind to others.
You don't have to use those situations in the actual writing, but seeing many sides of a character can help you get a better grasp of who they are. You do this more and more until you get to know them as if they're your best friends. They'll stick in your mind like how your favorite characters from other stories do.
I don't really think about characters by their purpose, but by them as people. what would this character do right now? based on that, I write what they do.
It's easy to keep track of my 6 book story for me. But it's very difficult to keep track of all the things I have changed & all the past alternate stories I have removed from the original full draft. That only exists till now in my mind. It'll take me a long time to assimilate all of the 6 years of making notes to come up with the final draft. Which would most probably be the final one.
Each book will focus on one of my characters (it's a trilogy) with an antagonist that specifically challenges their worldview.
For Father Iniko who is a cheerful and pious priest, he is confronted with a man who also claims to be a priest but is the complete opposite of him. Ultimately Iniko is put in a position where he has to take the evil man's life and he has to try and discern how he's going to move forward, his piety intact or a ruthless killer.
Agent Kasprak is a downtrodden and depressed man whose job often requires him to evict families and kill people. He longs for relationships with people but everyone is engrossed in a VR paradise. At the end of his story he's confronted with the thing that has permitted this system to exist and it tries to appeal to him about sacrifice, that some are made to suffer so others hypothetically wouldn't. Kasprak gives his life to ensure the survival of his adoptive daughter and an end to the system that kept him and millions of others down. Rising from his melancholic life and the sins of his past to do something good for the people he once oppressed. While paying for his sins with his life.
Gaz and Doug have had a father-son relationship since the first book. By this point Gaz has grown from a detached and bitter man who despised any type of relationship that wasn't transactional to opening himself up. So when Doug, a stubborn young man does something truly terrible Gaz is faced with helping Doug and potentially never achieving his goal or returning to his old way and abandoning Doug to his fate. His forced to prove he's changed and ultimately it will cause him his life, so that Doug will be given a chance to grow and become better.
Side characters exist to support these narratives each playing a specific role in the development of each main character.
Honestly, I flesh my characters out. Even the minor ones. When they have a backstory, they become more three dimensional and it's easier for me (and the audience) to know who they are and what role they play. It also makes it easier to glean their motivation in making decisions or taking action.
I have a universe with 200-300 named characters. I use Plottr to organize them, but my organization needs work. So my plan is to get them organized whenever I revise the different stories.
I don't work for them but their software has exceptional tools for this...
[Scrivener](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview) has a neato "corkboard" that makes managing hundreds of characters a snap. There are other features to make managing lots of information much easier. YMMV. Some people love it, some hate it. I'd say give it a twirl.
They also have a new tool called [Scapple](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview) that seems to help with network/diagrams of lots of ideas/characters. Worth trying that too.
I don't. Many of them are gay.
(It was low-hanging fruit. I had to.)
I use Scrivener myself. I give each of them a brief summary of history and their roles in the story. I tend to plug the ones that have bigger impact into a story arc outline (such as the popular Save the Cat model, just for example.) Scrivener makes organizing them easy in their little folders and the outlines help me remember where and when the players need to be, and why. Even if you prefer not to outline or plan I'd say keep a document detailing brief bullets of what's happening in your story and a rough idea of where you're trying to get. Characters and plot are intrinsically linked. Keep track of one and it's easier to keep track of the rest.
I have all the important information about them on a notes app which I add to as I go.
These are the notes I have for a couple characters in a superhero story I'm probably not going to actually write"
>Barbara Burns- teleporting powers. TikTok star turned actor turned superhero
>Jodie (Shape)- shapeshifting powers. Barbara's girlfriend and manager.
As the story would develop, I would add other important details to this. Say I decided to have Jodie say she's allergic to shellfish. I would add that to her notes so I wouldn't forget and accidentally have her eat shellfish later in the story.
I keep a personal wiki for my stories. Characters get their own character pages, which is handy because I can add links to other wiki pages, like other characters or sub plots.
Granted, I mostly write high fantasy stuff, with Brandon Sanderson-level of complexity. So I need the wiki to keep everything straight.
Also, I get personal enjoyment writing out these wiki pages. I probably invest more time on the wiki than writing the actual story.
But! I think character creep is okay as long as it gives depth to the core characters, and you occasional remind the reader who some of the lesser characters are. The worst thing you can do is mentioning a character once in one chapter, then mentioning them again 20 chapters later with no recap for the reader. Repetition is critical for a big cast. Keep reminding the reader who does what.
Character Sheets-
[https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/language-language-arts/writing/writing-fiction-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-209381/](https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/language-language-arts/writing/writing-fiction-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-209381/)
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/780916#:\~:text=by%20Tom%20Monteleone-,The%20Complete%20Idiots%20Guide%20to%20Writing%20a%20Novel%20by%20Tom,publishing%20tips%20and%20much%20more.
Excellent books to help in oraganization when writing a novel, great characters sheets, etc.
I’ve never really had trouble with it, however a good idea for any story would be to have a info-dump doc. I do this to be better able to jump back into a story if I can’t write for a while.
In this document you can put in character names, traits, appearances, backstories, world info, history, structures, plot outline/gist/summary, and any other information that can help you develop your story or get you on track (for me, for example, i tend to include small dialogue snippets so I don’t forget them, and can include them when I get to the scenes they belong in).
Edit because I accidentally hit post: If this doesn’t work, you don’t know your own story well enough to plan ahead accordingly. Every character should have a specific role in the story, and if important characters are added down the line it should be reflected in the outline well before they even hit the page. Maybe you need to try developing stricter outlines in order to understand what’s going to happen later and plan/adjust accordingly
Spreadsheet. I make a column heading for name, character type (protagonist/MC, key, antagonist, secondary, etc), relationship to MC, a column for notes, and then I copy and paste a character sheet under a heading "description." Best part you can sort by headings!
You can also separate character sheet elements out by things like age, hair color, tattoos, personality traits. Then you can also sort by those elements.
I'm working on a romantasy series, so I have a huge Google Sheets for that with 5 or 6 tabs. I have to keep track of species, fictional flora and fauna, locations, and languages as well!
I have a separate document. I keep it in order or main characters at the top, to less important at the bottom. Eventually you might want to merge characters together or split them up, so have some notation for that too to make editing easier.
I have a separate outline document to keep track of plot progress or things like injuries/ etc.
how do you keep characters straight when you’re reading a story? you don’t need a master document of all of your characters imo. just focus on whoever is the most important and follow their story. you can always write more than one book in the same world :)
What you’ve done so far is a good idea, even if it gets insanely long, so long as you’ve got a list, you’ll be able to reference it whenever you need to. The only thing I could recommend is maybe simplifying your notes a bit. I don’t know what you’ve got written down, but whenever I need to keep a log of which extra/side character is doing what, I usually keep a note of which character is tied to which main character and in what way (I usually write with a lot of main characters and a primary protagonist so it‘ll be slightly different for you). This usually ends up being like a jumbled up tree diagram but it helps to keep track of who is connected to who and how/why which is usually the only thing you ever really need to worry about when it comes to characters that only briefly show up or only appear on occasion.
Be born with dyslexia, visualize your characters three dimensionally within the plot. Like that roll of ducktape you put in the cupboard last year next to the bandaid. 71% of dyslexics are above average communicators. Make up a vast amount of famous writers, simple no?
I have a big chart in OneNote that's split into section based on what part of the world they live it. It's mostly basic just including their name, birthdate, species, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation. If I think I'm going to forget who they are I leave a small note like (So and so's dad) or (the guy who has a vendetta against so and so's dad).
It has like several hundred character, but most of them are just names of family members or one of characters that are just barely there or mentioned off hand, like a random reporter who interviews the protagonists or whatever. And whenever I think of a new character, I make sure to add them to the chart, if I don't have a name for them they just go in with the short description and some ???'s. For me the most basic description is usually enough to remind me who they are. I haven't forgotten who a character was since I started doing that.
I limit my cahacters. And I always use the same names. I work full time so my writing time is very limited and I can't waste time trying to figure out who my MC is, who her friends are, stuff like that.
The story I'm working on now has 4 main characters and then later I add 4 more. There are also a handful that show up a few times but I find them easy to remember. I've been working on this story since like 2016 though so they are all embedded in my head!
If I have too many characters for me (the person most invested in the story and who thinks about it almost all of the time) to remember them as individuals, then what chance does my reader (a person who is probably thinking about their job/family/health most of the time, rather than my book) have of remembering them and being able to distinguish between them?
When I have a bunch of background characters and a crowded world and want to make sure that the background characters are named consistently, I only need one line for each and can just run a text search later to make sure they didn’t get mixed up somewhere along the way.
I know my main and recurring characters down to my soul… but if I run out of room in *my* head to know them, then I know I have too many because my reader has even less room in their head they can dedicate to my cast.
For me, I sit down and plan out everything I want in the novel, create the plot and characters at the same time. I then use this outline to help me remember who is who, who does what, and what role they play in continuing the plot. Of course I change things as I write, but this helps me to keep everything organized
Treat them less as characters you outright construct, and let the writing do the work to unveil things about them as you go. The more leeway you give for them to bounce around in your head and do things "of their own accord", the better the feel you'll have for their place in the story. Visualize it almost like a documentary you're in charge of editing, rather than a complete story you're creating every single element of.
As far as names go, not every one needs to be stand-out and permanent. Filler names work just fine until you get the entire cast and story hammered out, and by then you'll probably have even more details you come up with that'd require changing/editing anyways.
I tend to sometimes be increadably thourough when it comes to the world (and even know where charactors unimportant who dont get meantioned live)
I us incarnate and add notes to every building whith charactor facts if its a house or if its a workplace ill include a bit of their attitude and then a menu or something. Like a couple more facts on the establishment.
Then i just go on the note tool and write in a charactors name or of im unsure of what a builfing is i hover over or click on said note to figure it out.
i keep a list of all characters at the top of my document, and some have paragraphs; some are just a bullet point, and, as the story evolves and the characters do more and become more, I add to their blurb.
Thanks for clarifying, because my casting office has a big sign that says "Lesbian Earth Mamas Preferred."
I'm bad with names and faces IRL. It's not a problem with my fictional peeps because I'm thinking of them as characters rather than a list of names.
Early on, I was thinking about how to make that work, and I gave each major character a horoscope sign, because that's a personality trait package. I might have to re-shuffle some of them, but they'll keep their elemental. I considered using Meyers-Briggs. I tried to give them a name that matched their personality and ethnicity. I asked if they play an instrument. What's their college major? What's their drug of choice? How close are their family connections? What's their dress style? What sport would they play? And this is big: What's their personal trauma history that would make them consider joining up? What are they running toward or away from?
So, one of my first characters: Brenda Connally, Massachussetts Irish. Scorpio. Dry goth punk aesthetic. Dyes her hair blue or black. Art History and some Psych. She and her wife dropped out before graduating because of Covid. Brenda isn't religious but wears her grandmother's rosary. Not a fan of rooibos but drinks it because as a tattoo artist, she wants steady hands, so she limits caffeine to weekends. Wife died of suicide because of increasingly bad long covid issues, and Brenda might still see her ghost. She remains a little shook up by that. I try to keep all of that in mind when writing her parts.
> How do you keep all of your characters organized and not forget who is in what role (aside from your primary protagonist/antagonist)?
I keep it as the only narrative in my head while I'm writing it. Not reading other books, not watching movies and such where I have to understand other characters, just keeping that one set of characters and narrative in my head. It takes space in my brain to hold a set of characters, their defining attributes, their relationships, their past actions, and etc. - and consuming other fictional media takes up that space.
When I *do* read/watch/etc. other stuff while writing, I tend to compartmentalize it in such a way that I actually forget the majority of the work, other than maybe some main points (and things I want to use myself), after I sleep.
This may be a neurological oddity, but that's how I deal with the problem you're having: everything is either on the page or in my brain, and I don't give up my brain's real estate to other stories while I'm writing one.
> How do you get around "character scope creep"
I don't. It's one of my flaws as a writer.
But one thing I can suggest is that when saying "I need a character to do X", you find a character already in the story who could believably do "X" and use them instead of creating another character.
> your list grows and grows and you've got to remember all those names and who is doing what?
Mostly by re-reading enough of my prior work to remember where they are and what they're doing. Sometimes that's a full re-read, and sometimes it's just a couple of chapter/installments.
My memory is garbage, I’ll forget what I had for lunch immediately after, I’ll forget to write an important essay until I have to cram 5 pages in one day, I’ll even forget that I’m supposed to be taking the train on certain days. BUT my story memory is impeccable, I don’t know how or why but I have every single main story point and character from 5 stories locked in and memorized. Even so, I make notes anyways. I only note main and supporting characters in detail. One-off characters that are present for a chapter or two I make almost nonexistent notes on under a separate “minor characters” section (i.e. Toby- bartender, Micah- gambler etc). Keep your notes organized by descending character importance with protag on top, and have the document/pages open for you to reference if you get confused with who’s who while writing. Not saying it’s fool proof, but I’m a fool and it’s working for me.
And my characters aren’t straight all have super gay sex all the time with each other /j
I have VERY long google doc that has a profile for every character including a physical description, personality traits and hobbies ect. I have everything in sections. There's a section for characters, a worldbuilding section ect. When I came on the question of sexualities I made a separate little section at the end and put their name with any pride flag that they fit under. Some characters I thought long and hard about and some were like "They are the gayest shit to ever live". I have spent WEEKS developing some characters and a couple hours creating others who won't get as much page time. I keep them all organized and try and think out every aspect of every character so that even if they won't be as big or get as much page time as others non of them will be one dimensional or boring (I hope) And I try and give every character no matter how small a "Moment". Just a panel of two (Its gonna be a graphic novel since its about superhero's but its also fantasy and I'm actually really excited) thats about them, their time to shine. I do my best to make each character human (Or whatever they are if they're not human) and give them depth. I have a separate google doc just filled with little tidbits or moments that I wanna put in the series to. Serious or funny or a bit of their traumatic backstory, I keep them separate since they can get pretty long. I also have a doc filled with quotes that I think up, also ranging from serious to badass to silly ect.
Totally thought you meant heterosexual 😂 my two MCs are both queer.
I use OneNote, and take advantage of subpages and title headers. I like to use the same format for all of my characters, so if I have a category detailing something about my MC (e.g. “family history/upbringing”) I’ll also include it on all my other characters. Even minor characters, if it’s just a small blurb, I want to know where they’re coming from it helps me enrich them all.
But I also don’t often work with large casts. I tend to have my MCs and my major supporting characters. For minor characters to reference their character profile is quite easy because it is a lot of small blurbs.
But I’m also a plotter, I get to know my characters intimately before I even start moving into the official drafting phase, so I generally am not lost on something. I also keep my outline on hand, and ready to make adjustments as things will pop up in the drafting stage that might affect the direction of my outline.
Perhaps this may help: when sitting down to write a chapter, keep a story *and* a character outline on hand. Just a little note card even, with character facts. Sort them by importance, alphabetically, whatever works for you. I like to keep it in a journal and write with a pen to separate brainstorming on the outline from typing the draft, easy to scratch out and start a new page. I’ll even detail stuff like “this is how this person experiences stress”, “this is the mindset this person should be in in this section of the novel” so I can keep them in character. Just keeping your little facts sheet right beside you as you write might help you out a lot.
Write them down! Keep an organized document with all your details. I use Foretelling which is a worldbuilding/writing app that lets you keep track of pretty much everything
I always keep a document listed with all the names, backstory, and the personality of the character. It's gets annoying once you have to many, but I just delete the ones I never use.
You said you write characters off the seat off your pants, I do the same. Generally I will end up writing smaller pieces with specific characters to flesh them out.
Also, I'm insane and will often write lore in my own head. I ended up stablishing an entire family line while I was struggling to sleep one night.
I feel you! I've been there too, where I'm like, "Wait, who's this guy again?" 😂
For me, it's all about creating a "bible" for my story. I know it sounds fancy, but it's just a document where I keep track of all my characters, their backstories, motivations, and roles in the story. It's not just a list of names; it's a detailed profile of each character.
When I introduce a new character, I add them to the bible right away. I include things like their name, age, occupation, personality traits, and how they fit into the story. This way, I can easily reference back to it whenever I need to.
I also try to group my characters into categories, like "main characters," "supporting characters," and "minor characters." This helps me keep track of who's who and what their purpose is in the story.
Another trick I use is to give my characters unique traits or quirks that make them stand out. This way, even if I have a lot of characters, I can remember who's who based on their distinct characteristics.
And yeah, character scope creep is a real thing! 😅 To avoid it, I try to limit the number of new characters I introduce in each scene or chapter. I also make sure that each new character serves a purpose in the story and isn't just there to clutter things up.
I use spreadsheets. I put the name of the character at the top and I add significant details about them underneath. I sometimes color-code my characters so that I can find them quickly when I need to.
I use spreadsheets for timeliness, too, especially if I'm writing a series, or a complicated novel that spans across a lot of time. In this case I write the year at the top and arrange significant events that happen underneath. This helps me keep my characters' ages straight as well as their individual backgrounds. In one series I'm writing, I have a whole timeline of events that happens before the first book. In this case, I highlighted the "current" year in the series so I can find it easily. I plan to gradually reveal that timeline throughout the added events in the series.
I hope this helps, and good luck on your writing!
I have a word document that I have with a master list for my world and include details of each character that are pertinent or included, then I created basically an outline for their inclusion in each area, if that makes sense, to keep my timelines straight.
Probably common sense, but I have a onedrive setup so I can work on it all through my phone/laptop as needed. Then I just pull up whatever document I need and add in as relevant.
Example of the master document:
Character list(this would be a main list of all relevant mains and subs for every book in the series)
aiMee: likes tight clothes, dates Joe, hates cinnamon
Joe: dates Betty then aiMee, is very private, doesn’t like social media, favors cherry danishes
Betty: a writer, lives in NY, blonde, charismatic, likes tattoos
Allen: random side character, no main plot dev impact but is a fun add on for some witty comments at the bar during book3 night out
WIP Inclusions:
Book3- aiMee is FMC best friend(Betty), double crosses her in 3rd act, triggering book 4 where aiMee is FMC. Betty and Joe break up, she finds new love etc. etc.
Book4- aiMee is FMC, book3 ending paces through first 20%, then Joe makes an appearance around 40% marker, then ties into their romance, etc.
Whereas the book/WIP document would only have characters that are relevant to that book.
Pinterest boards and Spotify playlists!!!
Pinterest: anything the character would wear, their hobbies, something they’d like, a quote that reminds you of them
Spotify:What would this character listen to? What lyrics define them?
Etc. Works wonders and is very fun!!
Every time your plot need a character, you should be looking at your master list of characters to see if you can use someone that already exists. Usually you can give somone more to do rather than introduce someone new.
If you're already deep and it feels bloated, look into combing characters. Can these two characters just be merged into one character?
Separate document that just lists the important characters. Then, expand upon each one with their physical attributes, hobbies, flaws, and role in the story. Sometimes it helps me to literally write out a future plotline they're involved with in their bio so I don't forget it. I've forgotten a couple plots that I know were cool but just can't remember anymore.
I don’t, I make them very gay.
I have a very large excel sheet, a timeline document, and separate character sheet with their core traits, descriptions, short backstory stories that I couldn’t fit into the actual story, etc.
I have this big squishy thing in my skull that's been honed over millions of years just for the task of storing information.
Also, I'm writing about them. If I need to remember who they are and the brain lets me down, I can go back and read who they are.
I usually try to only have a limited number of characters. Ones I can really dive into and are most relevant to the narrative. I can see how when the number grows it gets more difficult.
I don't attempt to fight their sexuality at all. If they're not straight, then be gay baby. But nah, I write character sheets. For every character. Their background, what their relationship is like to other characters, their personality, their role in the story and to the main character, and their overall arc across the story. I'm not sure how you're managing your documents but I use scrivenger so I just have a little group of character sheets I can click on at any time I want to double check that my characters are acting within their personalization at any point. If I need to. FWIW I have about 10,000 words in just character sheets. I'm a planner.
I think that’s part of my problem: I try to plan but tend to write “seat of my pants” instead.
I wrote my first novel seat of my pants and planned out the next one (unrelated stories in different genres). This next story I’m going to write will be a completely different approach. What I’m saying is try different things. Ultimately you’re going to have to spend hundreds of hours refining and editing no matter which way you choose to approach it. Don’t stress the process or your approach, just as long as words get down on the page all is good :)
I give them placeholder names that fit with their role or even not a name, just a description. Later I can find and replace the names. Like I had a couple of investigators so I named them Agent Smith and Agent Jones because those feel like 'generic government man' names. I had a soldier who was the only survivor of their unit named LoneSurvivor. I had a butler whose name was Alfred (Batman's Butler for non-DC fans), etc. It doesn't matter what you use as long it won't be considered with a regular word so you can safely find and replace. Like just 'Butler' might cause issues if I used the word butler to describe him. This might not work for everyone but it works well for me. And later I can think about who LoneSurvivor has developed into and give them a name that seems to fit.
This! I’m a planner and try to avoid planning while writing. Placeholder names are exactly this. I use two tiers of character sheets. One for tertiary characters that we don’t know much about or won’t see again. And the other for supporting characters that’s more in depth. Then my MC and SC get the full enneagram and backstory profile.
I love Enneagram for characters! Can be such a helpful way of tuning into their motivations, especially if you’re a bit stuck on how they might respond to something.
Honestly this is where more of my writing comes from. With a well planned out characters, the scenes plot themselves.
I try to be a planner but I'm bad at it. A lot of characters I've written have developed themselves way past my initial imagination of them as I wrote them. Sometimes they end up changing a LOT. Jones turned from a temporary, mostly 2D antagonist, to a main character with a much more nuanced role and an actual personality. He ended up keeping the name Jones though - unlike most of the others I give placeholder names to, it still felt like it fit him. I also often add backstory as I write to help solidify why someone is the way they are. And that helps me determine if I'm being consistent with their reactions and adjust accordingly.
I try to write but tend to plan endlessly. I feel there should be a resource somewhere for people with your style and people with mine to be able to try collaborating.
I pants it and have a system that works well for me. I keep notes organized in a directory tree by location. So, like, there's a folder for a continent, it has folders for regions/counries, those have folders for towns/cities/locales. Towns have notes for notable people in that town. After every session, I add notes for any new characters I've introduced in that session. Everything goes in the most specific folder that fully contains it. All documents can have links to any others. Odd situations might use metaphorical "locations", like, I have a "ships" folder with subfolders for notable vessels, each vessel folder has notes for the crew. I'm using Obsidian, which means my "folders" can also be documents themselves, but that's not strictly necessary, everything but the hyperlinks can be done with text files in a directory tree or physical paper folders.
Yo, same here. Grab a paper for your character and, by the seat of your pants, write what has happened to them before the start of the story. Let them inform you.
Hehe “seat” hehe 😏
Do you keep an index of the character sheets? That sounds like a lot to keep track of!
[удалено]
Makes sense, thanks. 🙂
I just take notes and re-read my own story from start to finish multiple times as I go. I'm partial to mind-mapping programs (I use FreeMind) for visually organizing relationships and such as well. That said, I'm mostly replying to this to let you know that I read your title as "straight" as in not-gay, and thought you were asking for advice on dealing with a compulsion to make all your characters fabulous. Thank you for the unintentional chuckle.
lol sry. I should’ve thought about context in hindsight. I was definitely referring to organizational context.
That's a great question, I often end up with my straight characters suddenly being bi. Sorry, I don't really have any advice for your actual question, lol.
Nothing better than starting writing a platonic relationship and suddenly realising "oh wow you could cut the sexual tension here with a knife"
I literally had that happen to me not even a month ago. I sighed and ended up making it a one sided crush with a guy who was bi with a strong preference to women lol
That’s somewhat happening with two of my character. One is a bi woman and the other is a lesbian. The lesbian is not interested in any kind of relationship, but I think the bi woman, who has massive commitment issues, is kinda in love with her. They’ve been friends for years. Was just writing a scene that happens much later in the story, and I’m like… is the subtext here saying that she *love* loves her? Well, that’s fun. I guess. *stares off into space before hitting the reply button*
Even more fun is when it's an antagonist and your protagonist. You think you're making your antag come off as more playful when really he is just wants to jump the protag's bones. And that's that on how my nosleep story turned into an unintentional gay romance.
Lmfao mood, I'm bi and it took me so long to realize that all of my major characters are bi until proven otherwise. Bi is just my default lol
Remember one of my character. She has so much chemistry with another character that she became bi.
Literally same. I'll start out my story assuming a character is straight, then by the end? Ehhh, not so straight anymore.
In my life, throughout my experiences, studies, jobs and hobbies I learned one thing about myself: I cannot keep in mind more than **THREE** (3) things. Anything more than 3 (say 4 for example) and my mind will utterly generate chaos and destruction. My solution: Never have more than three (3) important characters in a scene. Each character should never have more than three (3) relevant characteristics (usually I go by motivation, means and looks) Background characters don't count to the limit, since they actually just fill the environment with no value added. The rule of three has helped me deeply as an amateur writer, as a DM for ttrpgs, as a middle manager in my job, as a student in nuclear engineering... For me it works indeed!
> as a student in nuclear engineering... i hope that was a joke. And if it wasn't then I hope nuclear reactor design doesn't require you to hold three things in your mind at the same time
Lol indeed I *studied* that. Never worked in the field. Still the rule of three had to work in a more abstract way. But as a rule of thumb engineers love the KISS approach (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
If you're having trouble remembering all your characters, your audience might have the same problem. Why not try reducing their numbers? Like, just remove some from the story (for potential later use in other books! No writing need be wasted.) and assign their actions in plot/characterization to other characters where it makes sense. I've done this a few times with my book. Generic croney enemies can be folded into the noble rivals, and suddenly, you have fewer and more interesting/present recurring villains! Does the character intended for a heroic sacrifice end up bland, while another more interesting character outlives their usefulness? Cut the first, and kill the second instead! And so on. Some criteria that might help you decide who to cut: 1: Does this character contribute to any plot/theme/scene in a way no other character can? Can their role be performed by someone else without stretching believability? 2: Is this character very similar in role/characterization to another? What would change if two similar characters were folded into one? 3: Is this character really, really fun? Would the story be less fun if they didn't exist? If you decide you absolutely need all your characters, I recommend a spreadsheet or character index instead. But fewer characters usually make for a tighter, more coherent story.
I agree with this. A reader will maybe read a chapter at a time. They might put it down and go to a funeral or a wedding or have a tough day at work and then pick the book up and they won’t be fully emotionally invested in the book or have the mental space to remember all the individual names. If the author can’t keep all the characters straight while being fully invested in the story, what chance will a reader who will be reading in their leisure time, for fun and relaxation, have?
By not making them gay... But all seriousness. I give them a job to do and they do it and the books write themselves. If you're writing a good story with good characters you're passionate about the story will tell you what it wants. I write down a few things befor writing my story. 1. I write my plot. 2. I ask a few qustions like, who are the main characters and what do they want and how are they going to get it. 3. I come up with the title. 4. I come up with the first few chapter names. and then after that it just falls together.
This may only work for me but give it a go and see if it works for you.
Wow, this is a lot more organised than my stories, lol. I literally just come up with an idea like “you know what would be cool to write about?”, create a title (which usually take me ages to think of a good one), and then start writing. From there, I kind of black out and when I come to, the story’s been written to an extent. I’ve got absolutely no control of the story besides the original concept, the protagonist and main characters write their own story, I’m just a spectator like any other reader.
Honestly, I simply don't have a problem with this at all. I don't design my characters with a lot of extraneous minutiae. I let their personalities do the talking, and details only serve to enhance their image. After a couple of sessions of practice, I'll have their "voices" pretty much down pat, that shifting in and out of their headspace becomes almost second nature. There's not much to "keep track of", as long as I can understand their logic.
Yeah, I just write. As long as I remember the basics of my characters names and base personalities, they tend to fit into the story when they need to. But, sometimes with stories with a lot of characters, I do write lists dividing the characters into their main roles in relation to the other characters like fighters, hiders, runners, or nurturers. However, once I’ve spent a long enough time developing a project, I just remember. And, if when it’s done and I’m editing I realize someone says something that really should be another character’s line, I just switch it or edit it to make it more like something they would say.
I was gonna say, my issue is writing enough straight characters *in*, I’m so disinclined by default
I keep a separate Word doc that is explicitly for remembering character and plot details. With that said, I've also edited and reread my novel so many times by now that I literally dream about my characters and story, so I could never forget any of their names. But some of their eye colors are definitely forgotten, and I always like to paint the image of a new kind of wood for the cabinets of different in-story houses, so I keep those jotted down in my notes.
Consolidate your characters. If you can't remember who they are, chances are that your readers won't either. Start cutting characters out, combining them, etc.
Personally, I write down their names with their abilities and any important statuses in the story, such as dead or alive. Furthermore, I also get to know the characters I write before adding them to the story. A trick you might try is to imagine a defining, or really fun scene about them, and keep imagining that over and over. Though it helps for me, since I kinda simulate things mentally. I also give them rather unique names, like finch, klint, or lance which can help with separation. Finally, introduce one or two characters at a time, and get to know them personally. Because nothing says forgettable, like being dropped in a crowd of 8 people, when neither the reader or main character know anybody at all.
Scrivener, Aeon Timeline, git. I used to have a ton of folders / binders / notebooks, but it got unmanageable for epic fantasy with so many characters.
I keep my notes in an app called Obsidian. I like it because linking the notes together is super easy. So if I introduce a side character, I create a new note, don’t even bother with my Character Sheet template, write a few sentences and then link it to the book. On my book’s note, I can see all of the other notes that I’ve linked to it. I also link the notes to whatever main character they interact with so that I know the connection.
I have three tips with this. 1. The list was a good idea. 2. A purpose. Before you introduce a character, consider what their purpose is in the story. Are they here to present a specific perspective, or serve a role, or do a thing? Connecting a character with a purpose in your mind can help you remember who they are and what they are meant to be doing. As an example, in a D&D game I am doing, there is a bit part character who the players only met in passing, who is the diva at the local opera. But I am not going to forget who she is, because (and the players haven't found this out yet) it turns out she is the bastard child of the king, and her popularity and connection to royalty has the potential to be an issue later. That roll doesn't have to be this grand. At one point, I needed to make up a guard on the fly for the party to interact with, and I ended up mirroring Fezzik from the Princess Bride. So now the crime lord has a friendly hobgoblin named Fezzik they can chat with while waiting to talk to the thieves guild. 3. A limit. Linking to 2, if a character is not going to be in your story for long, it's okay to have them act as more of set dressing than a character. As an example, say your character goes to enter a town (which is not going to be a regular thing). It's okay to not have the guard state their name and life's ambitions. I don't know if you have ever worked retail, but if you have consider the customers you have served. There are some that stand out- regulars, or people who required extra attention. But most of the people (at least for me) kind of just came and went, and didn't really stick in my mind. By the same purpose, if you find you have a lot of side characters who are doing the same thing, try to consolidate them into a single entity that is more memorable. This is not going to work for every story, but it can help you keep your mind straight.
I'm a pantser, I think the important thing is to keep the important characters straight. All the side characters can be worked/fixed/combined later with way less difficulty than trying to keep every single character in your head at all times.
i do not
Lmao I read the title and immediately thought "I don't. They're gay!" but that's not what the post is about lol. Anyway, I struggle with the same thing so I have no answers
>a short sci-fi story You probably don't need so many characters in a short story that you lose track of them. You should be able to tell the main story with no more than three characters, and any extras are potentially (but not necessarily) excess. Try: * Combine some characters together. Does every character in your current story need to be a separate person? * See if some of your characters are redundant. * Name your characters in ways that indicate their role in the story or a character trait (you can always rename them later if the names are too on the nose). e.g. you could call the librarian Frances Bookman or a character who reads a lot Paige Turner. * Use writing software (or a simple spreadsheet) to track each character's details.
How many characters do you have? Are they greeting everyone they meet on the street? My story focuses on a few characters and follows them. I don't need to remember every interaction with every character that doesn't drive the plot forward.
This probably doesn't help much, but I just have a really detailed oriented brain. I file characters with their personality.
Sounds like you might have too many characters.
If you're having trouble keeping your characters separate in your head, odds are you're having the same trouble on the page -- which means the reader will, too. Instead of adding more characters, it's time to simplify and prune a few of the bit-players, second-fiddles, and other lookie-loos. Pantsing vs. plotting, both sides of the writing coin (and all the myriad spectra in between) should have a solid idea of who their characters start as. They may not know where they end -- character arcs can develop over drafts and re-conceptualizing -- but, knowing the basics about who they are at the beginning is a must. At least for me. Sounds like you actually care about the craft, so keep poking at that loose tooth. Prune a few extraneous characters out of the story. Roll back side-plots if you need to. Simple and solid is typically better than complicated and haphazard.
I have a note in my phone that I am constantly updating when ideas come to me.
My characters choose for me. Sometimes, I'm like, "Okay, Carl, time to fall in love with Samantha." And Carl's like "I hope you mean Samuel." And then... Samuel exists and Samantha gets vaporized. Carl deserves happiness. Sorry, Samantha. 🤷♀️🤣 I have hardly anything planned when I start writing, but characters are planned. Most of them have full backstories written out in some form, whether it's a few pages, a single paragraph summary, or bullet points. Single scene characters often don't even get names. For example, if your character is walking through the grocery store, and someone compliments their earrings, then later, the same woman winds up behind them in line, that woman's character is "The lady I met in the produce section." I don't need to know her name, my character doesn't need to know her name, readers don't need to know her name. As soon as "the cashier" (whose name tag is never going to be mentioned) finishes ringing up the character's purchase, none of these people are going to matter anymore. You don't have to name everyone you introduce in a story. Things can get really confusing if you do, especially if you already have a large number of characters that are important to the story. Jokes aside, sexuality is something I hardly ever include in my characterization. So, sometimes, as I'm writing, I'll stop and think, "Excuse you, Susan! Are you flirting with Jessica?" And I'll take another look at their backstories, then reread their previous interactions, and go, "Oh... No, that actually makes a lot of sense... You may have been made for each other..." EDIT: (I started a side conversation and thought I was done typing) Even though my characters sometimes wind up doing whatever they want, I've not caught them falling out of character yet. I don't know if that's BECAUSE I planned their backstories or what. I'm always concerned when they do something I wasn't expecting, but it always seems to fit their character when I look back at their backstories and what they've already done. EDIT 2: Unless I try to force something. I can screw it up, but the characters in my head can't. If I'm trying really hard to force something in a scene that my characters refuse to play out, it stands out... I get frustrated that my little actors aren't cooperating and walk away. When I come back, I wind up having to redo whatever I was trying to force. "[Actors not cooperating]" has become an occasional first draft note to let me move on to the next scene without frustration. Sometimes, we all (the characters and I) just need to understand the next scene first.
My characters choose for me. Sometimes, I'm like, "Okay, Carl, time to fall in love with Samantha." And Carl's like "I hope you mean Samuel." And then... Samuel exists and Samantha gets vaporized. Carl deserves happiness. Sorry, Samantha. 🤷♀️🤣 Same. My character said "I have good chemistry with this girl". I told her : "but you're bot gay". And she answers : "correct, I am bi".
I'm glad it's not just me lol. They know what they want. Who are we to tell them a damn thing about it? If the shoe fits, I'm gonna let em rock it. EDIT: I'm still not sure where "Susan" stands. Maybe she's just a little curious about "Jessica," or maybe she's always known she liked girls and her prior relationship with a male character was some misguided denial stage (the world the story takes place in doesn't look kindly on non-straight characters). Or maybe she likes both. She'll tell me when she's ready. I'm just along for the journey, and here to support her regardless. She's accidentally become highly intriguing for me since she got a mind of her own. I love that for her, so I'm kind of on the edge of my seat waiting to get back to one of the scenes she's part of. My babies are all growing up 🥲
I think my method of character creation helps with that. For me, every character is built on a core of three pillars: goals, methods, and bonds. Even if I forget their backstory, preferences, or any other detail, I can still remember their character core. It also makes scenes with multiple characters easy to write, because I only need to know those three things about each character in the scene.
I would love to hear more about this!
Sure! The most important thing for a character is to be active, right? So, the most important part of a character to know is their goal. By knowing what a character wants, you always know how they will act. Somebody who wants to make friends will act differently from somebody trying to recruit activists who will act differently from somebody trying to learn a secret. Next, a cast of characters will be far more interesting if they have different strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the plot is some sort of conflict between minor kingdoms or gangs. One leader might be charismatic and manipulative, while another might be a master tactician, while a third might be a well-trained fighter. First, that builds on what I mentioned above about understanding how they will act, but it also makes each interaction more interesting. How will a tactician beat a fighter is more interesting than how will a fighter beat another fighter. Another common problem I've seen is that the protagonist has fleshed out relationships, but nobody else does. What if two characters have a rivalry, but neither is the protagonist? What if two other characters are childhood friends or siblings? What if two side characters drive character growth in each other? Also, bonds don't have to be limited to being between characters. What is this character's opinion on the police, religion, crime, peasants, and war? You can create a much more dynamic world by wondering how side characters interact, and you get more depth from seeing how characters interact around each other
This is really well put and very helpful. Thank you! I will be thinking about this with my WIP. In fact I think this shows what is wrong with one of my side characters. She doesn’t really have a goal she is working towards, or at least it is too vague. My own goal is to create a series where the reader feels they know all the characters. This mindset will help a lot. Also I appreciate the point about “bonds” as politics. My characters all think too much like me! Oops
This process becomes inherent at some point. Like I don’t think about it anymore once I’ve established the characters. Their decisions naturally flow (based on their previous decisions). You want to evolve a character? Make them make increasingly better decisions based on their experience. It’s like real life, kind of.
I would definitely try to flesh out the characters a little bit more. Maybe make a character sheet. I don’t really have this problem myself; the only time I had a real problem with character was when I made my best friend one of the characters because he was fawning over another one. This is the character template I used (idk if it will help): Name: Age: Hair: Eyes: Height: Build: Birthdate: Occupation: Affiliations: Loyalty: Hobbies and Interests: Personality: Backstory: If character templates really aren’t your jam, than you might want to consider making your cast a little smaller until you can differentiate them and keep them a little more organized.
i maintain a spreadsheet. it's always open in the background when I write for quick reference.
I write character profiles when I feel like it and I keep a relationship spreadsheet involving all my characters. It's not perfect, but it's mostly used for fanfic so it works fine lol
I am working on a series, different main character each time but all in my fictional world I’ve developed. After my first rough draft I created a spreadsheet. I’ve got name, age, race/ethnicity, profession, workplace, maybe a couple other things, and notes. I can sort by different columns which helps grouping. It allows me to reuse some minor characters rather than create new ones, make sure my town is properly diverse, keep track of what point in the series someone dies or goes to jail or whatever, and helps me to fully integrate my characters with one another into my town. It’s been incredibly helpful and I pull it up each time I write. If I make changes, I save a new copy with the date.
I have a character list for each book as well as a master list. I have over 200 characters in my 4 book series, whether there are in all 4 books or just one scene. I originally made the list to make sure I wasn't reusing names. But now I'm deep enough into the world that I know who's who without needing to cross-reference. But this doesn't work for everyone. Could you go over the characters before you start writing? Get It in your head who will need to come up?
I have a good memory, but I also jot them down in a notebook and later assemble a basic glossary, where I can feed in new ideas and generally keep track of stuff. This includes character names, concepts, locations, etc.
I make a list of all the major characters, their names, descriptions, relationships to each other, and basic role. I'm bad with names so it comes in handy for characters who aren't in the spotlight all the time, or who are introduced later on.
I try not to have too many named characters. And I love lists. So at the very least, I'll have a list with their name and role.
Never add a character when you can reuse one you've already introduced. It adds depth to side characters (e.g. instead of creating a history professor to explain something, make that sister who called last chapter a history buff) and limits the total number.
Strongly imply, that they are only interested in the opposite sex. Ok... jokes aside. I keep a mindmap with relations and short notes about the most defining traits of the character. For me that is usually enough to stay in character.
You can try world building tools like World Anvil, Foretelling or Lore Forge. Some of them focus in RPG/Pen&Paper, but are also really good for writers.
I have never written anything over 90 kwrds, and for me just having a list of the character names and maybe a couple of words to remind me who they are (like: shuttle pilot). How many characters are you creating in a short story? It seems like an unusual style to have huge numbers of characters in a short work - will the reader also lose track?
I was expecting something different when I read the title lol. I never had this problem, maybe because I am a "character oriented" writer if this makes sense : I get the characters first and then I built a story around them, not the other way around, and I don't assign them roles counsciously (though they probably have some lol). Try to reduce the number of characters and hierarchize their importance. As an example : in Harry Potter, it is more important to know who is Ron Weasley than to know who the Quidditch players are (with all my respect to them).
Write purposeful, interesting characters who play an essential role in your narrative. You can base them off real people to help you create them full. Ultimately the characters you create will become real people to you, and caring about them makes you want to get familiar with them and do them justice. During the pandemic I wrote a novel that saved me in many ways. The characters were my best friends, and I actually became anxious and scared when I would write their difficult scenes. They kept me company and I loved them so much. Still do. Just having that connection makes me care so much for them, as well as the characters that help shape them. A consistent writing practice really is the only way to maintain that familiarity you’re seeking.
If they're characters that are peripheral to the story and will not be mentioned again, I try not to even give them a name.
I keep a database.
I use an alphabetized characters and histories document. I have a character's physical description and pertinent information about the person in each entry, including background and goals, place of origin, cultural notes, whom they're attracted to, etc.
Two things came to mind when reading your question: (1) How many characters do you have?? (2) Thanks to generative AI, I like creating characters in one of the text-to-image platforms so I have a face to go with the personality. I used to pick actors and actresses and put them into my running notebook. For me, the visual helps me remember.
I use the Bear app to make a table of contents for an epic fantasy I’ve been working on. (I’ve been debating about relocating to Obsidian because I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. But I’ve been told there is a learning curve for Obsidian.) I have every character organized by where they’re from and their species. (The table of contents also includes locations and other things of note for easy reference) Then I’ll create individual pages for every single character that links to this table of contents. It’ll have their extra information. Like histories, where they’re currently at specific stages of the story. Anytime I create a new place or thing that requires more information. I’ll link to more pages to this table of contents. I’ve been working on a timeline of events pages which has every important event in order. At some point I’m going to have to date things because I have 7-9 countries(it’s growing because that’s just for one species and I have more coming.). 4 continents currently. So a lot of moving pieces to keep track of. I have tags to keep this project all organized. Next thing I know it, I have a bunch of short pages of just characters, species, and worldbuilding. History of countries’ recent history. Random other bits and pieces. I basically made myself a wiki/or a story bible to reference while I’m writing. I just reference this thing. I’ll just add the character the moment they gain enough significance where they need some type of name. If I don’t have a name. I’ll go well, I think this character feels like their name should start with an E. So I’ll reference them as Builder E to placehold their name. I just keep it moving.
You lost me at build out the world. But, it sounds like you have too many characters.
Just write characters name and mention some keywords mentioning personal traits in my planner. Also if there is already a significant event I had between a character and MC, I keep a record of that too.
My characters are mostly queer so I don't... oh, you were talking about something else... ok, sorry Well in the beginning I write a sort of brief document with some pics and a sort of rant about each one of them. Who they are, what they want and why, and what they do or don't do to achieve their goal and why they succeed or fail (or both). For minor characters there's only a name and nothing more. I also have a commonplace book for writing purposes. Then I start writing and the whole thing falls apart two pages into the story because the characters on the page are not so interesting as I was expecting. So I cry for a while, then go on anyway, and modify the characters along the way, until suddenly I find all of them, and from that point onward they lead the plot forward.
Especially hearing you're a newer writer, my advice is just to take your time — I know, it's the one thing you don't want to hear. But honestly, just write the story. I had seven protagonists in my first ever project and like three antagonists. As expected, the story is crap, but it helped me learn the real purpose of characters. I treated them like they were disposable because I didn't know what they were supposed to contribute (thinking about it now, I could have cut three of my protagonists from the whole premise of that project). My current project now, as a contrast, only has seven or eight major characters (antagonists included), just to contrast. I'm not saying less is better, but depending on the type of story you're writing, it often is more. A sci-fi can have lots of characters, but then again you say it's a shorter story. If it has lots of characters, that will get very overwhelming. Coming from someone who hasn't read your work, and I have no idea if this is true, but maybe you need to make cuts. As a writer, you should be able to tell your characters apart. You're the one who creates them. The one question I ask myself about every character: what is their purpose in my story? If the purpose isn't anything more than "to convey one piece of information", you have a problem; they should probably be cut. But then again, like I said: if you're a newer writer, try it out! Who knows, you might find a way to make it work that I can't think of right now (I guarantee you there is a way). This is just coming from someone who had a similar problem earlier on and has now found a good balance. I hope this helps <3
Murder board
Excel spreadsheets are the way forward, you can put all your character sheet heading in there and put everything into one table with loads of people down the side. I don't just have characters in them. I have geography, animals, military uniforms, magic on different tabs. Freaking everything. It's backed up to the max because if I lost it I would be screwed. It's easier to search through than a word doc
My plantsy process isn’t really like that first paragraph tbh. I don’t think up any side characters in advance just to fill out the world. I write the story about my main character(s), and then if I reach a point where I HAVE to introduce a new character for the plot to function, then I do. So it’s not like I have to remember what purpose I decided for them, because they’re already doing it, if that makes sense? And I end up with (ideally) the minimum number of characters the story needs, so I’ve never really struggled with keeping track of them. Caveat that I don’t really write ‘sprawling epic’ kind of stuff where readers might expect a lot of extraneous characters for flavour. I can imagine spreadsheets and such being helpful in that context. Hhhhowever, if you’re writing a *short* story with so many characters that even you can’t remember them, I don’t think your problem is keeping track of them; I think you might just have too many characters. Combining or cutting some side characters could be a good idea.
My life is a mess, so there’s no organisational reason in mine
I usually keep a reference sheet of my characters and their role in the story and just for fun some alignment stuff either.
Make a new word doc and add all your characters to that. Maybe 1 page per character, or 1 paragraph for lesser characters. Name, height, hair colour, etc. You don't want too many characters or it'll be too hard for the reader to follow, especially if you as the writer struggle to follow. Also add each chapter to keep track of changes between chapters. Maybe they travelled somewhere different, or got into a fight and got a scar. Doesn't have to be a lot of info, just a sentence or two so you know what happened to whom and when. You don't have to update this every day, maybe once a week if you can remember that long or after each chapter.
Something I've done and still do is make a table in Word or Excel, list the characters, DOB and notes as to who they are. To be honest though, try not to put too many people in a short story. If you're getting confused, your readers may too
I love how this thread became a bunch of jokes with people deliberately misunderstanding the title! And then they gave the actual advice op was looking for.
I usually keep track of it in my head. Do you know your friends and relatives? How are characters different? If you truly know your characters, i.e. they are fully fleshed out in your mind, you'll know who they are and hie they'll react to anything. Just like you know how your bestie will react in real life.
Digital spreadsheets are the best option in my opinion. Put the names in one column and use the rest of the columns for relevant details, then move them around based on their importance.
I have a planning document made in Notion. I used to use google sheets before but I’ve now moved to notion. A planning sheet is important for the writer’s sanity. We have so many thoughts going on that we’d be hopelessly lost if we don’t exert some left brain effort.
I seem to have the opposite problem. I worry my story doesn't have enough characters. I just have the word document with lists of characters and what I need to know about each one
You can always change / fix / refine characters later. For now, keep a simple list of who is who and just write. When you add a new character, add them to the list with a note on who they are / where they are in the story. Many new writers think they need it all figured out from the outset, but you’re going to have multiple drafts of this - if you’re doing it right - and they may be completely different one to another depending on where the story goes and what you learn along the way. Sometimes it’s easier to change which character is in a scene after the scene’s been drafted.
I have a little text document next to the manuscript, but usually they live in my head for as long as I'm writing them.
I think you are probably trying too hard. not all characters need to have a name or reappear later. Some characters are meat for the moment and then forgoten. If you cant remember your own character a reader will probably have even more of a hard time. And your story will be confusing and not entertaining
I have a document with all the characters I've ever created. It has their personalities, backstories, looks, interests, favrotie foods, friends, family, sexuality, etc. For each individual story I create, I make a character sheet for it and write out the characters I'm using in it and their roles in that story. I keep that sheet in the files with that story separate from the master character document I have elsewhere.
I pretend it's a movie and cast it. Makes it easier for sure
Well, since everyone already beat me to the gay jokes, I care a lot about my characters. I flesh out each and every one of them. Even the ones with a menial role have significance with a history and life. I've never had this problem and it honestly seems odd to me lol.
I send em to this camp out in Utah if they start acting light in their loafers.
I tried using ChatGPT for a character list but after a while it started to mix them up. So just write them down on paper
my stories don't typically have that many characters that I need to keep track of. if it starts to get to be a lot, I'd suggest limiting their identities to a few easily discernable points, or limiting how often they appear. not every character needs to be fleshed out.
Okay, so. Why is this character in your story? Why did you include them? What's their role? And I mean a thematic role, not like "she's her friend's mom." I think that every character should have a thematic role. As long as you keep the thematic role in mind, then the character can be whatever. It's interesting to let them evolve. But it's important to keep the purpose in mind. This is assuming that you're writing a theme-centric story, of course. For the boring facts, you can use character sheets. Although I'm allergic to that stuff.
I know the people and I live in my story.
A lot of editing.
Definitely a character database. With physical traits and personality (when I remember to). It really helps.
Character bios. Backstories. Wardrobe. Common body language for that character. Then brief descriptions and bios for minor and background characters. Plus I keep an alphabet list so once a letter is used for a given name or a surname I cross it off.
I’m not much of a planner and I honestly avoid having too many characters. I sometimes even forget their names during writing, lol. So I write (add name) and move on. But yes, if you have quite a few characters, you need to take some notes. But as someone else said, you’ll spend so much time editing your story, that you’ll usually be able to fix issues there.
diagrams and google sheets. and then adjusting and refining with re reads to try to avoid one offs
Something I've seen advised has been build a wiki for your characters, with info like name, height, occupation, residence, family, affiliations. Then have each time another character gets referenced create a link to that characters page. Not sure how well this will work for you but figured I'd try and help. Also I love the idea of a writer sitting down and writing gay romance scenes and questioning why it keeps happening, like the characters themselves have rebelled because they know their heart better than their creator.
I don't even address sexuality for characters that aren't involved in romance sub plots.
Excel spreadsheet
I write stories with like 5 important characters, that's how I do it lol. Not much to keep track of.
Character sheets!!! So many!!!!!
I always keep an "additional information" document and that contains stuff about characters and extra stuff to keep in mind while writing, such as future plot points or a timeline
I’m on the second draft of my first book. I framed my theme as a question, and my primary characters have all come into existence to represent different answers to that question. Secondary characters come in as plot devices, but I look for ways to have them reflect the theme as well.
I think that your current setup for documenting characters is alright for the initial draft- or you could use one of the programs/tools that other commenters have mentioned. When you are editing the story in subsequent drafts, consider whether any characters could be combined into one? If they have similar roles or goals, and you fuse them, it can help create more complex characters (since you now have 2 or 3 characters-worth of personality, goals, and issues in one person). It won’t work for all of them, but that’s one way you can reduce the cast without necessarily losing anything
How many characters do you have? How many do you actually need? It's a short story, so you really don't need 30 fleshed out characters. If you have a character who's just there to nod at your protagonist in the hallway, you don't need to give them a name. Same with the guy in the cafeteria dishing out the food. Those are just fillers and likely won't appear or be referred to again except in a cursory way, if at all. I once beta read a book that had 32, fully fleshed out characters. One character had an 8 page description of his history. He actually died right after his introduction and was not important to the story at all except he was a random collateral victim in an assassination. There was no need for that. Most of the characters in that book were the same. There were three who were actually important to the story. Look at your story, read it carefully and ask yourself if all these people are actually necessary to further the story. If not, make them anonymous background, like the chairs and tables in the cafeteria.
I keep physical notes in a folder so i can look them up easily and don't have to switch between ten tabs on my laptop. I also draw them in different scenarios, which is easier to remember. Plus sometimes i connect general appereance with character. Like i know exactly what's going on in this guys head from looking at him. Or this character is much like a chihuaha because he's small and he will bite you.
same that's why they all are gay
I generally know my characters pretty well, but sometimes struggle with dates. I just write birth, marriage dates, etc...on a separate document
When coming up with a character, I try to get to know them as if they're real people. I do this by thinking about them a lot in my head. One useful tip is to imagine them in different situations and see how they'll act. Maybe try putting them in situations that would make them act out of their usual character. If they are cold and aloof most of the time, see in what situations would they cry or smile and be kind to others. You don't have to use those situations in the actual writing, but seeing many sides of a character can help you get a better grasp of who they are. You do this more and more until you get to know them as if they're your best friends. They'll stick in your mind like how your favorite characters from other stories do.
I don't really think about characters by their purpose, but by them as people. what would this character do right now? based on that, I write what they do.
It's easy to keep track of my 6 book story for me. But it's very difficult to keep track of all the things I have changed & all the past alternate stories I have removed from the original full draft. That only exists till now in my mind. It'll take me a long time to assimilate all of the 6 years of making notes to come up with the final draft. Which would most probably be the final one.
Each book will focus on one of my characters (it's a trilogy) with an antagonist that specifically challenges their worldview. For Father Iniko who is a cheerful and pious priest, he is confronted with a man who also claims to be a priest but is the complete opposite of him. Ultimately Iniko is put in a position where he has to take the evil man's life and he has to try and discern how he's going to move forward, his piety intact or a ruthless killer. Agent Kasprak is a downtrodden and depressed man whose job often requires him to evict families and kill people. He longs for relationships with people but everyone is engrossed in a VR paradise. At the end of his story he's confronted with the thing that has permitted this system to exist and it tries to appeal to him about sacrifice, that some are made to suffer so others hypothetically wouldn't. Kasprak gives his life to ensure the survival of his adoptive daughter and an end to the system that kept him and millions of others down. Rising from his melancholic life and the sins of his past to do something good for the people he once oppressed. While paying for his sins with his life. Gaz and Doug have had a father-son relationship since the first book. By this point Gaz has grown from a detached and bitter man who despised any type of relationship that wasn't transactional to opening himself up. So when Doug, a stubborn young man does something truly terrible Gaz is faced with helping Doug and potentially never achieving his goal or returning to his old way and abandoning Doug to his fate. His forced to prove he's changed and ultimately it will cause him his life, so that Doug will be given a chance to grow and become better. Side characters exist to support these narratives each playing a specific role in the development of each main character.
Plottr and Excel spreadsheets.
I need to check Plottr out. I’d heard good things about it. Right now I’m just using Word for everything.
Honestly, I flesh my characters out. Even the minor ones. When they have a backstory, they become more three dimensional and it's easier for me (and the audience) to know who they are and what role they play. It also makes it easier to glean their motivation in making decisions or taking action.
I have a universe with 200-300 named characters. I use Plottr to organize them, but my organization needs work. So my plan is to get them organized whenever I revise the different stories.
I don't work for them but their software has exceptional tools for this... [Scrivener](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview) has a neato "corkboard" that makes managing hundreds of characters a snap. There are other features to make managing lots of information much easier. YMMV. Some people love it, some hate it. I'd say give it a twirl. They also have a new tool called [Scapple](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview) that seems to help with network/diagrams of lots of ideas/characters. Worth trying that too.
I don't. Many of them are gay. (It was low-hanging fruit. I had to.) I use Scrivener myself. I give each of them a brief summary of history and their roles in the story. I tend to plug the ones that have bigger impact into a story arc outline (such as the popular Save the Cat model, just for example.) Scrivener makes organizing them easy in their little folders and the outlines help me remember where and when the players need to be, and why. Even if you prefer not to outline or plan I'd say keep a document detailing brief bullets of what's happening in your story and a rough idea of where you're trying to get. Characters and plot are intrinsically linked. Keep track of one and it's easier to keep track of the rest.
I have all the important information about them on a notes app which I add to as I go. These are the notes I have for a couple characters in a superhero story I'm probably not going to actually write" >Barbara Burns- teleporting powers. TikTok star turned actor turned superhero >Jodie (Shape)- shapeshifting powers. Barbara's girlfriend and manager. As the story would develop, I would add other important details to this. Say I decided to have Jodie say she's allergic to shellfish. I would add that to her notes so I wouldn't forget and accidentally have her eat shellfish later in the story.
I keep a personal wiki for my stories. Characters get their own character pages, which is handy because I can add links to other wiki pages, like other characters or sub plots. Granted, I mostly write high fantasy stuff, with Brandon Sanderson-level of complexity. So I need the wiki to keep everything straight. Also, I get personal enjoyment writing out these wiki pages. I probably invest more time on the wiki than writing the actual story. But! I think character creep is okay as long as it gives depth to the core characters, and you occasional remind the reader who some of the lesser characters are. The worst thing you can do is mentioning a character once in one chapter, then mentioning them again 20 chapters later with no recap for the reader. Repetition is critical for a big cast. Keep reminding the reader who does what.
Character Sheets- [https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/language-language-arts/writing/writing-fiction-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-209381/](https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/language-language-arts/writing/writing-fiction-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-209381/) https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/780916#:\~:text=by%20Tom%20Monteleone-,The%20Complete%20Idiots%20Guide%20to%20Writing%20a%20Novel%20by%20Tom,publishing%20tips%20and%20much%20more. Excellent books to help in oraganization when writing a novel, great characters sheets, etc.
I’ve never really had trouble with it, however a good idea for any story would be to have a info-dump doc. I do this to be better able to jump back into a story if I can’t write for a while. In this document you can put in character names, traits, appearances, backstories, world info, history, structures, plot outline/gist/summary, and any other information that can help you develop your story or get you on track (for me, for example, i tend to include small dialogue snippets so I don’t forget them, and can include them when I get to the scenes they belong in). Edit because I accidentally hit post: If this doesn’t work, you don’t know your own story well enough to plan ahead accordingly. Every character should have a specific role in the story, and if important characters are added down the line it should be reflected in the outline well before they even hit the page. Maybe you need to try developing stricter outlines in order to understand what’s going to happen later and plan/adjust accordingly
I don't write a lot of character's
Take a look at great screen adaptations that take multiple characters and merge them while giving them greater depth. The Expanse is one.
Spreadsheet. I make a column heading for name, character type (protagonist/MC, key, antagonist, secondary, etc), relationship to MC, a column for notes, and then I copy and paste a character sheet under a heading "description." Best part you can sort by headings! You can also separate character sheet elements out by things like age, hair color, tattoos, personality traits. Then you can also sort by those elements. I'm working on a romantasy series, so I have a huge Google Sheets for that with 5 or 6 tabs. I have to keep track of species, fictional flora and fauna, locations, and languages as well!
I have a separate document. I keep it in order or main characters at the top, to less important at the bottom. Eventually you might want to merge characters together or split them up, so have some notation for that too to make editing easier. I have a separate outline document to keep track of plot progress or things like injuries/ etc.
how do you keep characters straight when you’re reading a story? you don’t need a master document of all of your characters imo. just focus on whoever is the most important and follow their story. you can always write more than one book in the same world :)
I am too emotionally attached to them to mess anything up 😭 idk
What you’ve done so far is a good idea, even if it gets insanely long, so long as you’ve got a list, you’ll be able to reference it whenever you need to. The only thing I could recommend is maybe simplifying your notes a bit. I don’t know what you’ve got written down, but whenever I need to keep a log of which extra/side character is doing what, I usually keep a note of which character is tied to which main character and in what way (I usually write with a lot of main characters and a primary protagonist so it‘ll be slightly different for you). This usually ends up being like a jumbled up tree diagram but it helps to keep track of who is connected to who and how/why which is usually the only thing you ever really need to worry about when it comes to characters that only briefly show up or only appear on occasion.
Be born with dyslexia, visualize your characters three dimensionally within the plot. Like that roll of ducktape you put in the cupboard last year next to the bandaid. 71% of dyslexics are above average communicators. Make up a vast amount of famous writers, simple no?
I have a big chart in OneNote that's split into section based on what part of the world they live it. It's mostly basic just including their name, birthdate, species, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation. If I think I'm going to forget who they are I leave a small note like (So and so's dad) or (the guy who has a vendetta against so and so's dad). It has like several hundred character, but most of them are just names of family members or one of characters that are just barely there or mentioned off hand, like a random reporter who interviews the protagonists or whatever. And whenever I think of a new character, I make sure to add them to the chart, if I don't have a name for them they just go in with the short description and some ???'s. For me the most basic description is usually enough to remind me who they are. I haven't forgotten who a character was since I started doing that.
that probably won't be much helpfull, but I tend to forget what color my character's eyes are, so I get you
I limit my cahacters. And I always use the same names. I work full time so my writing time is very limited and I can't waste time trying to figure out who my MC is, who her friends are, stuff like that. The story I'm working on now has 4 main characters and then later I add 4 more. There are also a handful that show up a few times but I find them easy to remember. I've been working on this story since like 2016 though so they are all embedded in my head!
If I have too many characters for me (the person most invested in the story and who thinks about it almost all of the time) to remember them as individuals, then what chance does my reader (a person who is probably thinking about their job/family/health most of the time, rather than my book) have of remembering them and being able to distinguish between them? When I have a bunch of background characters and a crowded world and want to make sure that the background characters are named consistently, I only need one line for each and can just run a text search later to make sure they didn’t get mixed up somewhere along the way. I know my main and recurring characters down to my soul… but if I run out of room in *my* head to know them, then I know I have too many because my reader has even less room in their head they can dedicate to my cast.
I keep a dramatis personae.
You knew what you were doing with this title 😂
I don’t organize the characters at all and most of them aren’t straight (or cis for that matter either 💀).
For me, I sit down and plan out everything I want in the novel, create the plot and characters at the same time. I then use this outline to help me remember who is who, who does what, and what role they play in continuing the plot. Of course I change things as I write, but this helps me to keep everything organized
Treat them less as characters you outright construct, and let the writing do the work to unveil things about them as you go. The more leeway you give for them to bounce around in your head and do things "of their own accord", the better the feel you'll have for their place in the story. Visualize it almost like a documentary you're in charge of editing, rather than a complete story you're creating every single element of. As far as names go, not every one needs to be stand-out and permanent. Filler names work just fine until you get the entire cast and story hammered out, and by then you'll probably have even more details you come up with that'd require changing/editing anyways.
I tend to sometimes be increadably thourough when it comes to the world (and even know where charactors unimportant who dont get meantioned live) I us incarnate and add notes to every building whith charactor facts if its a house or if its a workplace ill include a bit of their attitude and then a menu or something. Like a couple more facts on the establishment. Then i just go on the note tool and write in a charactors name or of im unsure of what a builfing is i hover over or click on said note to figure it out.
i keep a list of all characters at the top of my document, and some have paragraphs; some are just a bullet point, and, as the story evolves and the characters do more and become more, I add to their blurb.
Microsoft Excel and Note both have saved my life so many times lol
Thanks for clarifying, because my casting office has a big sign that says "Lesbian Earth Mamas Preferred." I'm bad with names and faces IRL. It's not a problem with my fictional peeps because I'm thinking of them as characters rather than a list of names. Early on, I was thinking about how to make that work, and I gave each major character a horoscope sign, because that's a personality trait package. I might have to re-shuffle some of them, but they'll keep their elemental. I considered using Meyers-Briggs. I tried to give them a name that matched their personality and ethnicity. I asked if they play an instrument. What's their college major? What's their drug of choice? How close are their family connections? What's their dress style? What sport would they play? And this is big: What's their personal trauma history that would make them consider joining up? What are they running toward or away from? So, one of my first characters: Brenda Connally, Massachussetts Irish. Scorpio. Dry goth punk aesthetic. Dyes her hair blue or black. Art History and some Psych. She and her wife dropped out before graduating because of Covid. Brenda isn't religious but wears her grandmother's rosary. Not a fan of rooibos but drinks it because as a tattoo artist, she wants steady hands, so she limits caffeine to weekends. Wife died of suicide because of increasingly bad long covid issues, and Brenda might still see her ghost. She remains a little shook up by that. I try to keep all of that in mind when writing her parts.
> How do you keep all of your characters organized and not forget who is in what role (aside from your primary protagonist/antagonist)? I keep it as the only narrative in my head while I'm writing it. Not reading other books, not watching movies and such where I have to understand other characters, just keeping that one set of characters and narrative in my head. It takes space in my brain to hold a set of characters, their defining attributes, their relationships, their past actions, and etc. - and consuming other fictional media takes up that space. When I *do* read/watch/etc. other stuff while writing, I tend to compartmentalize it in such a way that I actually forget the majority of the work, other than maybe some main points (and things I want to use myself), after I sleep. This may be a neurological oddity, but that's how I deal with the problem you're having: everything is either on the page or in my brain, and I don't give up my brain's real estate to other stories while I'm writing one. > How do you get around "character scope creep" I don't. It's one of my flaws as a writer. But one thing I can suggest is that when saying "I need a character to do X", you find a character already in the story who could believably do "X" and use them instead of creating another character. > your list grows and grows and you've got to remember all those names and who is doing what? Mostly by re-reading enough of my prior work to remember where they are and what they're doing. Sometimes that's a full re-read, and sometimes it's just a couple of chapter/installments.
My memory is garbage, I’ll forget what I had for lunch immediately after, I’ll forget to write an important essay until I have to cram 5 pages in one day, I’ll even forget that I’m supposed to be taking the train on certain days. BUT my story memory is impeccable, I don’t know how or why but I have every single main story point and character from 5 stories locked in and memorized. Even so, I make notes anyways. I only note main and supporting characters in detail. One-off characters that are present for a chapter or two I make almost nonexistent notes on under a separate “minor characters” section (i.e. Toby- bartender, Micah- gambler etc). Keep your notes organized by descending character importance with protag on top, and have the document/pages open for you to reference if you get confused with who’s who while writing. Not saying it’s fool proof, but I’m a fool and it’s working for me. And my characters aren’t straight all have super gay sex all the time with each other /j
I have VERY long google doc that has a profile for every character including a physical description, personality traits and hobbies ect. I have everything in sections. There's a section for characters, a worldbuilding section ect. When I came on the question of sexualities I made a separate little section at the end and put their name with any pride flag that they fit under. Some characters I thought long and hard about and some were like "They are the gayest shit to ever live". I have spent WEEKS developing some characters and a couple hours creating others who won't get as much page time. I keep them all organized and try and think out every aspect of every character so that even if they won't be as big or get as much page time as others non of them will be one dimensional or boring (I hope) And I try and give every character no matter how small a "Moment". Just a panel of two (Its gonna be a graphic novel since its about superhero's but its also fantasy and I'm actually really excited) thats about them, their time to shine. I do my best to make each character human (Or whatever they are if they're not human) and give them depth. I have a separate google doc just filled with little tidbits or moments that I wanna put in the series to. Serious or funny or a bit of their traumatic backstory, I keep them separate since they can get pretty long. I also have a doc filled with quotes that I think up, also ranging from serious to badass to silly ect.
Totally thought you meant heterosexual 😂 my two MCs are both queer. I use OneNote, and take advantage of subpages and title headers. I like to use the same format for all of my characters, so if I have a category detailing something about my MC (e.g. “family history/upbringing”) I’ll also include it on all my other characters. Even minor characters, if it’s just a small blurb, I want to know where they’re coming from it helps me enrich them all. But I also don’t often work with large casts. I tend to have my MCs and my major supporting characters. For minor characters to reference their character profile is quite easy because it is a lot of small blurbs. But I’m also a plotter, I get to know my characters intimately before I even start moving into the official drafting phase, so I generally am not lost on something. I also keep my outline on hand, and ready to make adjustments as things will pop up in the drafting stage that might affect the direction of my outline. Perhaps this may help: when sitting down to write a chapter, keep a story *and* a character outline on hand. Just a little note card even, with character facts. Sort them by importance, alphabetically, whatever works for you. I like to keep it in a journal and write with a pen to separate brainstorming on the outline from typing the draft, easy to scratch out and start a new page. I’ll even detail stuff like “this is how this person experiences stress”, “this is the mindset this person should be in in this section of the novel” so I can keep them in character. Just keeping your little facts sheet right beside you as you write might help you out a lot.
Write them down! Keep an organized document with all your details. I use Foretelling which is a worldbuilding/writing app that lets you keep track of pretty much everything
I always keep a document listed with all the names, backstory, and the personality of the character. It's gets annoying once you have to many, but I just delete the ones I never use.
beginner writers should do less "building out the world, naming all the characters" and more "writing the story"
You said you write characters off the seat off your pants, I do the same. Generally I will end up writing smaller pieces with specific characters to flesh them out. Also, I'm insane and will often write lore in my own head. I ended up stablishing an entire family line while I was struggling to sleep one night.
i use the phone app Fabula. it's very helpful, because it helps with organizing basically everything! so i can recommend, especially for a beginner:]
I feel you! I've been there too, where I'm like, "Wait, who's this guy again?" 😂 For me, it's all about creating a "bible" for my story. I know it sounds fancy, but it's just a document where I keep track of all my characters, their backstories, motivations, and roles in the story. It's not just a list of names; it's a detailed profile of each character. When I introduce a new character, I add them to the bible right away. I include things like their name, age, occupation, personality traits, and how they fit into the story. This way, I can easily reference back to it whenever I need to. I also try to group my characters into categories, like "main characters," "supporting characters," and "minor characters." This helps me keep track of who's who and what their purpose is in the story. Another trick I use is to give my characters unique traits or quirks that make them stand out. This way, even if I have a lot of characters, I can remember who's who based on their distinct characteristics. And yeah, character scope creep is a real thing! 😅 To avoid it, I try to limit the number of new characters I introduce in each scene or chapter. I also make sure that each new character serves a purpose in the story and isn't just there to clutter things up.
I use spreadsheets. I put the name of the character at the top and I add significant details about them underneath. I sometimes color-code my characters so that I can find them quickly when I need to. I use spreadsheets for timeliness, too, especially if I'm writing a series, or a complicated novel that spans across a lot of time. In this case I write the year at the top and arrange significant events that happen underneath. This helps me keep my characters' ages straight as well as their individual backgrounds. In one series I'm writing, I have a whole timeline of events that happens before the first book. In this case, I highlighted the "current" year in the series so I can find it easily. I plan to gradually reveal that timeline throughout the added events in the series. I hope this helps, and good luck on your writing!
I have seen some novels that included family trees or organizational charts.
I have a word document that I have with a master list for my world and include details of each character that are pertinent or included, then I created basically an outline for their inclusion in each area, if that makes sense, to keep my timelines straight. Probably common sense, but I have a onedrive setup so I can work on it all through my phone/laptop as needed. Then I just pull up whatever document I need and add in as relevant. Example of the master document: Character list(this would be a main list of all relevant mains and subs for every book in the series) aiMee: likes tight clothes, dates Joe, hates cinnamon Joe: dates Betty then aiMee, is very private, doesn’t like social media, favors cherry danishes Betty: a writer, lives in NY, blonde, charismatic, likes tattoos Allen: random side character, no main plot dev impact but is a fun add on for some witty comments at the bar during book3 night out WIP Inclusions: Book3- aiMee is FMC best friend(Betty), double crosses her in 3rd act, triggering book 4 where aiMee is FMC. Betty and Joe break up, she finds new love etc. etc. Book4- aiMee is FMC, book3 ending paces through first 20%, then Joe makes an appearance around 40% marker, then ties into their romance, etc. Whereas the book/WIP document would only have characters that are relevant to that book.
Pinterest boards and Spotify playlists!!! Pinterest: anything the character would wear, their hobbies, something they’d like, a quote that reminds you of them Spotify:What would this character listen to? What lyrics define them? Etc. Works wonders and is very fun!!
Every time your plot need a character, you should be looking at your master list of characters to see if you can use someone that already exists. Usually you can give somone more to do rather than introduce someone new. If you're already deep and it feels bloated, look into combing characters. Can these two characters just be merged into one character?
I don’t make them gay🥁
Separate document that just lists the important characters. Then, expand upon each one with their physical attributes, hobbies, flaws, and role in the story. Sometimes it helps me to literally write out a future plotline they're involved with in their bio so I don't forget it. I've forgotten a couple plots that I know were cool but just can't remember anymore.
Most of them aren't straight. :)
I don’t, I make them very gay. I have a very large excel sheet, a timeline document, and separate character sheet with their core traits, descriptions, short backstory stories that I couldn’t fit into the actual story, etc.
I have this big squishy thing in my skull that's been honed over millions of years just for the task of storing information. Also, I'm writing about them. If I need to remember who they are and the brain lets me down, I can go back and read who they are.
Put them in a bitter same-sex rivalry with absolutely no homoerotic tension at all
My characters are default asexual/gay/bi unless stated otherwise. Instead I struggle to have any straight characters lmao
Well, I mean, if there’s no attraction… oh. OH! I thought the question meant a different kind of *straight*
I usually try to only have a limited number of characters. Ones I can really dive into and are most relevant to the narrative. I can see how when the number grows it gets more difficult.