Character question

thothguard51 said:

So I created a Excel spread sheet that list character name, books they appear in and chapters. The spread sheet also allows me to list appearance information or traits I need to remember.

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I have to admit that never occurred to me to do. Must fix.

Characters

Canotila said:

I have composition books with full sections on the characters, mostly free writing from their perspectives which really helps when I need to come up with subplots to layer in.

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Whoa fantasy is much harder than just writing a drama, hope you don't ever lose one of those composition books.

I use spreadsheets with a sheet to keep track of both my list of names waiting to be used and a separate sheet of those names I've already used. I only add a note or two if the character if minor/supporting because I'm not going to know them very well and, thus, am not likely to remember who they are 50-100 pages later when I need them again. This includes all dead characters who are in main characters' history.

I don't keep any other notes besides "head priest" or "Soandso's dead mother" on them, though. I create characters and world as I write, so anything important evolves in the prose and I leave it there. Otherwise, the spreadsheet becomes insane.

For each of my WIPs I have an 'important stuff' file (I use microsoft word.
I create charts for each part, locations, main characters, extras.
With my main characters I'll usually do some free writing during the outline stage to get to know them and their personal stories. I find it hard to write dialogue if I don't know what all parities motives are in a scene.
Each of my stories is kept in a folder containing files for:
Novel - the actual story
Outline / important stuff
Junk - free writing, character interviews, excerpts from things I'm reading or find that I think inspire pieces of the story, and sometimes songs I think suit the soundtrack for my book
Research - I always keep a detailed list of books, websites or documentaries that I’m referencing so I can go back when I can't figure out what my notes mean.

If tehy're playing an important role then yes, i do up templates for them, everything i need to know about them is saved onto this template in a 'Planning' folder on my PC. It's easy to just upen it up, find the character template I'm after and scroll down till i find the bit i'm after.

I have a timeline for my novel, with every event in my novel on it. Every time the MC's have an event, so do the other characters, even if that event doesn't make it into the story. It just makes sure I don't forget about a character somewhere, and adds a richness and depth to the story, I think.

Lately, I've found making a detailed profile of the MCs to be quite useful. It helps me establish and keep a strong, consistent picture of my characters, as well as their abilities (I also make a setting 'bible'). Beyond that, it's rather fun writing down their backgrounds; it's like making an RPG character, which is something I also enjoy.

I'm considering making a character web on character relationships, but I don't think I need it...

Yet.

Coco82 said:

Since this genre tends to have large casts of characters, how do you keep track of your characters? Do you make lists as they are created, make detailed info on them beforehand, or what? I'm just interested to know how others do it or what some may consider the best way.

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I actually have the writing software 'Scrivener' it's only $45 and is a LIFESAVER! I kid you not!

It allows you to have a 'characters' section, with a seperate page for each character where you can write a summary, and also go into detail about the character. You can post pictures etc. too in order to keep track in your mind about which character is which.

It's fantastic and saves my life! If you aren't up for the software purchase then I recommend setting up a word, or notepad file for each character each time you create on in your novel - there are lots of characters and this is the only way I can keep track.

I hope this helps!

I actually have the writing software 'Scrivener' it's only $45 and is a LIFESAVER! I kid you not!

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I don't know of anyone who has bought Scrivener and hasn't loved it. Great for the editing process, too.

Like others, I write series so it is critical to know the time line and who is married to whom and when they died/ were born/ married/etc... plus physical characteristics. Last thing I want is someone talking to a character that was yet to be born!

I also use it to record world building things that are unusual, such as days of the week or what the 5th month of the year is called.

I write this all down into a seperate word document and have this document open as I write. I update this document as important pieces of information are written into the book plus a page/chapter/book reference so that I can go back and change it if required.

The most important thing is not to let your back up notes overtake the main task of writing. They are meant to be brief, non-literary works that are not a writing task in their own right. Spend as little time on them as possible, but do sort the notes in a logical fashion.

I also use numbered headings and add an automatic table of contents in Word so that I can look at the index and double click to jump to the appropriate heading (such as timeline, currency used, list of weights and measures, Character X, etc...) This saves time in searching through your supporting document for the information you require. Indexing is far more important than eloquence.

I must look into those software tools tho as they sound good.

CAMueller said:

I don't know of anyone who has bought Scrivener and hasn't loved it. Great for the editing process, too.

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My mom didn't like it. Boo. She doesn't write books though. And I doubt she was willing to get past the learning curve.

Scrivener is a lifesaver, though, I agree with that. For the Fantasy Historical fiction where it did require a huge cast despite my efforts to keep it under control, I was able to make profiles for the characters, make a template for the character profiles, keep track of settings, research and PDFs. This means less screwing around on the internet with the excuse that I don't have a particular fact or visual cue. I love it for world building--helps me keep track of the things I said and the internal logic, even if the reader doesn't need to know the internal logic in the world building at that point, it helps me to keep track so there aren't inconsistencies later.

Since I have to keep track of four different countries over a time period of 200 years, it really does make organizing the info so much easier.

So far 34 characters for three books.

BTW, Fantasy doesn't always require a large cast, that's epic fantasy. Urban, Contemporary, Slice of Life (Yes, you can do slice of life), Paranormal don't require large casts. You can get away with only a few characters.

Historical fiction also requires large casts, often to get the historical accuracy right. But often authors manage that by hand waving a bit. I'm hoping to hand wave too. So I can mention a name and then it not be important after a point. Ya know, like real life.

Rachel Udin said:

My mom didn't like it. Boo. She doesn't write books though. And I doubt she was willing to get past the learning curve.

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What was she planning to use it for? I've always just considered it an ideal novel writing tool.

I guess my style is more simplistic than i thought. Personally I am a character cranking machine. All I need is a name and I can create a character in a few moments, same for recalling things. If I forget something i can recall exactly what was happening at the moment I'm trying to remember just by remembering what character was a part of it.

I also use multiple povs in my stories from time to time and I have to remember how they percieve things differently from the other povs and just by writing in their pov I can remember everything. What they call others, what they refer to themself as, who their mad at and who they love, even the internal conflicts that they are dealing with. I rarely jot down what I was thinking before I stopped writing the night before, unless I need to shut something down to restart or speed up my comp.

Is this odd or common?

I mostly just tend to keep it in my head, a couple of my MC were supposed to be in a book set decades ahead of the one I actually ended up writing,* so I had their war records pretty clearly worked out. I do keep a text file with basic details for major characters and some of the subordinate characters around them. Although I probably should have kept better records since I'm forever having to look up names from earlier chapters.

What I did do was work out dates of birth for all major characters since several of them fought in an earlier war and needed to be old enough to have served in the first war but young enough for the second. The other thing I had to do was work out and list starship names. When going to through the first draft I realised I'd used the same name for two totally separate ships (both of them were destroyed) so I had to work out a complete order of battle for my entire human fleet.



*That went belly up when my HDD died and I learned some important lessons about backing up.

CAMueller said:

What was she planning to use it for? I've always just considered it an ideal novel writing tool.

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Grant proposals.

She says she writes out of order and likes to collect research for references. I have to admit that Scrivener as great as it is, does have a learning curve to it.

I use Word in outline view in the document map. That way I can easily add info about a character as I go, and the character names and main points are visible on the left sidebar.

I also keep a timeline in Excel, with character names heading the rows and scenes heading the columns. That way I can keep track of where everybody is while they're not on stage.

I never thought of the automatic table of contents. Sounds like a good idea!

Automatic table of contents is worth it's weight in gold. You can also go along and index tag key words, such as peoples names. You can then create an automatic index at the back of the document. Use F9 or double click and select update all fields if you want to update either the Table of Contents or the index.

Canotila said:

I have composition books with full sections on the characters, mostly free writing from their perspectives which really helps when I need to come up with subplots to layer in.

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I hate it when you post because I end up staring at your dog for long periods of time and forget whatever it was I wanted to say in the thread!

CAMueller said:

I don't know of anyone who has bought Scrivener and hasn't loved it. Great for the editing process, too.

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I could never get into Scrivener. I don't really know why. I've had similar problems with all the other novel-writing software I've tried.

The beauty of fantasy/sci fi is that you have a much broader range of possible personality quirks to make your character distinctive. They can have three heads, be from an earlier time period, have been ressurrected from the dead, etc. I find this helps.

Also, I use a program called Jarte to keep tabbed notes on each of the characters in the current scene, and of the characters who will become affected by the actions in the scene. I start each set of notes with "I, [character's name], " and make it into a monologue to be read in their own voice. Kind of imagining the character interoducing themseleves to me.

I just use my enormous brain.

JimmyB27 said:

I just use my enormous brain.

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Ditto.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Ditto.

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I wondered where all those characters I didn't recognise were coming from.

RichardFlea said:

Automatic table of contents is worth it's weight in gold. You can also go along and index tag key words, such as peoples names. You can then create an automatic index at the back of the document. Use F9 or double click and select update all fields if you want to update either the Table of Contents or the index.

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Thanks for the info! I'll definitely try it out!

Liosse de Velishaf said:

I could never get into Scrivener. I don't really know why. I've had similar problems with all the other novel-writing software I've tried.

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Me, too.

I use Excel, Excel, and--oh, yes--Excel.

And then, when I think I'm getting somewhere, I use Excel all over again.

The only things I don't use Excel for are sketching maps and the actual text.