How to organize a list of characters?
Hello everyone!
I'm working on a short story and would like to write a list of characters for it. But I don't know how best to organize it. Should I, for example, sort the characters by their affiliation or not (e.g., Laura's family and Laura's class)? It could also be the case, for example, that Laura has a cousin who is in the same class as her, and would then be listed twice. Besides, it's also there to be able to look up who is who, and if, for example, someone simply says, "I met Albert on the way home" and has no idea who Albert is, they don't know which affiliation to look up.
I'm also wondering how exactly I should order them. Alphabetically? By their first appearances? By importance? Or also by affiliation (e.g., siblings in sequence)?
PS: The list of characters should be at the end and does not need to be read for basic understanding.
(2 votes)
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If I understood it correctly, you want to list the directory at the end of the book so that your readers can quickly check who was a figure if they for example forgot it. For this reason, I only find the alphabetical sorting useful. In my opinion, the other sorting options would be contrary to the purpose.
A list of affiliations – as you have already noted – would have two problems: Double affiliation and difficult findability if you no longer know details about the figure.
I also find a sorting by appearances unclear to a reader. Who knows if Person A was introduced before Person B? Even if I still knew who the figure was and maybe when it was mentioned, it would still be a huge search job to find the right entry.
Sorting by importance is a very individual criterion. When looking for a figure, I would have to go through everything or at least large sections in case of doubt. Here again the problem comes: if I don't know much more than the name, I won't remember how important the figure was.
The alphabetical sorting also has the advantage that, in my opinion, it is easiest to implement for you.
The simplest is probably a complete performance of all persons in either alphabetical order or: the order of occurrence in history. Or you can add a larger to each paragraph main character and then add a complete list of persons, where you can refer to the larger items for the main characters.
For example, Vera Nazarian has given a very good presentation: for her series "The Atlantis Grail", she has published a more than 200-page reference work on all the people who appear in the series – and on Amazon there is a very meaningful reading sample from the book. Even if the names will probably tell you nothing – but the Structure the book might help you for your own personal directory.
Thank you for your help!
First of all, you should not write all the characters, but only those who have the most relevance. This, for example, avoids the "Albert" problem from your question: If Albert is not important for the action, he does not have to be listed. If he is important for the action, the readers will learn early enough what role he plays.
But if you order the figures according to the alphabet, after their first appearances or after belonging, you are left. For the beginning, I would recommend the alphabetical order because it is the simplest, but you can change that at any time if you notice that another order fits better (for example, if your book has so many different groups that play a role, it would be more appropriate to assign to belonging).
I don't think you understand what I want. The directory is there to see who is. Say, if, for example, it happens that character X is the whirlpool of Y, but you have forgotten or is no longer safe (there are now people who make longer reading breaks or maybe have no good memory for that). So even after you've learned what role this character plays.
And the Albert problem was purely related to the fact that, according to an order, it is no longer present to the reader, and also does not appear from the text, which affiliation Albert has now, so you do not know where to look. It has never been mentioned whether Albert is important or unimportant. However, in an alphabetical order it does not come to this problem, but I still wanted to clarify what I mean.
All these problems can be solved by writing, in addition to the name, the shortest possible explanation of the figure and listening to my advice that only the most important figures come into the directory. This makes it shorter and Albert can be found faster even if you take the order after belonging.
Of course there’s an explanation in the directory, otherwise the whole meaning would be gone.
Boah, if it were a fantasy story, I would know what… sorry☺️
It’s actually a fantasy story. The question was only examples.
Then I would if there were different peoples divided into peoples or groups, for example, guilds or orders.