Has this ever happened to you? You’re reading over a work-in-progress and discover you’ve used the name of a character from a previous story for your leading man in the current one?
When this happened to me, I decided it was time to make a cast of characters chart. You can be as detailed or as basic as you like.
Mine generally start out with names, physical descriptions, how they’re related to other players in the story and usually at least one thing that sets them apart. Maybe it will be a certain word they use in conversation, or a particular fear they have. It could be an eating habit, or an obsession with pets, cars, gambling, etc.
After I get the general idea of the character down, I let the rest of the information for each one unfold with the story.
The place I always start is with the name. Since I write Texas-based stories, I like to use double names so popular in the South.
There are lots of websites for names, but I find most of mine by reading obituaries. That’s right, obits. I find old, double names I love by reading the survivor list. How else would I find great names like Hassie Viola, Claudie Lee or Huler Mae?
Most of the time, I visually cast my main characters with actors, so I cut their pictures out and include them in the notebook.
Some writers make elaborate story boards or collages. I just keep a small spiral.
For a really detailed chart by Rebecca Sinclair, go to www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html
Do you do something similar? What works for you? I’d love to know.
I’ve tried all kind of things for this – I used to just try to keep them all in my head – which works when you’ve only got a few characters 😉
I like the game show introduction type thing for a quick reference – where you have something like:
“John Smithe, a disgruntled construction worker with a strong resentment towards younger men.”
I’m currently using a beta version of Novel Factory to keep track of my characters in my new novel – it’s a pretty good way to keep hold of all the information – it has questionnaires and picture galleries (I usually Google search for images of actors, I like to imagine my characters being played by people like Johnny Depp and Juliet Lewis) I find it’s good to have it in the software rather than on paper – because I change my mind all the time and my note book would be filled with scribbling out… 😉
Hi GCP,
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and thanks for the info concerning Novel Factory. I’ll check that out.
Like you, I cast my stories. I also choose actors to think of when I write each character. Glad to know others do as well.
I’ll check out your blog.
~Ann