A Cast Of A Dozen

[SexxyRebel]

Hello all, my name is Amy, otherwise known as SexxyRebel. This looks like a good a place as any to ask for advice on how to write better stories, so here goes.

I'm working on a story right now that involves a cast of twelve girls, all with quite varied personalities, backgrounds, and experiences. Does anyone have any advice on how to keep the story consistent and flowing? My biggest problem right now is in keeping the characters "in character"...in other words, making sure Colette still acts like Colette, and making sure that Angel doesn't make a reference to having a younger sister while maintaining that she's an only child four chapters later.

Any advice would be fantastic, thank you in advance!

 

[Chicklet]

wow - that's a big cast. Since I don't really know what kind of story you're writing, it's hard to give advice...I would say write it as it makes sense to you, try as best you can to keep it straight, and then read and re-read your own work. After YOU think you've spotted and fixed all mistakes, make sure you have tons of editors...or at least one = )

Also, to keep them straight, maybe have note-cards or a folder that has all the physical information for each character for you to use. Sometimes I highlight information about my character when I mention it, such as eye color or height, so that if I make another reference I can compare.

-Chicklet

 

[CWatson]

Chicklet got it right. When I have lots of characters that way, I tend to keep a .txt file handy where I can scribble down those sorts of details for future reference. Most of the time I don't need to, though, because I like to keep my characters distinct and unique. Which actually brings me to a question:

Do you really NEED twelve characters?

Now, I'm not suggesting that having lots of characters is BAD. One of my stories STARTS with fourteen and only grows from there. But each character is different and unique, and I never have trouble keeping them in order. If you ARE having that kind of trouble, maybe you could stand to remove a character or two. If YOU'RE getting confused, think how your READERS will feel.

In any case, good luck. I'll be watching for when you release this story--I wanna read it.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

SR,

Twelve is a vast horde of characters, especially for a short story. Eight is the most I've ever tried and that was a chore. Even four can get tricky. IMHO, it's virtually impossible to have all of them be major characters. You probably need to decide who are the central characters and focus on them with the others playing supporting roles.

I agree with the others who have advised you to keep a brief bio on each character. Make sure each of them has a special, distinctive feature such as a phrase they overuse, an odd name, or something physical.

In my experience, the biggest challenge with any group story is keeping the characters straight in the readers mind during scenes with a lot of dialogue without cluttering the page with a swarm of tags.

You've given yourself a big challenge. Good luck.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[SexxyRebel]

Guess I should have given more background about my story

It's about a competition in high school featuring cheerleaders and hockey supporters, six to a side. So not all of the characters need to be completely fleshed out, I just need advice on keeping them all consistent. I like the note cards idea and the highlighting bit. And I know it's a bit of a challenge, made even worse by another tendency i have when I'm writing...all of my characters exist in the same little universe, so when I'm talking about a Jeri in one story, it's the same as the Jeri in an older story. This means that in my little universe, there's already about a dozen people floating around that I'm trying to keep in their place.

Thanks for all your advice though, hope I can get more

~Amy

 

[LustiRusti]

I'm working on a story right now that involves a cast of twelve girls, all with quite varied personalities, backgrounds, and experiences. Does anyone have any advice on how to keep the story consistent and flowing? My biggest problem right now is in keeping the characters "in character"...in other words, making sure Colette still acts like Colette, and making sure that Angel doesn't make a reference to having a younger sister while maintaining that she's an only child four chapters later.

Any advice would be fantastic, thank you in advance!

The best advice I could give you is to keep notes. Sure, this may "only be a porn story", but it is a story none the less. On all of the stories I am working on I have a separate file that is an outline. That is where I keep character names, basic profiles for them, and other information such as a title.

It comes in handy for longer stories. Also, I print an up-to-date version of my stories for quick reading reference.


~Kenzie

 

[snooper]

Re: Re: A Cast Of A Dozen

The best advice I could give you is to keep notes. ... On all of the stories I am working on I have a separate file that is an outline. That is where I keep character names, basic profiles for them, and other information such as a title.

I agree. I think you will find that all professional writers keep exhaustive files of quotes from their own works which cover characters, their physical descriptions, their histories, and their foibles. Likewise for important locations used in the story to avoid people walking through walls and so forth, as well as to keep the redecorating bills down.

The effort involved only pays off if you care about consistency. There are a number of stories on Lit where the characters' names even change part way through!

The resulting files get quite big. I have a series of eight novels which involve the same dozen or so main characters mostly in one large building, and the background file is now well over 2Mb (Word97). I dread to think of the size of files Anne McCaffrey must have for the Pern series, with its cast of a hundred or so important characters, and a whole planet with a dozen main sites.

 

[Parklife]

Perhaps this will be of some help in getting the characters mapped out...

I just started writing stories seriously and went through all the Lit help files for writers.. This looks like it would help in your case... It is from the writer's resources and was written by JUDO.


http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=51114

 

[sirhugs]

flowchart

if you use excell spreadsheet, that might be best. On one axis, mark characteristics. characters on the other. fill inthe boxes with physical data and habits, outlooks etc...duplicating the notecards.

I'd post a hard copy on the wall in front of me.

 

[snooper]

Re: flowchart

if you use excell spreadsheet, that might be best. On one axis, mark characteristics. characters on the other. fill inthe boxes with physical data and habits, outlooks etc...duplicating the notecards.

I'd post a hard copy on the wall in front of me.

I find a simple Table in Word is enough.