I would like to know if any of you out there can assist me. In the course of writing a very long story, (I like to call it that, it makes it less daunting).

I have inevitably created a large number of characters. How can I best manage them and keep up to date during the course of the plot? Do I adopt the same approach to background facts.

Is it best to do your research first? or as you are writing so as not to stifle your flow?

Do you have to be carefull of lible or getting your facts not quite right, it is after all, under the general title of fiction.

Regards

Paul

I find it helpsto keep a running list of characters and a few biographical details in a separate Word file, and refer to it when necessary.


- NaomiM

Good advice from Naomi. I keep a spreadsheet of everyone's ages, from when the grandparents were born - i.e. of all the years which they might need to remember back to. And in the WIP I need a list of servants' names, because I keep forgetting, and there are four households to track. But I can imagine that some notes about where people live, or some backstory, might be handy.

I would suggest that if you're really having trouble keeping track of characters (as opposed to keeping track of small things like ages, backstory etc.) it might ring a little alarm bell:

It could be because you haven't yet got each one properly developed in your mind as a character with their own habits and characteristics and peculiarities. The more real they are to you, the more memorable they'll be to you, and the more real/memorable they'll be to readers. Dickens is a case in point: his casts are huge, but you remember every one.

Or that the novel isn't thoroughly built around one or two or three main characters, through whom much of it is told, and whose experiences and fate form the chief reason for the reader to keep reading. Of course you need lesser characters, but it's worth being fairly ruthless with them, otherwise the impact of the ones which really do add to the story is weakened, because the reader is struggling to keep track of people who aren't, actually, all that important. Does the man in the corner shop need a name and a backstory? Is he important to the plot, and the theme? If not, maybe he doesn't need a name, or to take up space in the reader's mind.

A propos libel, as long as you don't put a real person in your novel and say something untrue and defamatory about them, you don't have a problem.

Emma

A propos libel, as long as you don't put a real person in your novel and say something untrue and defamatory about them, you don't have a problem.

You do have to be careful, though. There was a famous case in the 1940s, where an author had chosen a name for a character who was a bit of a philanderer (I think), and it turned out there was a lawyer with exactly the same name. The lawyer sued for defamation and won, despite the fact that the author had made up the name and had never heard of the lawyer in question.

So whatever names you invent, it's always a good idea to double-check that there isn't a real person - at least not a famous one - with that name. I tend to do a Google search for the names I've picked, and check that no one shows up with that name within the first 2 or 3 pages. Not a complete check, by any means, but it ought to catch any celebrities who happen to have that name.

(One thing you shouldn't rely on is the trick that movies and TV programmes use, of adding a disclaimer to the effect that all characters are fictional. I once heard a lawyer asked about this, on a Radio 4 programme, and I understood him to say this wouldn't stand up in court if challenged by someone who felt the fictional work had libelled them.)

Alex

Yes, it's true - Georgette Heyer got caught by that once, and more recently a thriller-writer was sued successfully for writing a failed 60s nightclub singer called, as it were, Joe Bloggs, or something, who turned to crime, by a... failed 60s nightclub singer called Joe Bloggs who hadn't turned to crime..

It's a good idea to check particularly if, say, you write an incompetent doctor or dishonest lawyer: do check that there aren't any actual doctors or lawyers with that name, because they would have a good case for it being libellous, I should imagine.

Or write historical fiction.

Emma