The forgetful reader

[Satan_Klaus]

These are, for all intents and purposes, short stories.

In all my posts I referred to longer pieces, not short stories. In a short story you should not have enough characters to get the reader confused.

Satan_Klaus

[Mad Lews]

One thing the writer can do to help is give the characters distinct (and memorable) names. I know I'm guilty of not following that rule. I tend to alliterate first names by gender, A very bad quirk to get into but fortunately most word processors can fix it with the 'find and replace' function. So if your story has a Brian,Bruce and Brad chasing after Jean, Janice and Josephine consider a quick revision.

[Satan_Klaus]

One thing the writer can do to help is give the characters distinct (and memorable) names.

Powerful names are of course good but I'm always afraid of getting tacky. Finding the right amount of 'distinct and memorable is difficult.

A Mr. Masters, while impossible to forget, might have his place in some stories, in others he is just ridiculous.

[Ozme52]

In all my posts I referred to longer pieces, not short stories. In a short story you should not have enough characters to get the reader confused.

Satan_Klaus

You missed my point... but that said...

Which stories are you talking about? Hardly any I've seen on the library that would qualify as novella length.

[Satan_Klaus]

Which stories are you talking about? Hardly any I've seen on the library that would qualify as novella length.

There are at least some that are novella lenght like "the jade pavillon".

And I was asking for advice not referring to any specific story. I'm currently writing what would qualify as a novella. I'm on page 50 right now and if I ever get it finished it will be well over a hundred pages. You can't do with just one 'main' character in a piece that long. In addition, the characters will not all be present in every chapter. You have to make the reader remember them so he will know them when they reappear.

Satan_Klaus

[Playfulsub]

There are at least some that are novella lenght like "the jade pavillon".

And I was asking for advice not referring to any specific story. I'm currently writing what would qualify as a novella. I'm on page 50 right now and if I ever get it finished it will be well over a hundred pages. You can't do with just one 'main' character in a piece that long. In addition, the characters will not all be present in every chapter. You have to make the reader remember them so he will know them when they reappear.

Satan_Klaus

I guess I'm having a hard time understanding because I don't relate to it. I've never had a hard time remembering characters. And if I get confused about who's who, it usually takes just reading the next line or two to remember who it is. Unless your 100 page novella will have an unusually large number of characters, I don't really believe it will be as much of a problem as you're thinking it will be.