The forgetful reader

[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.