Some years back, a publishing professional suggested I not introduce so many characters by name in the first chapter.
I counted the names in chapter one of the manuscript. There
were six fully named, plus three who were mentioned by function, not a name.
(Think “her uncle” or “his teacher.”)
Was this too many? She was a publishing professional, so I
revised. I found another way to introduce the named operators of the story. A
technique I borrowed from a book I read when I was ten served its purpose. After
all, the publishing professional specifically said young readers couldn’t
hold that many names right off the bat, and bringing up Tolstoy’s War and Peace
with his propensity to name hundreds of characters would not be a proper defense.
Anyway, I was not writing an epic novel. This was a spy story for middle grade readers.
I remembered this advice, and have counted the number of
characters introduced by name in the first chapter(s) ever since. No matter
that an award-winning writer of middle grade novels ignores this advice, (not
naming him. I like his books) and that less than lauded books I have read and
respected don’t follow it. I’m not in their league, and so I heed this
generally good guidance.
7 comments:
Agreed. First chapters have to accomplish so much and too many named characters can be a distraction.
You are wise not to introduce too many character names at the very beginning. I've been turned off by books that do that.
Some novels I have read include a detailed list of characters. When it's a long list, I wonder whether I'll remember who everyone is, especially if the character doesn't appear frequently or isn't super crucial to the narrative. I remember how confounded I felt when I read those epic Russian classics. I kept thinking there was a cast of hundreds of characters until I finally learned that each person had at least a handful of nicknames. Whew!
That seems like good advice. Even though I'm not a young kid, I still find introducing a lot of characters at the beginning of a story is a lot to keep track of.
Apropos this post, I just realized I didn't follow my own advice in my current WIP, so I went back and broke chapter one into two.
Good to pay attention, self :D
Now I want to go count character names in my WIP. ;-)
Thanks.
Sue
That is so true. And the main reason I refuse to read Tolstoy. I have no trouble keeping track of characters in Dostoyevsky, so he must have limited his character names. In reading one YA novel--I've like other books by her--I remember starting to write a character list to keep track, then stopped myself and put down the book. Permanently. And avoided other books by her.
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