posted
Someone recently mentioned having seven main characters, and someone replied that adding characters doesn't add a constant amount of work. Here's an illustration, with seven unnamed characters and 21 unspecified relationships:
The formula for number of relationships is n(n - 1) / 2.
The screenshot is from a little Java application I'm writing as a substitute for text files. (I've gotten tired of my character notes being disorganized--and I realized that any linear solution is going to be just as messy as text files.) This situation came up while testing it. It was fairly eye-opening, so I thought I'd share it.
are you going to write the app so that you can enter the names and some sort of tag for the relationship into a list or table and then have it display?
you could also color code the lines to illustrate major types of relationships; red for confrontational, green for friendly, etc
posted
I did that once in Excel. I made a table with all the names both down and across, and then indicated the relationships at the intersections, and used lots of color-coding and bold and italics. One good thing about doing it that way was I could show that A likes B, but B really doesn't trust A - looks like in this diagram there's only one relationship per pair.
And then I filled it out two or three more times to track how the relationships changed over the course of time.
posted
I'm curious about this sort of thing. If you are writing a book of such complexitites that you, the author, need charts to track your characters...how is a reader to keep up? This is why I quit reading the WoT series, I couldn't keep up with the characters anymore.
I'm trying to think of books that have lots of main characters, and TLoTR comes to mind (I couldn't keep up with all of its names and personalities, either, until the movies came out and I had faces to put with them.) I haven't read many other books that have more than 3 or 4 main characters with detailed story lines.
As far as interactions with secondary characters, do you think they should be limited to an easily tracked number? How do you construct a story that is so complex, and yet keep it so organized that the reader doesn't need an index of character charts?
posted
One way I suppose would work is by making sure no two names sound too much alike. I was reading a book, ordinary people, where the main characters were Cal and Con, very easy to miss when reading. Caused me to misunderstand several things.
Another good way is to apply a "position" to each of them. By using a "family" type structure, or perhaps a "kingdom (king, knight, gaurd, peasant, maid)" type, it would be easy to associate. Try not throwing in names for one time characters. Like using "The Captain" instead of "Captain Fraln" for a small character seen once. Decreasing useless names helps the reader remain with the MCs. Although, giving everyone names gives depth to your story.
Guess you will have to find the perfect balance between Endless Depth and Complete Understanding.
posted
well, in my case, it was a really good way to avoid working on the project at all.
But had I actually gotten around to writing it, I believe that thoroughly understanding the character relationships backstage like that would make it easier to convey it all clearly to the reader. Without getting it all straight in my head (whether that was done during the first draft or beforehand with charts and colors and endless procrastination) it would just be a mess.
The complete cast of my novel was limited to 8 people. And of those nine gazillion relationships, probably a dozen of them are important, and two or three are central, and the rest fade into the background where they belong. That's another thing that the diagram above doesn't show - how important the relationship is to the story being told.
I also did a lot of work to distinguish them from each other: very different names, descriptions, roles, themes, speech patterns, and imagery.
Actually I've been thinking about that project a lot lately. Maybe it's time to pick it up again.
[This message has been edited by Beth (edited July 02, 2006).]
posted
It looks like a good way to remind writers not to have unneccessary characters. It looks especially useful for a novel with a lot of family members, too. I'm thinking of Zelazny's 'Amber' series, with all the intrigue and plotting and alliances and secret alliances between the family members. I could have used this to follow the story line when too much time passed between reading one book and the next!
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:are you going to write the app so that you can enter the names and some sort of tag for the relationship into a list or table and then have it display?
It does this already, but I left them unnamed and unspecified because I was only testing multi-select. As soon as you plonk down a new node or edge, it asks you to name it.
You can also associate free-form text with each node or edge which is displayed as a tool-tip when you mouse over it. The text files were actually a little better for this, because all the text was right there in front of me. I'm hoping the at-a-glance relationship factor outweighs that particular disadvantage.
quote:you could also color code the lines to illustrate major types of relationships; red for confrontational, green for friendly, etc
(Beth also mentioned this, to her credit. )
Good idea. It would be trivial, since the functionality is already there and the user interface just needs to expose it. I'll also add line weights to take the place of bold text. I'm not sure how I'll do italics.
Beth:
quote:I did that once in Excel. I made a table with all the names both down and across, and then indicated the relationships at the intersections...
I've thought of this, too, but it seemed cumbersome. Then I realized that a directed graph with labeled edges is mathematically equivalent to a table, and hey, I'm a computer scientist, so...
Right now, the graph is undirected, but I can change that, because this is a great idea:
quote:One good thing about doing it that way was I could show that A likes B, but B really doesn't trust A - looks like in this diagram there's only one relationship per pair.
Like coloring, the potential for assymetric relationships is already there, but I have to put a user interface on it. Instead of a line connecting two nodes, there would be two lines with opposing arrowheads. If you were doing it, would you rather associate the same text with both arrows or different text to each?
Novice:
quote:If you are writing a book of such complexitites that you, the author, need charts to track your characters...how is a reader to keep up?
I think Beth already answered this well, but I want to add that you don't need to abuse your readers like this. I intend to group my characters into small cliques, which will drastically cut down on the number of relationships. I won't include a relationship between two characters that simply know about each other. (Or if I do, I could give it a very small line weight and not even name it.)
posted
Sounds fun. When you're ready to have other people look at your software, let me know. I make my living testing software, and am always looking for shiny new ways to procrastinate.
How are you going to flag which characters are heroin addicts?
posted
This project has "geek" written all over it. Hmmm. That makes me curious as to what the symbol for "geek" really is.... maybe I should make a chart... Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Sounds fun. When you're ready to have other people look at your software, let me know. I make my living testing software, and am always looking for shiny new ways to procrastinate.
Perfect. I used to make my living creating software, and I was really good at helping our QA people procrastinate. I'll be happy to abuse you in this capacity.
Lack of documentation puts you in a tricky position, because you'll have to make guesses at what behaviors are design flaws. On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure how the UI is supposed to work myself, so maybe we can hash it out together. I'll let you know when I have something workable.
quote:How are you going to flag which characters are heroin addicts?
Easy. People with pious names like "Matthew," "Armour-of-God," and "Adolf Hitler" are the heroin addicts.
posted
But we usually ship our doc with our product. If you QA before you ship, what do you use your users for?
Posts: 671 | Registered: May 2006
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posted
Users? Oh, it's much easier to build software without any users. Cuts way down on the complaints.
Posts: 1750 | Registered: Oct 2004
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