Who are those people?

Has your significant other ever told you, you have too many characters? Has your critique group ever asked you who are these people you are writing about?

This is a common syndrome that may or may not require you to fix something in your writing.

First, take the case of that person you love who puts your book down after chapter three. There is such a thing as the Jesus of Nazareth syndrome. Jesus had a hard time with the folks in his home town believing that he was the Messiah. Shouldn’t your significant other believe in you too, lol? In the case of the disinterested partner, count your blessings. She loves you but sees you as that young man she married. Just drop it, you still have a couple million readers, right?

The critique group problem is complicated:

Are they senile? No, they can’t be expected to remember completely the past chapters. Do you, theirs?

Some critters have a reminder at the top of the first page as to who’s who and what’s what.

I don’t because I believe in the perhaps old fashioned dictum: Every scene must stand on its own. I.e. have arcs, identifiable characters, hooks, sequel. After all, the reader won’t have those little reminders when your book is out. NOTE: readers read at a much quicker pace. Critters reading at best once a week causes problems you won’t meet in the real world.

So when I get that critter complaint I think about how to improve the text without writing little reminders. Even though in my present story it is only one POV, I will try to have the name of the POV character show up in the first paragraph along with the purpose of the scene if possible.

In the story I’m currently writing, the POV character has 1 brother and 2 sisters. Who are these people morphs into how old are they. Okay, I just reviewed the scene, the teenaged and older sister takes the 7 & 5 year old to a basketball court. I need to stress words that accentuate the age but I will not say, okay now, in this scene the POV 7 year old has a sister 5 and a sister 14. Sorry, at some point you just have to move on and realize that there might be a touch of the Jesus of Nazareth syndrome in some members of your group. Afterall Jesus is good company.

Of course, there are creative ways of letting the reader know ‘things.’ Just don’t let it slow down the story or read clunky.