Characters
A cast is the part of a manuscript most likely to drift. Eye colour changes, a surname arrives late, a minor character is introduced twice, someone disappears for two hundred pages and returns as though nothing happened.
These guides cover building characters that hold together on the page, and checking an existing draft for the details that quietly moved.
28 articles
How to Record a Character Voice
A voice you can check, not just hear.
Recording Relationships Between Characters
A record you can check, not a diagram.
Character Sheets Versus Character Directories
The character you designed, and the one you wrote.
A Spoiler-Safe Character List
The version that can sit in the front of book one.
How to Check Pronouns and Forms of Address
Right in every scene, including the ones written first.
A Character List for a Fantasy Series
Large cast, many books, one document that survives.
A Character List for a Mystery
Suspects and witnesses, without spoiling the solution.
Tracking a Character Across a Long Book
Every mention, in order, as one view.
How to Check a Character Introduced Twice
Common, invisible while writing, obvious to a reader.
Relationship and Family Tree Consistency
Who is related to whom, and does the book agree with itself.
How to Check a Multi-POV Manuscript
The three checks a multi-viewpoint book needs and a single one does not.
How to Check an Ensemble Cast
Twenty named characters, and the ones who quietly vanish.
Where Was This Character Last Seen?
The gap check, for a draft with more cast than you can hold.
How to Build a Cast List for a Novel
What belongs in one, and the two versions every book needs.
How to Track Minor Characters
The named walk-ons that accumulate, contradict and vanish.
When to Name a Walk-On Character
Naming creates an expectation. Here is when it is worth it.
How to Find Every Mention of a Character
Searching a name finds some of them. Not the ones that matter.
Naming a Cast So Readers Can Tell Them Apart
Designing a set of names rather than choosing them one at a time.
Characters Who Disappear and Return
The two-hundred-page gap that reads as a dropped thread.
What a Thousand Novels Do With Their Characters
12,602 novels scanned. The median names 32 characters, and half the cast has arrived by the thirteen per cent mark.
How to Track What Each Character Knows
The commonest plot hole in a draft: a character who knows what nobody told them.
How Many Characters Should a Novel Have? Casts by Genre
No correct number exists. There is a number your book can carry, and a way to measure it.
When Character Names Are Too Similar, and How to Check
Shape, stress and first letter matter more than spelling. Here is how to test a cast list.
Tone and Voice Editing: Keeping Every Character Consistent
A character whose voice quietly shifts halfway through is its own kind of consistency problem.
How to Check Character Consistency Across a Novel
Check names, knowledge, motivation, behaviour, appearance and voice with a character consistency method that works
How to Build a Character Arc That Changes the Story
Build a character arc from belief, pressure, choice and consequence so internal change alters the plot rather than
How to Create Character Profiles That Help You Draft
Build a practical character profile for a novel using goals, contradictions, relationships, knowledge and
How to Name Characters Without Confusing Readers
Name fictional characters by balancing culture, period, voice and meaning with practical tests for sound, shape
Characters, on your own manuscript.
One pass finds every term your book spells more than one way.