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Is a table enough to write on? (And Other Writing Habits)

T

TreyofHearts

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Over time, I've developed the habit of divvying up character names into tables. It's a step up from a random list, but I still think I have more characters than I know what to do with. They're part of a sort of whitelist that I reference whenever I forget a character or concept. I've cleaned it up (over years), but I think it's distracting me from penning actual prose. (Apparently, I can squeeze out a rant easily enough....)

Am I wrong, or am I wrong? And what do you do when you have a cast of dozens?
 
The general principle of writing I like to follow is to just set up a situation, and then simply follow the characters. Easier said than done, however you look at it, but I think it could offer some help to your problem (assuming it is one).

If you have all of your characters documented, and have too many to reasonably fit into a story, then you'll obviously have to just be selective about which character you want to start off with, and what situation they're in/going to face. Then, you can think who else would be around anyway. Then, wherever your character(s) go, you can think about who would be there, why they'd be there, et cetera, though you don't necessarily need all these details in the story - you'd just be justifying it to yourself. Just pull people from your collection whenever you need anyone - it doesn't matter whether they stay for the rest of the story, or are only seen in one chapter. Having a large selection of characters like that is very useful because it allows you to just bring someone up whenever you need them, rather than having to make up someone new, which is often inconvinient and annoying. They don't have to make a major appearance, and the reader doesn't need to know their personal details, so long as they make sense in context.

It sounds like you've got a strong base of characters for a story. Hopefully my advice will be useful to you. Knowing me though, I probably over-explained, and still wasn't very clear. Hmmm...
 
When you've got a large cast, what you're doing is smart; I do the same thing (I organize my tables by affiliation, rank, and nationality).
 
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