(We normally agree on Weekly Topics to blog on, but I got bored…) Anyway. I always have a ton of different characters running around in all manner of different settings.It gets tricky telling them apart and not losing track of some secondary character somewhere along the line.

So here is what I do: (I use OneNote, but different pads/binders will work for this too)

  • I have a tab with the name of the hero. Here I note down all his specifics. Birthday, Place of Birth, Age, Family connections, Friends, Appearance… things like that.
  • I have a second tab for the heroine, organized the same way.
  • A third lists all the secondary characters and what their purpose is (I often end up culling some of them, but it helps to keep track of them.) I also note any specifics (older / younger brother of XYZ etc) against their names. I wouldn’t want to have one start as a school friend and then later discover they met in college.
  • I have a sheet with place names, areas, relevance which I (try to!) link with the names of the characters so I know who is where and uh.. when. Which brings me to the next bit.
  • A tab for the timeline, where I list - Chapter by Chapter - when things happen. i.e. If Chapter 3 starts on Thursday morning, then I can’t have Chapter 4 start on the previous Monday. Well. I could, but unless it’s a time travel novel… it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
  • I have a reference tab, where I put snippets, books (title / page numbers), web links etc.
  • I keep a tab with Chapter info, page counts etc.

So that’s the basics. I expand on all of those, usually a lot, but those are my basics.
Hope it helps someone. :)