I Might (or Might Not) Have a Little List...

Jeff Cohen

I will not blog about politics... I will not blog about politics... I will not blog about politics... I will not blog about politics...

So! What do YOU want to talk about?

A friend whose opinion I respect recently got in touch with a request I'll admit I hadn't considered before. She said I should write into (assumedly at the beginning of) each book a list of the characters who will be involved in the story. She explained that it helps people who might have trouble keeping up with each name as it appears in the story, particularly those mentioned near the beginning that don't show up again until considerably later.

My feeling on cast lists had always been that if a person can't remember who one of the characters is, I have not done my job adequately. I should have given that character a personality trait or at least a physical attribute meant to make the person stand out and be memorable. If I didn't do that, I should have done better. 

But my friend said that some readers have memory problems and need a reference point, which I'll admit I had not previously considered. So I've been going back and forth on the subject for a while now, and I think for the next Haunted Guesthouse novel (due from Crooked Lane Books in 2018) I might just add that list at the beginning.

Now I have to go back over that manuscript and make a note of every lunatic I invented, then come up with a way to encapsulate each character without giving away the plot. Maybe this whole list thing isn't exactly the greatest invention since the wheel after all. But I'm still going to do it, I think.

It feels like I'm cheating, somehow, but if readers will be helped to have a more enjoyable experience reading my book, I am not the person to argue.

I'll throw it open to the vast population of DEAD GUY readers: Do you like, dislike, or are you completely indifferent to, character lists at the beginnings of mystery novels?

There. I didn't blog about politics. But it was REALLY difficult not doing that. I deserve a cookie, or something.

 

Pitchers and catchers report in 22 days. That's what's keeping me going right now.

Comments

[P. Casey Morgan]

I like the lists of characters and have used them to go back to when a name appears and I'm blanking out on who it is. I'm not sure if my age (63) is a contributor to this blanking out; I think it's been happening for years and is just a symptom of me reading too fast and not paying close enough attention. But I'll tell you what contributes in a huge way to me getting confused about characters - names starting with the same letter. If there is a Daniel and a David, or a Susan and a Sharon, I'm going to confuse them for each other all the way through the book. Seems like a pretty simple fix to me, but then no one's asked me - until now.

[Sue Trowbridge]

This was a topic of discussion at my book group just last week!! We had read a mystery novel translated from the Japanese and a lot of us had trouble keeping the characters straight because the names were unfamiliar to many of us, and we did not know how they were pronounced. We agreed that a list would have been helpful. However, I don't really think it's necessary for a book with American/English names.

[[email protected]]

I like the list of characters idea.
I am having memory problems so this would help me immensely while reading books.

[Marilyn Thiele]

I find a list useful when there is an enormous book with an enormous number of characters, e. g. Ken Follet's Century Trilogy, where such a list was provided. Many books seem to introduce 10 or more characters in the first few pages. If I feel confused after about 15 pages, I start my own list. I rarely need to refer back to it; as you say, Jeff, the writer does his or her job when the characters have some trait that makes them memorable. It's more a matter of my own focus; by writing the names, I set them in my head. I'm not sure a prepared list would have the same effect for me.

[Deb Romano]

I have mixed feelings about this. Sometimes when I see a list of characters at the front of the book, I think "good grief, this must be a complicated story. I hope I can keep up with all the characters." And then there are times when there are so many characters, or so many similar characters, that I wish there had been a list at the beginning.

I do agree that it can be confusing if several characters have names beginning with the same letter of the alphabet, even though in real life we probably know lots of people whose names begin with the same letter. What has been more frustrating for me lately has been books in which the author sometimes refers to the characters by their first name, and sometimes by their last name. It can take a few minutes of rereading for me to figure out that Smith is the same person as Tom, and that Thomas is the same person as Daniel but NOT the same person as Tom (or Smith).

Deb Romano

[Elaine Charton]

I used to read them and then forget about the list. Now that I do have memory problems I appreciate them. And thank you for the reminder about catchers and pitchers. The void will soon be over!

[Lynne Patrick]

I recommend a look at how Ruth Downie does it in her delicious Ruso series, Jeff. Her secret seems to be to turn the character list into something readers want to read - you shouldn't have too much trouble with that!
Thank you for not blogging about politics - that deserves at least two cookies, both chocolate chip. There's far too much of it on the TV news at the moment. Ignoring it never used to take this much effort...