Book Club

[Calgal2too]

Yes!   Glad I'm not the only one who experiences this.  It's especially frustrating to me when, ultimately, all those extra characters don't have an impact on the overarching story.  

[gardenman]

@Desert Lily 

Yeah, keeping track of characters can be as difficult for a writer as it is for a reader. 

[pateacher]

Our book club will be discussing The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese this evening.  I was struggling to  remember the numerous characters and their relationship to other characters.  

I am a former English teacher and know about many websites the provide book descriptions, characters, and themes.

I have visited them when I suspected some less-than-ethical-student had utilized them.

I was found a complete list of characters and their roles on a similar site.  

I copied this list (guess I am a less-than-ethical retired English teacher) and emailed to my fellow book club members.

Everyone appreciated the list.

You can search: characters in (title of book)

[Tinkrbl44]

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@pateacher wrote:

Our book club will be discussing The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese this evening.  I was struggling to  remember the numerous characters and their relationship to other characters.  

I am a former English teacher and know about many websites the provide book descriptions, characters, and themes.

I have visited them when I suspected some less-than-ethical-student had utilized them.

I was found a complete list of characters and their roles on a similar site.  

I copied this list (guess I am a less-than-ethical retired English teacher) and emailed to my fellow book club members.

Everyone appreciated the list.

You can search: characters in (title of book)

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@pateacher 

Please share a few with us!   TIA  

[pateacher]

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TIA I found my character list on marmaladeandmustardseed

[Tinkrbl44]

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@gardenman wrote:

@Desert Lily 

Yeah, keeping track of characters can be as difficult for a writer as it is for a reader. 

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@gardenman 

Wow.   Well, I hadn't thought about that!   

[gardenman]

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@Tinkrbl44 wrote:

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@gardenman wrote:

@Desert Lily 

Yeah, keeping track of characters can be as difficult for a writer as it is for a reader. 

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@gardenman 

Wow.   Well, I hadn't thought about that!   

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Yes. It can be tricky at times. You'll go back and read something you wrote earlier and realize you renamed a character at some point, a Joan can become a Joanne, Jean, or Joanna, or something along those lines. Reading a book takes a day or two. Writing one takes a year or two, or more in many cases. Sometimes much more.

Very often the way a character starts out in the writing process changes throughout the writing of the book and you have to go back and fix things as you progress in the writing of the book. 

And most writers are writing more than one book at a time. You work on one for a bit then move on to another one before coming back to the first one. It's pretty easy to move a character from one book you're writing to another without realizing it until you go back a read what you've written before and realize that character was never in this book. Oops!

[Susan Louise]

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@gardenman wrote:

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@Tinkrbl44 wrote:

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@gardenman wrote:

@Desert Lily 

Yeah, keeping track of characters can be as difficult for a writer as it is for a reader. 

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@gardenman 

Wow.   Well, I hadn't thought about that!   

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Yes. It can be tricky at times. You'll go back and read something you wrote earlier and realize you renamed a character at some point, a Joan can become a Joanne, Jean, or Joanna, or something along those lines. Reading a book takes a day or two. Writing one takes a year or two, or more in many cases. Sometimes much more.

Very often the way a character starts out in the writing process changes throughout the writing of the book and you have to go back and fix things as you progress in the writing of the book. 

And most writers are writing more than one book at a time. You work on one for a bit then move on to another one before coming back to the first one. It's pretty easy to move a character from one book you're writing to another without realizing it until you go back a read what you've written before and realize that character was never in this book. Oops!

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@gardenman   @Tinkrbl44 

I'm thinking JR Tolkien must have had a very complex system with all of his series with seemingly countless characters and realms.

[gardenman]

@Susan Louise 

I'm sure he did. It can get complicated keeping track of who's who when you're writing a book for a year or longer.