>> Unfortunately TV doesn't help me a lot - I am a fair degree of face-blind so if the characters are very visually distinct I go well but if there are multiple people that fit any given four-ish word description ("woman with curly red hair" for example) I'm apt to confuse them. <<
Okay, I can relate to that. The characters in Schrodinger's Heroes are pretty distinct though -- most of them are different races.
>> My friends are used to me pausing movies and saying "Is that the good guy or the bad guy?" a lot, especially because "white guy with short dark hair" is so very generic there's usually multiple people in any given visual medium which fit it. <<
I have that problem sometimes, although I rarely bother to say anything about it.
>> I always have trouble with large ensemble casts, I don't know if everybody does or it's just me but some of the time when I'm reading a really good book I actually end up making my own sketchy cast list while I'm reading just to keep characters straight. Usually by halfway through the book, at most, I don't need it - it just takes a while to sort out. Sometimes just making the list is enough to sort them out in my head. <<
Hmm ... I don't know how common it is for other people, but yeah, the more characters, the harder it is for me to keep track of them. If you look on the Canon page under the Characters part, there are various bits of cast list there.
>> 1. Script format has less visual description than standard format. <<
That confirmation is useful.
>> 2. SH has multiple versions of many characters. If I have trouble keeping Alex and Ash and Kay apart, for example, having to deal with alter!Morgan and good!Schrodinger and bad!Pat and kitten!Alex, etc, is enough to completely crash my brain. The different!Forms don't resolve in my head at all if I can't remember who Forms is, if that makes sense? <<
Yeah, that would make it harder. For what it's worth, good!Schrodinger is black and evil!Schrodinger is white. If the characters are transformed into cats, they are usually a consistent type of cat. But the other-dimensional alters can look identical. I can see why this would be confusing.
>> 3. Character names that have less information inside them than names usually do - names often explicitly tell gender and frequently they also contain strong hints about race/culture and even socio-economic status. <<
I vary in my handling of character names. Sometimes I use them for hardcoding information like that, other times not.
>> With my social justice cap on I totally adore that you use names which don't specify gender or clearly encode race or class! I would rather make myself the occasional cast list to help me get into a book if it meant authors weren't constrained as much by stereotypes/generalisations. Please don't misunderstand - I am absolutely not saying I'd be happier if you used names that clearly encoded these things, I like what you do far better, I'm just noting the way it changes my mental processing. <<
In this series, that lack of distinction is a feature not a bug. It's meant to allow flexibility.
*chuckle* In Torn World, the names aren't divided by gender at all, so every time I introduce a new character, I have to include what my partner Doug has fetchingly dubbed "crotch pronouns" to mark the sex/gender.
>> 4. You do the same with avoiding common character and story tropes - being less predictable than normal. <<
There are certain tropes that I really love, but in general, I try to avoid predictable stories. I'm more interested in twisting things into new directions.
>> Stories where there is less use of character tropes and established story types are MUCH more interesting to read, but they are also undeniably more work mentally for the reader because many shortcuts are removed. <<
I see the pros and cons, yes.
>> 5. I'm not sure about this one, it may just be my perception because I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the characters I don't recall well, but I feel like SH has more characters that tend to be in each story than much of your other work. When I think about Hart's Farm, for example, there are a lot of characters in the series but each specific work tends to focus on a very small subset of them. Ensemble TV episodes generally tend to have all of the core cast in most of the episodes I think. <<
I think you're right about that, although it would take a closer examination to be sure. I've done a few stories and rather more poems that focus on just one or a few characters, but a lot of the Schrodinger's Heroes stuff does seem team-oriented. That's probably an echo of the ensemble TV show format.
>> I thought about this way too much, haven't I? <<
No, I love getting this kind of detailed feedback.
>> And 3 and 4, at least, are things that I never never never want you to change - it's part of why your writing is awesome!! <<
I'm happy to hear that. I'll just try to keep this in the back of my mind in case I can think of ways to distinguish the characters better.
>> I don't have any neat conclusion here, except that I plan to go read more crossovers and hopefully that'll help :) <<
Yay! I hope you enjoy those.
>> Thanks again for making so much awesome fiction available to read free, it makes me very very very happy <3 <<
That's good to hear too.
My latest project is another TV show pressed into text format, The Blueshift Troupers, and it's an ensemble too. I'll do my best to make the characters memorable. You have confirmed to me that I'm on the right track with my idea to start out by doing poems to get to know the characters better, rather than trying to jump straight into the first episode with all of them.
Re: Yes...
Okay, I can relate to that. The characters in Schrodinger's Heroes are pretty distinct though -- most of them are different races.
>> My friends are used to me pausing movies and saying "Is that the good guy or the bad guy?" a lot, especially because "white guy with short dark hair" is so very generic there's usually multiple people in any given visual medium which fit it. <<
I have that problem sometimes, although I rarely bother to say anything about it.
>> I always have trouble with large ensemble casts, I don't know if everybody does or it's just me but some of the time when I'm reading a really good book I actually end up making my own sketchy cast list while I'm reading just to keep characters straight. Usually by halfway through the book, at most, I don't need it - it just takes a while to sort out. Sometimes just making the list is enough to sort them out in my head. <<
Hmm ... I don't know how common it is for other people, but yeah, the more characters, the harder it is for me to keep track of them. If you look on the Canon page under the Characters part, there are various bits of cast list there.
>> 1. Script format has less visual description than standard format. <<
That confirmation is useful.
>> 2. SH has multiple versions of many characters. If I have trouble keeping Alex and Ash and Kay apart, for example, having to deal with alter!Morgan and good!Schrodinger and bad!Pat and kitten!Alex, etc, is enough to completely crash my brain. The different!Forms don't resolve in my head at all if I can't remember who Forms is, if that makes sense? <<
Yeah, that would make it harder. For what it's worth, good!Schrodinger is black and evil!Schrodinger is white. If the characters are transformed into cats, they are usually a consistent type of cat. But the other-dimensional alters can look identical. I can see why this would be confusing.
>> 3. Character names that have less information inside them than names usually do - names often explicitly tell gender and frequently they also contain strong hints about race/culture and even socio-economic status. <<
I vary in my handling of character names. Sometimes I use them for hardcoding information like that, other times not.
>> With my social justice cap on I totally adore that you use names which don't specify gender or clearly encode race or class! I would rather make myself the occasional cast list to help me get into a book if it meant authors weren't constrained as much by stereotypes/generalisations. Please don't misunderstand - I am absolutely not saying I'd be happier if you used names that clearly encoded these things, I like what you do far better, I'm just noting the way it changes my mental processing. <<
In this series, that lack of distinction is a feature not a bug. It's meant to allow flexibility.
*chuckle* In Torn World, the names aren't divided by gender at all, so every time I introduce a new character, I have to include what my partner Doug has fetchingly dubbed "crotch pronouns" to mark the sex/gender.
>> 4. You do the same with avoiding common character and story tropes - being less predictable than normal. <<
There are certain tropes that I really love, but in general, I try to avoid predictable stories. I'm more interested in twisting things into new directions.
>> Stories where there is less use of character tropes and established story types are MUCH more interesting to read, but they are also undeniably more work mentally for the reader because many shortcuts are removed. <<
I see the pros and cons, yes.
>> 5. I'm not sure about this one, it may just be my perception because I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the characters I don't recall well, but I feel like SH has more characters that tend to be in each story than much of your other work. When I think about Hart's Farm, for example, there are a lot of characters in the series but each specific work tends to focus on a very small subset of them. Ensemble TV episodes generally tend to have all of the core cast in most of the episodes I think. <<
I think you're right about that, although it would take a closer examination to be sure. I've done a few stories and rather more poems that focus on just one or a few characters, but a lot of the Schrodinger's Heroes stuff does seem team-oriented. That's probably an echo of the ensemble TV show format.
>> I thought about this way too much, haven't I? <<
No, I love getting this kind of detailed feedback.
>> And 3 and 4, at least, are things that I never never never want you to change - it's part of why your writing is awesome!! <<
I'm happy to hear that. I'll just try to keep this in the back of my mind in case I can think of ways to distinguish the characters better.
>> I don't have any neat conclusion here, except that I plan to go read more crossovers and hopefully that'll help :) <<
Yay! I hope you enjoy those.
>> Thanks again for making so much awesome fiction available to read free, it makes me very very very happy <3 <<
That's good to hear too.
My latest project is another TV show pressed into text format, The Blueshift Troupers, and it's an ensemble too. I'll do my best to make the characters memorable. You have confirmed to me that I'm on the right track with my idea to start out by doing poems to get to know the characters better, rather than trying to jump straight into the first episode with all of them.