Writer's Blog: Characters

Later this month I'll be posting the next segment of my analysis of Writing a Novel. This will be on the subject of character.

Before I do that I wanted to prefix that with a discussion of Summon the Thunder. This is a Star Trek book and it has, I believe, a bit of a problem when it comes to characters - quite simply their are too many of them.

The characters are reasonably well defined. However I find myself getting confused as to who is who, what species they are and on which ship they serve. Also, and this may just be laziness on my part, I get confused with the names. Mostly I just look at the peaks and troughs of the name, so a 'g' and a 'y' look smiler. Even two names starting with a 'K' can be confusing. Nevertheless the nature of the novel is that it requires many characters. It is slow to start but once it gets going it makes for an interesting read.