How much can a reader remember?
I've been writing some fantasy. Now, inevitably because its a big piece of fantasy, its all very involved with the world, culture, story and general bits. Personally, I'm really enjoying writing it.
I have noticed that in a few fantasy novels I have read, I just haven't been able to remember who everyone/what everything was. For example, Thomas Covenant, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Malice represent this perfectly. There are so many materials and things, strange concepts that sometimes I'm completely unable to keep track of them. For example, in The Hobbit I didn't know which dwarf was talking half of the time...
Anyway, in my novel there are many different materials and characters, and the world is really big. How much of this can I expect the reader to remember without having to flick to the glossary or map every two minutes?
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Ultimately this is a question of psychology or perhaps neurology. How does human memory work? But I think it is reasonable to suggest is that what people remember is a novel is story and the things that matter to the story. If that is true, people will remember things that are connected to the story, and the more strongly they are connected to the story, the more strongly they will remember them.
And I think what that means is that if you introduced something 200 pages back as an aside or a piece of scene setting but did not connect it strongly to the story arc, then the chances of the reader remembering it when it becomes plot-relevant 200 page later are close to zero.
But if you introduced it 200 pages back in a way that was integral and important to the story, there is a good chance that when it becomes important again, readers will remember it. That is, of course, supposing you do actually have a strong story arc connecting the two incidents.
I suspect the reason that you can't remember which dwarf is speaking in the Hobbit is that, other than Thorin, the dwarves are interchangeable. It really does not matter which of them is speaking. Whether that is a design choice on Tolkien's part or a defect in the story is another matter. But I can't think of any way in which it matters if you can tell Bifur from Bofur from Bombur. The names rather suggest that it is not supposed to matter.
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In addition to Mark's excellent advice, I would suggest:
1) Start slowly. In Game of Thrones, we start with just the Starks, and Martin adds on characters a few at a time and lets us live with them for a chapter before bouncing back to someone we already know. Granted that by book 4 you may need to refer back to the index, but that's over thousands of pages.
2) Either build your world or introduce characters, but not both at once. In David and Leigh Eddings's Belgariad and Malloreon pentologies, we start with one boy who has one aunt and one adult friend, the aunt's father shows up, and then the band collects more members one by one as they leave the small farm and go out into the wider world. Each person is distinctive and has a part to play, and the Eddingses either introduce a new setting/city or a new character, but not both at the same time.
3) Remind the reader occasionally. If you want us to remember that Sadi keeps a poisonous snake as a pet, make the snake's entrance memorable, and then remind us every 40 pages or so that the snake is around. Have Sadi feed her, talk about her, let her out of her bottle to crawl around. Then in the big showdown 200 pages later, it won't be a surprise when the snake bites the bad guy, because we've been reminded that the snake exists.
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