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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24264
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24264
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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.

Original score: 45