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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38353
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38353
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You are writing in the order that is important in that situation. There is no clear rule and you can vary from situation to situation.

For example you could simply start with the first one to enter the room:

> Bob was the first to get to the party. A few minutes later John appeared and both of them started talking, when Rob made his entry, loudly announcing his presence as always.

If they appear at the same time you can use this to change the order from the one that will be noticed by other people first.

> Rob was the first everyone saw - or _hear_ to be precise. Everybody knew he loved to make a show out of everything and wanted to stand in the spotlight wherever he went. John and Bob were the silent type, talking with each other and entering the room right behind Rob, who was already walking towards the buffet.

You should not just randomly throw names around. Every character has something that makes them important and some personality traits. These need to be shown to the reader and the first appearance is an important situation where you need to make these character traits obvious.

Of course you can also name all three of them first and then start to describe each of them. In such a case you should keep the order in which they were introduced:

> Bob, John and Rob entered the party. Bob was the loud one, announcing his presence to everyone that could hear him. John on the other hand was always very silent, trying to stick to the shadows and hoping that nobody would talk to him. Rob was the middle-ground and slowly took a look around to see who was already there.

Original score: 1