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Q&A How to introduce a large amount of characters in the first chapter?

I have 25-30 "main characters," (feel free to quibble over the definition) and more supporting ones, though of course only a few are really central. Two of the main 5 characters I don't even intro...

posted 6y ago by Cyn‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-20T00:40:32Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39826
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:04:21Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39826
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T10:04:21Z (almost 5 years ago)
I have 25-30 "main characters," (feel free to quibble over the definition) and more supporting ones, though of course only a few are really central. Two of the main 5 characters I don't even introduce until the 4th chapter, and it's quick and not very deep. That comes later.

No one is going to remember early descriptions of more than a couple characters, so there's no point in giving it all too soon. Start with 1 or 2, get more details about the rest later, as it's needed.

There's also something nice about feeling immersed in a large group of people and not feeling like you have to memorize everything. I don't want to know which ones are the important ones straight away, along with an info-dump. I'd rather get info for the 3rd and 4th characters later, after I feel like I know characters 1 and 2.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-11-03T06:25:00Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 3