Creating memorable characters

I’ve come across a little problem with my novel today. There are some chapters involving four French scientists, all of whom arrive at the same time. They are different ages, they have different specialist skills, and they have different personalities. And yet I realised when I read through those chapters that I was finding it hard to remember which name related to which person. If the writer of the novel can’t work out who is who, what chance does the reader have?

This is something I’ve experienced sometimes when reading other people’s novels. When too many characters are introduced to the story too quickly I forget which one is which, and when that happens I cease to care about them. That is a bad thing for a novel. I’m not going to name any novels where I’ve experienced this because maybe it’s just me (I’m hopeless at remembering real people’s names when I meet them in any case). Maybe it’s just that the phone rang half way through reading that chapter or Pooch decided it was time to go out and pee on the cat’s grave again. These little distractions can make it difficult to retain small details in the plot, like when did this person come into it and what on earth have they got to do with anything anyway?

On an earlier draft of The Sphinx Scrolls I came across a related situation. There were three student archaeologists, and I eventually realised that the third one was superfluous. He didn’t contribute much to the story, his personality wasn’t as interesting as those of the other two, and it made things too complicated for the reader. So I decided to write him out of the story, adapted some of his lines for use by other characters, and basically streamlined the plot.

What I think I’ll have to do with these French scientists is review their scenes carefully and decide if one of them can be ‘deleted’ without the important parts of the story being adversely affected. Professor Jean Lantier, Dr Berger, Professor Philipe Eyzies, and Michel Lecour had all better tread carefully because I’m going to be watching them closely. Whether or not I decide that one of them is for the chop, I’m going to have to work harder at differentiating their vocabularies, their mannerisms and their attitudes so that I can have a clear picture of who is speaking as I read. And I think if I can follow who is who, then anyone can.