The story I'm currently working on is set in a fictional world with very few (almost none) fantastic elements, and I already have a very large number of names, both for characters and geographical features, as well as some cultural elements. I think the names are pretty coherent so far since they all come from the same language or at least the same language family. I'm concerned that too many names may confuse the reader and divert attention from the plot and the world building, which would be a shame, considering the amount of time I spend trying to create a coherent and realistic world for my novel. The question is, what to do to avoid names creating confusion for readers? I know, for example, that many Epic and High Fantasy novels include an index of names and terms used in the work, but that may be looking too far ahead for unknown writers.
Assorted thoughts: - If you're creating a whole world, there will be a lot of names. But how many of those names actually appear in the work? That's what the reader is dealing with. - For places, some names could use vocabulary words. I'm looking at a list of names in Game of Thrones (not that I consider Game of Thrones to be the epitome of literature, but it's certainly popular) and there are a lot of vocabulary words in there. King's Landing, High Garden, Bitterbridge, Bay of Seals, Lemonwood, Last River, Faircastle, etc., etc., etc. - I'm curious about the cultural elements. Do they need to use unfamiliar words, or could they use vocabulary words? - Does the language that you're using have any patterns that readers could latch on to? For example, women's names tend to look like this, men's like that? OK, I thought I had more thoughts.
Keep it simple and build up. Changing names are good signals for showing how characters change. Keep it to that until the story is fully developed. Then you'll be able to see if the other names are necessary and when they're adding confusion.
So far, I have names for characters, countries, peoples/tribes and (some) geographical features. I'm trying to make them short and something easy to remember. My POV's, for example, all have names such as Irka, Vari, Enor, etc. For places, I am trying to use vocabulary words as much as possible, though sometimes I use a vocabulary word and a native name for the same thing. I've come up with new names for essential cultural elements, but use vocabulary words for most of the time. One such example is titles, in the city where most of my plot takes place, they call their ruler 'King' and the royalty are all referred to simply as 'nobles', but for the ruler of one distant land I use the word 'Abba' which should translate as something similar to 'Great Ruler' (I think Abba stands for father in some languages). In the main language that I use in the novel, male names generally have affixes such as 'ri' 'an' 'as', while female ones usually end up with 'sa' or 'la'.
As people say, build it up all together apace. We can read a novel with twenty characters, but introducing five fellows in one swallow: one blonde, one black, one chinese, one white curious, a proud, and one Bashful is less than effective - and then racing straight into medieval banter - dialogue -between these epic warriors is a recipe for confusion. As a reader of some intelligence - thank you - I can manage one person, one chapter, two the next, four, then four plus two plus one on horses. Something like that. When done properly it's very nourishing. I'm still sore after criticising some writer's piece, 7000 words and I couldn't make it past the third paragraph. Princess entered through the gate/okay/shook hands with the gatekeeper/walked down the passage/wearing a cloak/sunlight/breasts and walking/then suddenly writer says actually there's also five warriors walking behind her cloak/Arvin/Zathero/Michenally/Farawhy/each one doing something with his hands/each exclaiming 'forsooth thou haha castle of infidel wizard'/'not half Arvin said Zachary' and he rested hands on his chin/'keep walking' said the princess. So, I'm sad about that - and saying his write was confusing :/
That won't be a problem if you take the time to introduce each character. I once read a manuscript where 20 + characters were introduced in the first 5000 words. Of course I complained. The author had no idea she was info dumping characters. She was trying to introduce the entire village in the first chapter! No, don't do that. No one can keep up with it that. Once the character is well established (fleshed out) no one will confuse him/her with another. If characters are fuzzy in the readers' mind, they're not fleshed out. This doesn't mean readers have to remember every name, but they have to remember "that guy with the black moustache who...", and this is usually enough for secondary characters.
I am one of limited capacity to care for too many characters, regardless of importance. But when you think about it, the more micro stories in the macro the less you have to get close to them and really care about what happens to them. Not that this makes them any less important to the overall story, it is just an opinion. Also not say you shouldn't write as many characters as you want, just that it is harder to drive the story forward for me when we get to know everybody in a 20mi radius when there are other things to be done. However encountering new characters along the way, instead of meeting them all at the local church before they storm out to the witches house to see how fast she will catch ablaze, is far more preferable to me. On the other hand, you could give each character their own novelette/novel within the larger story which would be an interesting take on a series based arch, and they will get approx. equal stage time to gain steam. IDK, feel like I rambling at this point, and haven't encountered anything of such a grand scale before in written format. Good luck and hope you can pull it off without having reader confusion.
Names are okay. The first Harry Potter had 130 mentioned. It doesn't feel that much when you read it, does it. And the average reader would't remember more than a dozen. And that doesn't matter. The plot is still memorable, along with all those coherent and realistic (and named) elements in the world-building.
So, the manuscript I was complaining about had one good idea. The main character was coming back to her home town and as she encountered the people she grew up with these characters were introduced. The problem was that nothing was said about these characters/entire families that seemed important to the story. This was the first chapter. At this point you have to invest the reader in the main character, never mind secondary characters until that happens. This idea could work if it were another kind of story, a much more psychological one, based on the main character's memories. In this kind of story, the main character is a sort of narrator that tells us the relevant stories of the people they are encountering and how important those events were to mould their personality. This was not that kind of story. My approach to this is "one character at the time". Let the character establish itself in the reader's imagination before you introduce the next one.
