A little extra

Book 21 came out in the light novel series I’m following, so I spent much of the day reading. The English translations are ten volumes behind the novels so I have over two years where I have to keep the story details refreshed in my head while I try to avoid spoilers.

Which is not easy since there are lots of characters.

But the book does a good job of managing all those characters. It’s a good model for how to help readers keep characters straight. Group characters together and keep associating them with other story elements.

I’ve finished the main part of the novel, but I still have 100 pages of stand-alone stories to read through. The author usually adds a few extra stories to each volume in the voice of one of the other characters, often retelling something that happened offstage during the main story, or offering another perspective.