Keeping track of characters...

[Flashand]

i know this is a little out of date but i have 2 methods, main characters and sub characters. Main characters get the works, all the way down to how many teeth they have in thier head, or toes. Sub characters get a generalization, and hopefully a boot rather quickly.

My problem happens to be overpowering the main, so alas enjoy your best attempt.

[thausgt]

Admittedly i always start with a stereotype.  In classic literature they would have been called archetypes and they still are, but i use real world character bastardization slang.  For example...

Matt- angry teen
Marie- emo
Lobo- nervous guy

My character grows as i figure out ways on how to purvey their personality while writing or how i stagger the other characters understanding or finding out why that character is the way they are.   

This sort of things plays into an interesting psychological effect. In many cases, people who read a lot of fiction actually see the action playing out in their mind's eye, like a movie. Which means that they have to visualize the buildings, props, costumes... and actors. Authors' descriptions aside, readers still put their own details into their mental image of characters.

In your case, you probably know at least one "angry teen" in your real life. More likely, you have known several throughout your life, and the "angry teen" archetype in your head has elements from all of them. That personal archetype ties into the universal concept of "angry teen", but your personal elements will make the "archetype" into a unique character.
With a little work, of course.

Good luck!

[americanapocalypse]

Funny. I am sitting here thinking "Jeebus, I got to make a list. I can't even remember the town names."

The serial novel online that I am writing is not that difficult. I just kill someone if I feel I am balancing to many people.

I think working as a programmer and doing flowcharts helped me a lot.

The real problem is, for me, in writing nonfiction. For instance I am writing about the Baltic. Place names alone require a lexicon. For example: One city can have the original name, the German name, the Jewish name, and the Soviet name.  Ack!

[KarlTenBrew]

Everybody has to use what works for them.  Personally, mine is somewhere between 'character sheet' and 'on the fly'.  Because of the way I think about the characters, they're literally continually fleshing themselves out and changing.  After something about a character becomes 'set' in my mind, or I consciously change it so that it will 'always be that way', I write it down on a semi-bio.  So, the main character has his own word document that's nearly two pages long of little notes like 'remember he's never grown a beard' and silly, seemingly inconsequential things like that.  Whereas another major character has perhaps five lines: physical attributes, major personality traits, minor personality traits, planned to go in X direction, 'current' position in timeline, and minor characters have maybe three [physical, personality, notable function].

[Mickey Finn]

Here's a great program that helps with that (among many other things):
http://www.ravensheadservices.com/download.php

Poke around the site some, then download the demo. It's fully functional to mess with, you just can't save your work. But it gives you a great idea of how it works.