§7.16. Social Groups
Crowds of characters introduce new challenges, because we often want to show them interacting with one another, or to describe individuals in less detail when a whole group is present.
Strictly Ballroom gives us a set of characters who pair off each turn, making sure to mention each one once, and leaving one unfortunate person behind as a wallflower: this exemplifies how we might use a behavioral rule not to dictate the behavior of each individual separately but rather to model a whole group together. Happy Hour does calculate movements for characters individually, but then collates the descriptions, creating a single paragraph to describe whatever group is currently in the room.
Characters can also have complicated attitudes to one another, and it can be helpful to use relations to track these. Unthinkable Alliances demonstrates the grouping of characters into alliance factions, while The Abolition of Love provides a host of relations to track love affairs, marriages, memberships in families, and mere mutual respect.
Emma combines these two effects: its characters move between social groups depending on how they feel about the others in their particular talking circle, and descriptions change depending on who is where in the room.
Lugubrious Pete's Delicatessen simulates a queue at a deli, in which the customers who most impress Pete get served first.
See Traveling Characters for groups of characters who move around and have their movements collated into a joint description
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![]() | Onward to Chapter 8: Vehicles, Animals and Furniture: §8.1. Bicycles, Cars and Boats |
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Often it is best to have an entire paragraph about the characters present in a room, but suppose we're narrating a large party with a lot of people moving around. In that case, it might be better to list everyone together, then add a few salient details by way of follow-up, like this:
The next part could be simpler, but for rigor we will write it in such a way that it will work whether or not the serial comma is in use. This requires some extra work; feel free to skip down to the scenario if you prefer.
And now the scene:
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Often it is best to have an entire paragraph about the characters present in a room, but suppose we're narrating a large party with a lot of people moving around. In that case, it might be better to list everyone together, then add a few salient details by way of follow-up, like this:
The next part could be simpler, but for rigor we will write it in such a way that it will work whether or not the serial comma is in use. This requires some extra work; feel free to skip down to the scenario if you prefer.
And now the scene:
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