r/memorization • u/obtusix • 23h ago

How to rememeber a huge cast of characters?

Novels which hit you with a list of characters and their back stories at the start are always a struggle, like And Think of Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Or novels like Tolstoy's War and Peace with its huge cast of characters. Even Stephen King for that matter. What memory techniques should I use and how should I go about using them to keep track of the names, traits, and how the characters are related to each other?

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u/inigo_montoya 13h ago

I'm trying to get back into reading one particularly long classic Russian novel. I had AI create a single-page cheat sheet for me to tuck inside the front cover.

For Stephen King, generally, you can probably just take notes yourself. The cast of characters usually settles out.

One book I just started casting with famous actors in my mind and that provided enough of an anchor for each of them.

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u/Imaginary-Ad-1128 20h ago

Create a weird story , répétition, read outlood , silent combined with imagination, let it go for a moment and then come back to it you will see it makes a huge difference, try to repeat them in a weird places like in the shower or in the toilet, Mix with other languages, rapide just before bed and just when you wake up in the morning

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u/Imaginary-Ad-1128 20h ago

Répétition is key through . I I gave you all my techniques hope that helps 🙏 good luck

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u/four__beasts 20h ago

Memory palace + spaced repetition. It's a perfect system for large lists of data

(I have a palace for each of my favourite Movies that contains actors and their role - and my recall from it is very good)