The beginning of a novel

A number of novels have used the device of opening with a set of characters who will appear - as in a play. anumber also use the cocktail party trick. Personally I don't find them satisfactory as they indicate to me that the characters will be so unforgettable that one will need an aide memoire in order to know who is who. Why not just get on with it, start writing and bring in the characters as and when they need to be introduced. You will have to work harder in order to make them effective characters, to make them memorable and to make them integral to the story - but then that is a good discipline for a writer! Good luck!

Thanks, Tony! It's more of an afterthought, as I've already tapped out loads in a higgledy-piggledy order - 'Manley & I' is officially my scrapbook novel, and a lot of the scrap is little character sketches - it doesn't really operate like a normal novel, and some of the sketches should be seen as a means to themselves rather than 'remember this name for later!' I think if I make this reasonably clear then it should be OK, but as you point out, giving a line of decriptions to make up for forgettable characters who do very little in the main story would be rather silly. I've been working on a couple of paragraphs that discretely point out one needn't memorise the names and occupations of my characters, as some will never appear again, and those that do will only become proper characters then - the sketches will be more food for thought (likem, say, describing people in a bus queue,) and humour - a slice of human life, say, in the society described. Thanks again for the tips - will keep them in mind, particularly during editing, when I can maybe spread the descriptions more thinly, cut them down etc.