Keeping them straight

When a story brings a lot of characters together, a writer often uses tags to help the reader keep the characters straight. A tag is an identifying characteristic that is mentioned whenever a character who hasn't been around for awhile comes into a scene. My eXtasy Books series, The Fair Warrior Chronicles,is getting complicated in that way. Each story is told from the point of view of a new character. They were all friends once. The mysterious powers they inherited are drawing them together. The series involves five main characters, seven or eight co-stars, and all kinds of minor appearances. Tags I use include Marianne's streak of blue hair (and matching pubic hair), Greg's a cowboy hat (often the only thing he's wearing), Andrew's upper-class Brit accent (which he will use to charm your pants off), Tanisha's Olympic (and gorgeous) muscularity, and a bunch of others.