Depending on the type of novel, there can be a lot of characters to track. At first I would just keep a list, which allowed me to include relevant descriptive text. Handy, but if you’re a visual person like me, and would like to see the affiliations of all your characters, you might want to try using a mind map.
A mind map is just a tree of things arranged however makes sense to you. For my novel Veiled Allegiance, there’s a lot of military units with animal names. Tracking which unit has which characters within a list can be done with headings and subgroups, but is not as easily referenced. At a glance on the mind map I can see Scorpion unit has four characters currently assigned, and the names of those characters.
There’s lots of tools out there that let you create mind maps, you just have to google. Many require a download and install, or to create an account just to try it out. Bubbl.us required neither of those things to get started. To me that was perfect, since I wanted to see how much effort it would take to recreate a map I had only on paper.
I was able to build a new digital copy of the map you see above and only after deciding I liked the service did I bother to create a free account.
I’ve seen mind maps used for writing to organize ideas, or for brainstorming plot points. For me, it seems a natural way to arrange your characters. That’s the great thing about a mind map. You can use it any way you see fit.