When Ann Patchett was asked how she kept a large cast of characters distinct from one another in the readers’ mind, she said that she studied Chekhov. “Nobody does a better job with a one-sentence walk-on character having a complete and distinct personality than Chekov…He never lets anybody fall through the cracks, no matter how tiny.
So I pulled out a collection of Chekhov’s stories and came up with a handful of examples:
A short , fat little man, with a plump , shaven face wearing a top hat and a fur coat that swung open…the stranger’s voice a warm, cordial note.
…a tall and broad shouldered man of about forty years of age. With his elbows on the table and his head resting on his hands he slept…his fair hair, his thick, broad nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the beetling brows that hung over his closed eyes…Taken one by one, all his features—his nose, his cheeks, his eyebrows—were as rude and heavy as the furniture in “The Traveller”; taken together they produced an effect in singular harmony and beauty.
From the visitor’s voice and movements it was evident that he had been in a state of violent agitation. Exactly as though he had been frightened by a fire or a mad dog, he could hardly restrain his hurried breathing, and he spoke quickly in a trembling voice.
Her broad, very serious, chilled face; her thick, black eyebrows; the stiff collar on her jacket which prevented her from moving her head freely; her dress tucked up out of the dew; and her whole figure, erect and slight, pleased him.
Simeon who was an old man of about sixty, skinny and toothless, but broad-shouldered and healthy, was drunk.
These characters are not only distinct in the way they’re described, but each character’s speech is unique as well.
Now give each character their own fears and desires, their particular agenda and what you have is a character as real as your own family.