posted
In the first three chapters of my novel WIP, the biggest complaint I've received is that I have too many characters being introduced.
Taking a look at things I have to a agree, slightly, with the critisism. I've decided to completely delete a few of my characters, but it got me thinking, what is an optimal number of characters?
How many people will readers care about in any given story?
How many characters are too many for you to care about?
It depends upon how much you want us to care about them.
It depends upon how well you diversify them.
One trick, when you have some reason to have a lot of characters up front is to give them each a memorable trait, something [edit should be counter sterotypical] that you can expound on later. I'm not talking about minor characters. If they only appear in one scene try to make them wall decorations. But if you have a doctor whose important, for example, make him black and people will remember him better. Or give him a limp. Or maybe he's incredibly good looking (it doesn't have to be negative) or maybe he's a she. Maybe he/she is young and inexperienced. These are quick things to say but nevertheless they put an image we can hold in our minds.
Another key thing is to give them memorable, distinct names. If you call them Kiara, Kevin, Kelly, and Klyde I'm not going to keep them straight. If you call them Eglead, Barm, Shokin, and Glatow I'm not going to keep them straight either because those names are weird. Strong, memorable, clear and easy to pronounce names are, IMO, key to handling too many characters. Poll people to ask what are good names.
Other than that, there's no magic number.
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited October 12, 2004).]
What is the intent of the chapter? Won't that give you a clue as to how many to introduce? I had the very same issue with my first chapter, and I now realize that I didn't really understand what I was trying to do with that chapter. (Well, I stil don't understand much, but at least I understand that I don't understand! Does that make sense?)
quote:How many people will readers care about in any given story?
3.2
quote:How many characters are too many for you to care about?
3.3
Sorry to be facetious, but I think it all really hinges on YOU. What do YOU want to acccomplish with that chapter? With those characters? And if YOU care strongly about them, wont that show through in your writing? And make us more likely to care also?
Why don't you write what you expect to acomplish with that chapter, and then test each character against your expectation. Did this character move the story forwards? Is this character so complex taht I'm leaving my readers behind, given what they know at this point? And so, on. But listen to Christine, she knows a lot more about this than I do.
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited October 12, 2004).]
Listen to Survivor, too.
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited October 12, 2004).]
posted
What do you mean by "characters being introduced"? Do you mean POV characters? Do you mean named characters? Do you mean anything with personal qualities?
If you've got characters of any type that can be deleted without harming the story, then do so.
My suggestion is that you have no more than two POV characters in a book. Naturally, we've all read (and enjoyed) books that have dozens of POV characters, but some of them are "minor" and don't really need to be POV characters.
I don't recommend any limitation on other classes of characters, though I also think that you need to be considerate about using named characters (or any named element). Just because you mention that Bob was a mechanically gifted schoolgirl with old-man glasses and red hair, don't expect the reader to remember all that five chapters later when Bob shows up to fix the main character's car.
posted
I agree with Survivor. It might be worth mentioning that most people can remember a list of five to seven items in short term memory without forgetting them.
I've read a few books, lately, that have a Dramatis Personae section, which I didn't mind using from time to time. I hold nothing against the author--he knows who his own characters are and there was no fault of his. It was my own memory that failed me.
Your story should reasonably be expected to stand enough on its own without a character list, though.
Finally, the problem may not be one of character quantity at all, but rather one of pacing.
One technique I've noted in John C. Wright's Golden Age trilogy is that when a bunch of characters meet up for the first time, we experience the POV character's series of judgements and memories about each one. There was just enough information to set the scene and get us through it already armed with the POV character's notions. When the other characters speak or act, they do so under the color of the POV character's prejudices, and so they have to a degree become the reader's prejudices. You might think this would be terribly cumbersome, but Wright handled it brilliantly.
[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited October 12, 2004).]
posted
Survivor and I will continue to disagree on the number of POV characters that a book can support. My opinion is that as long as a POV character is properly introduced before you get into his/her POV then you can use him or her. (Except for the first one of course.) A book can support as many POV characters as the readers are willing to put up with....which is something more than 0 and less than one per chapter, I imagine. I would never put a hard number on it. 5 or 6 in a long fantasy novel seems fine to me.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Okay, I guess to clarify things a bit, I talking about named characters.
When I wrote the first draft of this story (a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...) it started as a short story following six characters. When I got to the end of the first ten pages, I realized I had found an "in" to a story idea I had been tossing around for more than a year.
I later went back and added a prologue which is now chapter 1. I directly introduce four of my six characters in chapter 1 (the other two are mentioned here and are directly introduced in chapter 2). In chapter 3, I introduce three new characters (one is a villian) that I want the reader to be aware of for the rest of the novel, two more that will play minor roles throughout and two or three who are barely fringe characters.
Part of the problem could be that I'm giving everyone names. But I'm working through it.
But this whole thing has got me noticing that I probably shouldn't have more than six to eight characters that people will want to care about in a novel. It's something I've even noticed in movies and t.v. shows.
With the exception perhaps of soap operas, most shows and movies and books stick to less than ten people we really care about.
posted
I think you should have as many characters as the story requires. Nothing more or less.
As for perspective, I tend to stop caring if an author keeps switching perspective between more than five characters. An exception is Asimov's Foundation.
I have no idea how many characters the average reader can handle. I just try to worry about myself and my Wise Reader.
If you want a good resource on characters and how they relate to plot, I highly recommend The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman (of First Five Pages fame). The first two chapters are entirely about characterization. He doesn't tell you how to create a character...what he does is ask question after question about various facets of your character's life so that you, the author, start thinking about your character and "put flesh on the bones" as I heard someone here on Hatrack put it. That way, the plot flows naturally from your characters actions instead of trying to fit a character into your plot. Those two chapters are incredibly detailed and worth the read all by themselves.
posted
Have you ever thought about combining any of your characters? My WIP has a LOT of people running around in it, and I'm sure it's confusing. It was even worse before. Not all of them were POV characters, but they all had a significant part to play in the story.
Then I realized that a couple of the characters existed only for purposes that turned out not to be mutually exclusive with those of others. I fused all the characters that I could, and it cleaned the work up to a surprising degree.
posted
I don't know how many is too many, and to be blunt, I think it may say more about the writer's skill than the readers'.
I like Jeraliey's idea. Its like downsizing. Have fewer people achieving the same level of productivity by multitasking. Make them work harder in order to keep their jobs.
We'll call it 'Editorial Rationalism'.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited October 13, 2004).]
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I would never put a hard number on it. 5 or 6 in a long fantasy novel seems fine to me.
