New characters that appear later in novels are like candy. That can be sweet and surprising and really make the reader say wow. Too much candy and the reader gets sick.

Take a fantasy novel for example. Characters almost alway keep appearing, right to the end as the heros travel from place to place. In Raymond E. Feist's "Magician" characters never stop coming. The most important characters don't even really get a light put on them until at least half way through the book.

But, that's an extreme case. Only use as many characters as you need in the story. Don't throw in new characters just because you want to spice up a chapter. When you spend time on a character, the read expects that character to do something important. Few things are as annoying as getting thirty pages about someone who then does nothing. That always turns the reader off.

For me, developing is a trade off. When your developing, remember, the story isn't actually moving along. The reader is gaining clearer insight into the mind and motives and history of the character. Spending time developing is only justified by giving that character important actions later in the story.

So, ask yourself how important the new people are in the larger scheme of things, and based on that, decide how much time to devote to them.

It's also helpful to at least mention them passingly at some early point in the story, if they aren't going to appear until much later. If you can't do it because no one knows who they are yet or some other reason, like they've never met and have no knowledge of it, then don't do it. But if you can and the later characters are mega vital to the story, you should hint at them right from the begining so it's not a giant surprise when they take a large role in the story.

Watership Down is informed by a different form of literary discipline, strictly realistic speculation. Rabbits really do most of what is described in that book, and it cannot be proven that they don't do things like telling stories or composing poetry (though I frankly doubt that they actually play 'bob stones').

Historical fiction, although a genre, is also a literary discipline, one that can be used with any known series of events. I find that the quality of output tends to vary such that it isn't useful except for the purpose of writing in the historical fiction genre, while relying on some other discipline to maintain coherence.

What Hugo did was explore, through these characters, the depth of that emotion or characteristic. In a sense, the interaction of his characters is the the interplay of emotions.

The reason I bring this up here is that I consider Victor Hugo to be among the greatest writers ever. I think his characters are much much more than the flat surfaces implied by this particular critic. But it is true that each character is a unit. I think Hugo was on to something there.

Having this in mind, I look back on other stories that I really have enjoyed and see that many times the characters are deeply explored aspects of a single human emotion or trait. I think Uncle Orson does that in the "Earth" series and in Alvin Maker with great success.

In essence the character development never ends because we learn how that character thinks and reacts (early on) and then we see them put into new situations where we get to explore their "trait's" reaction to other experiences and other characters' "traits".

I've never had a writing class per se, but I wonder if perhaps there isn't something generalizable here. That a good way to tell a good story is to have characters who are easily "codified" and then explain the story through their reactions to events and each other.

quote:

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Psychological subtleties are not Hugo's forte. He does not, probably cannot, delve into the baffling paroxes, the complexities, the idiosyncracies of the
soul. His gift is for fundamental truth. Valjean is a simple character dominated by one powerful emotion: caritas (charity--active, outgoing love for
others). He helps a prostitue, protects his workers, gives constantly to the poor. His very raison d'etre is literally love, since his existence revolves
around Cosette and when she leaves him he dies.
Javert is the watchdog of the social order. Maris is the incarnation of the romantic lover. Enjolras is the incorruptible revolutionary. All of Hugo's
characters can be briefly described -- in other words, labeled.

But this simplicity has its own value. It allows the writer to analyze in depth a particular emotion, like a scientist studying an isolated germ. No one has
captured better than Victor Hugo the ardous path of virtue or the poignancy of love. Valjean's deathbead scene has brought tears to the most
sophisticated reader.

Of course, Hugo's truth is the poet's not the psychologist's. he takes great liberties with reality. His characters do not always evolve in convinving steps.
Valjean's conversion is almost miraculous, Thenadier's degradation unmotivated. They are larger than life. Marius loves passionately, Valjean is a
modern saint, Thenadier a Satanic villain.

But these are superficial criticisms. Hugo only distorts details: he scrupulously respects the basic integrity of the charater. Les Miserables is the
archetypal representation of eternal human emotions such as love, hate, and abnegation.

---

A normal person, one with all the haggard weight of conflicting motives and desires, paralyzed by irresolution and doubt, is not only incapable of playing an important part in a meaningful story, they are also uninteresting to the audience. It is only when a person is converted, dominated by a genuine direction that they have chosen, dedicated to test the limits of human strength, that they can do anything worthy of mention. And it is only such people that we are moved by ourselves.

If Valjean helped others by accident, or just as anyone might, when the mood was on him, would we have cared? No, we want him to face every other force of passion and reason and still decide in favor of love, no matter what the circumstance.

If Javert were just doing his job the way anyone might, thinking more of what he would do at the end of his day than what opportunities where his to enforce the social order, would he even need to be a character at all? No, he could just be a disposable cop (like those guys in The Matrix they were pretty disposable) or even a series of cops, 'the cops' in a truly generic sense.

If Thenadier were to have plausible reasons, a sad story to explain his dispicable actions, would he be much of a villian? No, he would be every other person that just wasn't trying hard to be good, fell into some bad ways, and stepped outside the pale.

Of course, interesting stories can be written about characters that struggle with more than one guiding direction. But that struggle must be resolved as a focus of the story if it is truly important to the character and the character is important to the story. The reader must be able to confidently predict that the future actions of that person would be directed towards one passion, or the story hasn't 'closed' properly (though if you want to sell a sequel, maybe you don't want the story to 'close'). Background or filler characters, ironically, should be more 'complex' or 'real' than main characters. They should be pushed about by circumstances, reacting in a 'complex' rather than determinative manner.

Anyway, as far as the issue of when you can introduce a character, I say that you can introduce a character when the story, rather than you as the writer, brings them into play. By that I mean that the previous action of the story justifies and explaines the appearance of the new character. For instance, a Deus ex Machina is unconvincing if there is a reason for the god to appear but no cause. On the other hand, if during the preceding action, there had been prayers, sacrifice, purifications, and the like, and then at the height of the central action one of the characters calls on the god as never before, then the god should appear, indeed, must appear, unless the point of the play is that the god cannot or will not appear.

Take the story of Job. Job is sitting in his ashes with sores all over and all his friends come and tell him that he's a sinner and he should repent. Job says over and over that he has done no sin, that he is righteous. As long as this goes on there is no reason for God to speak to Job.

Then Elihu, the youngest person there, and not one of Job's friends but more of a youth among elders, stands up and tells Job and his friends that they are fools, that God is righteous, and that they are to puny to judge God. And to this, Job capitulates. Now he is willing to say that it is the Lord, and not him, that is righteous. Now he is willing to accept that even if he has not sinned in his own eyes, and this affliction seems grevious in his own sight, yet it is the Lord, and not Job, that knows what is just.

And a few others. Through the eyes of these and other emotions/traits, the authors lead their characters through change after change, trial after trial, developing a truly epic story outside of the series' relationship to role-playing. <I believe it spent many weeks on the best-seller list and I know there aren't *that* many role-players out there. >
This is one of my favorite series, and I will probably read it again soon.

I think part of it was that it is so hard for the rest of the group to deal with a newbie that established D&D groups (the rage when I was in HS & College) just had to limit the number and frequency of new members just to get somewhere.

Their formulaic approach to characterization is not the best way to learn how to do it. And you might have gotten so caught up in the roleplaying that it would have satisfied your creative urges to the point where you never got around to writing any real fiction.

If a character doesn't grow and change as the story progresses (and require continual introduction/exploration), then you've got a static character--which can be BORING!

On the other hand, I understand that Sinclair Lewis wrote a biography for his title character Babbitt that was longer than the actual published book with that title.

If your characters stay static through your story, look at how many opportunities to expand a story you miss.

As for those of you who didn't get a chance to role-play when you were in school, there's no reason you can't start now. (I know, you're busy, blah, blah, blah...;P). My husband and I are both pushing 30, and would play more often if we knew better RPG-ers in the area. Unfortunately, even in a city of decent size, the talent pool, as it were, is small, so our choices are limited. (Just one more reason to want to leave MD...)

But, on the topic question, I also say that character introduction never really ends. You just need to decide if you need a character or not. One book, for instance, which I was forced to read in school, The Great Gatsby introduces the character Michalis very late in the story, but, he becomes a major character, because he came in at a point of resolution and the other characters had changed so much that to carry on the message of the story, the POV had to change too.

Thats just one example. Its an ok one.