posted
My story is demanding the creation of more characters than I originally envisioned. The main plotline is a mystery, so I need a large population of suspects that eventually gets trimmed to 10-12.
But I also have 4 main characters, and each of them is surrounded by about 5 supporting characters. The supporting characters make the miliue full and rich, and add depth to the main characters. Then I've got a series of at least 12 helping/hindering characters who make appearances in the story to provide clues or hinder the investigation.
Now, I've found I must introduce one more main character, plus another group of supporting characters.
5 main characters 12 primary suspects 25 supporting characters 12+ informants & thugs = 44 characters of significance.
I know this is more names than OSC recommends for a single story. I don't mind pushing the envelope. The question is, how far can I push it?
Many of the characters will that appear in the early part of the book will not appear in the later parts, and vice versa.
posted
I do believe you have too many. The reader will feel like they are drowning in a sea of names. You, as the author, feel you can keep them straight because you created them. If they will not appear later or only for a scene or two, do you need to name them. An informant can be gold-tooth for example. Ok that’s a name, but it has a short term effect. The reader knows they are not to remember this character for the entire book and if you bring the character back it also gives a description clue, which in turn helps the reader separate them. And 5 main characters—hmm I’d think about some serious revision.
IMHO Shawn
[This message has been edited by srhowen (edited June 29, 2002).]
posted
That’s an awful lot of people for the reader to keep track of. I wouldn’t want to have to do it. Some of them are going to get fuzzy – probably best if you just make some of the fuzzy to start with, then I’d be sure to fuzzy out the right ones.
I’m not sure I would remember 12 suspects, let alone which bit of evidence went with which. If they are grouped someway, or new ones pop up as old ones are disqualified and there isn’t a lot of backtracking, maybe…
If some supporting characters are only around for a short time, that helps but only if it’s clear that they aren’t somebody that needs to be given a lot of attention. Otherwise, the reader won’t know who it is important to remember and who isn’t, and then it’s like they are all there at once (the fuzzy thing). Maybe if they are more just cut-out stand-ins with one thing fleshed out about them?
Could some of this supporting cast be combined somehow, with the same character filling what are now multiple roles? That would cut back the roster, but keep the flavor touches. Everybody might not need 5 either.
Just my opinion though… Admittedly coming from someone who is not a fan of “cast of thousands” situations.
posted
Doc, I think you can get away with a large cast of characters, as long as you don't introduce them all in the first chapter (as I'm sure you already know).
Of course, there are other, not-so-good ways to introduce a lot of characters, too. I recall one book that spent a chapter on each of about 16 characters, and I was halfway through the book (past all those introductory chapters) before there was enough on any one character to make me care.
A person walking into a new situation may be introduced to a room full of people, but that person should not be expected to remember everyone right away. Nor should a reader.
If the characters are introduced a few at a time, as the point-of-view character needs to interact with them, they will be easier to keep track of.
Even if your point-of-view character knows everyone (say, they're all from the same small town), the pov character is not going to be interacting personally (or thinking about individually) all of the other characters at the same time.
I think your biggest challenge, if you plan to make each of your five main characters point-of-view characters from time to time, is to make it clear to the reader which pov character they are with when.
This may be a good time to pull in techniques like present tense for one character, and first person for another character, and strictly words of one syllable for a third character, and multi-syllabic words for a fourth, and so on.
posted
Forty-four characters sounds like too many to me, but maybe 'grouping' your characters would help keep the reader from losing track of everyone. Could some of your characters always be together? For example, you might have a family, or a gang. If that's possible, you could name the groups (the Hightowers, the Red Skulls), and then give nicknames to the people in each group to make it easier for the reader to identify them.
You might be able to use setting in the same way--three suspects work at the genetics lab, four suspects live in the same apartment building, or five suspects frequent the same bar. I think grouping might be especially effective for some of your twenty-five 'supporting characters'. Think of The X-File's 'Lone Gunmen'.
Perhaps you could write some of the minor characters so flat that they wouldn’t even need names—bartenders, doormen, taxi drivers, and crack-heads, for example. That might help as well.
Also, regarding your statement:
quote:The main plotline is a mystery, so I need a large population of suspects ...
I haven't found that to be necessarily true, myself. For example, both Dennis Lehane's 'Mystic River' and Scott Turow's 'Presumed Innocent' present only one primary suspect to the reader, and both of those are masterful, enjoyable murder-mysteries. While it’s true that many classic murder mysteries have a dozen or so suspects as guests at a hotel (or at a dinner party, on a train, etc), it’s also true that they don’t feature many supporting characters. (Imagine Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot – a dozen suspects, certainly, but three dozen more supporting characters?)
It seems to me that a mystery writer's job is more about dragging red herrings across the plot line than it is about populating the story with characters. But, that’s merely my VHO!
posted
Since I've worked with "a cast of thousands" before, I think I can offer an experienced (I hope!) opinion about this.
Begin with few characters and then add more, as the first ones meet them. It's actually like making new friends, one by one. You can't know them all imediately!
Never begin a story with characters that are far away, if you can avoid it. It's better to start with a group and then develop.
It goes like this: Person A meets person B, who knows person C. When they split, group A/B (they now travel together) meet persons D/E, while person C (on a special mission somewhere else) meets person F. Etc, etc, etc.
And, as a final note, if you plan to use many, many characters it would be better if your story is big enough to contain them. E.g., no 100,000 novel can contain "a cast of thousands" (as a general rule; there are always exceptions!)
posted
If you're talking about 44 speaking characters then it is quite possible.
Devices to help remember characters include use of location, and personality traits.
For example the honcho who's always at the beach, the man who spends all his time in the library, someone with a lisp, someone with a notable physical challenge [ie, blind, deaf, polio limp, and so on] etc.
I imagine you're not talking about dragging all 44 through every scene - in which case, I'm sure it's been done quite often [Tolkien and Shakespeare come immediately to mind - sorry, don't know much on mysteries].
Of course I am not introducing all 44 characters at once. And the "5 supporting characters per main character" was an average.
So far I have introduced 3 main characters. One is at a convention where he is surrounded by thousands of characters, about 15 of them are speaking characters. Another is at school where he is surrounded by about 20 characters, about 6 of which speak. The other is at work, where she is surrounded by 3-4 speaking characters.
It's been easy to keep clear which character is POV at what time because theyt are grouped. The characters do not yet know each other, so I've only got one POV character per setting.
Originally my story had an element of farce. Due to Artificial Intelligence every object in my world had a proper name. Thus, a hero wouldn't draw his gun, he would draw Deadeye. He wouldn't put on a jacket, he would put on Bracewell. I needed about 10 new names for each page! It was a funny concept, but unreadable.
posted
At least it's a mystery novel instead of say sci-fi or fantasy. Nothings worse than a book that had a over 50 chracters with made up unpronouncable names.
If the story gets too convaluted and it is in fact one of those "reader plays role of detective" mystery stories, when you finally reveal who's the villian, it might lose the impact you want.
When you were a kid did you ever watch an episode of Scooby-Doo and try and solve the mystery. Than when it was revealed you were like "They threw 20 different characters at me how the f--k was I supossed to figure that out?"
The names are all fairly rpronounceble. The mystery aspect is pretty challenging, since I need to maintain danger and tension without doing any scenes from the main bad guy's POV. Not easy. I do have a foil for the good guys who has nothing to do with the bad guy, but will try to oppose them at every turn. I'm either going to do some scenes from his POV, or I'll keep him a mystery until near the end. Right now I'm leaning toward the former.
posted
I’ve just seen an ultimate example of how to do a “cast of thousands” badly in my opinion, at least in a movie.
I watched Gosford Park last night on DVD.
35 characters according to the making-of feature, and a (fairly obvious) murder “mystery” to boot. Even claimed to be like Agatha Christie. Um… I don’t think so...but I don’t want to digress down that path.
Let me say that many of the characters were so under developed as to appear indistinguishable. Several even looked alike, and seemed to have similar problems. Don’t even ask me what most of their names were. Several seemed like little more than placeholders but ran around in places of importance all the same.
For a character piece (or so it seemed marketed), I sure didn’t care a fig for the characters. That seems like a critical error.
It was more than just not remembering on my part. I can keep things straight for a 2-3 hour film without issues. They just didn’t say/develop/work it so that one really could. Introducing them all in a big lump near the beginning did little to help matters.
It was more that just not being that favorable to “casts of thousands” in the first place as well. I think it really could have worked with all the people, if it was just set up a bit differently. The premise was sound and interesting, just not the execution, in my opinion (Oscar voters apparently felt differently).
If they had just done some of the things that you said you’re using Doc Brown, it would have been a much better film. More grouping, better use of main characters, intense plot of the mystery to really make use of all those people, scattered introductions, etc. Comparing the two approaches, it really sounds like you are on the right track to pulling off your cast of 44.
I enjoy mysteries with a cast and a half. One technique that I like (but perhaps it's outdated) is a list of all the characters with a few words of description for each. This Dramatis Persona (or is it Persona Dramatis) is always the most worn page of my favorite mysteries, sometimes alphabetical, sometimes chronological. Or, if many of the characters are related to each other across several generations, then a family tree.
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