I can't seem to come up with more characters for my story so it ends up feeling like my main characters are just in an empty village full of talking props rather than side characters at best or at worst, like they're the only ones living in their village. Here's a quick run down of my ideas so far. I have a main male character who stumbles upon a hidden village in the forest in which most of the story takes place. His backstory, true identity and true motives aren't know in the beginning but it's slowly revealed that he ran away from his old village for some unspecified reason. The top "guesses" that are implied in the story are that he ran from disgrace, he was exiled or that his old village was raided and destroyed, and maybe a combination of those. He obviously hides all of this as a way of "starting new" and reinventing himself in this new village. He is well-received by the villagers and he serves as a very skilled warrior to defend this new home of his. The second character is a woman who is the soon-to-be matriarch of the village and her brave goals of expanding the village and exploring happen to align with the new guy's ideas which go against the ethos of the village, a group of very cowardly and meek people. The third character is also a male who also stumbles upon the village, and his backstory is concealed in the beginning as well but his reasons are that he is either running away from captivity, is on a scouting mission, or is being persecuted for being a criminal. I haven't really decided and it might be a bit of everything. This character is seen with distrust by the main male character and serves as his rival because he (male character #2) will be inevitably getting in the way of male character #1's goals of redeeming his old cowardly self. I have quite a lot of content written with just these three and some minor dialogue by unnamed characters but it just doesn't feel like enough. Could it be possible to write with just these three or do I need to come up with more characters? I have some ideas like maybe an ex-friend from the village that the first male character ran away from but outside of this, I don't know. What are your thoughts?
I generally don't have any issues with creating characters, because I don't create them as fully fledged characters with every detail of their backgrounds or back stories mapped out. I create them to fulfil a specific role, and create the other bits as and when I need them. Sometimes, that means a character evolves from a side character to a main member of the cast, as ideas occur to me, and I find a way to integrate that into the story. So that means you don't need the details of his backstory yet. What you've describe should be more than enough to write the character's initial scenes and let the ideas suggest themselves to you as you progress. You never "need" to do anything. Do what works for your story. If you want to write just those three, then it's incumbent on you to make it work. If you decide the story is becoming too staid, or the plot demands it, introduce some new characters. Nobody other than you can really tell you what you should or shouldn't do.
Hmm, you're right. This whole time I've been focused on having these really fleshed-out characters that I would feel guilty having a character that just said a few lines so I would end up deleting them. I like your approach better and the plot will naturally necessitate for them to appear again and interact with the main characters some more and backstories will naturally follow. And you're right, so far I haven't had any problem with my story when I've told it to people despite only having three characters. Thanks for the advice!
