Novel Issue With Order of Chapters

Hi guys, so I have finished writing the first draft of my newest novel (All 800ish pages of it!) and am going through the editing and rewriting process.
What I have found is that I have 2 POV characters that, whilst their story is vital to the main plot towards the end, their earlier chapters are more build-up, backstory and introductions. One of these characters has 5 chapters and the other has 13. As there are already 4 other POV characters (Whose stories are all intertwined so can't be moved) I am struggling to work out where to put these 2 sets of chapters in.
I don't want to place them too early as getting to know 4 characters at once is hard enough on a reader, but if I leave them too late, they will be all clumped together and take focus from the 'original' 4.
I have cut their stories down as much as is reasonably possible (Having already moved 7 chapters to the next book; there used to be 20 for 1 character!).

My main concern is with the character with 13 chapters. The 5 for the other I can sprinkle in, I'm sure.

If you are interested, below is the current order of chapters -

Spoiler: Chapters

Prologue
ACT 1
Character 1
Character 2
Character 3
Character 1
Character 3
Character 2
Character 1
Character 3
Character 2
Character 3
Character 1
ACT 2
Character 2
Character 2
Character 1
Character 1
Character 3
Character 3
Character 2
Character 4
Character 4
Character 1
Character 3
Character 3
Character 2
Character 4
Character 4
Character 1
Character 3
Character 3
Character 2
Character 4
Interludes (6 Chapters of various flashbacks)
ACT 3
Character 1
Character 2
Character 3
Character 4
Character 1
Character 1
Character 3
Character 2
Character 4
Character 1
Character 3
Epilogue

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

I'm struggling with the idea of this many chapters for build-up, backstory, and introductions. What sort of material is in these chapters?

 

Well the character with only 5 chapters, the first 2/3 are gentle intros, there is a fair bit of action in there, but all of it aids to explain the characters motives and history.

The character with 13 chapters, I suppose backstory is a loose term here, as their story takes place 2 years before the main story, so as long as it is finished before the end of the book (Where it gets brought into perspective) it doesn't really matter where the chapters are located.

What I'm worried about is having too many characters introduced at one time. My thought was to have another Interludes section after the first act where I put 3 or 4 of his chapters in a block, then split the rest up in the remainder of the book.

 

I don't think there's any way to answer this question specifically without reading the actual work... Chapter numbers and vague descriptions don't help too much.

Do you have a clear idea of what your book's about? Is there a final climax in which all the different threads come together in a satisfying way? If so, I'd try to use the "building tension" framework as a guide, with every chapter placed where it will best contribute to that rising interest.

If you don't have a clear central conflict and final climax, I think you're writing something structureless or possibly experimental, in which case... god knows. Do your best, and see what people think of the final version.

 

There is a final climax of sorts, but this book will certainly be one of a series. (I tried to avoid that, but it was impossible to fit all that I wanted into a single novel).

I shan't overwhelm you with a description of each chapter, so I will slightly alter my question instead;

How many characters/storylines do you think are able to run concurrently (and maintain the reader's attention), and how often should you introduce a new character. (Do I put them all at the start or seed them in one-by-one as the story progresses?)

 

Your story sounds about as long as mine, at an 800 page manuscript so probably 250,000 words. I had about 15 minor to major characters, all of whom got at least one chance to be on stage as the POV for a particular chapter. The POV for each chapter I chose as the best to tell that part of the story. You can have as many POV characters as you can keep straight and keep the story moving.

I am a little concerned that you are devoting chapters to backstory... that runs the risk of doing a data dump on the reader, your telling the readers about the character, rather than the character revealing himself bit by bit by what says, does and thinks. This was easy for me, because I didn't have a detailed back story on any of my characters, just vague background or often almost nothing at all. They introduced themselves to me as they did to the readers.

If you haven't gotten some good beta readers to review and critique what you have done so far, I would recommend you do that, before making any major changes.

 

It's possible that the issue is the definition of build up and back story.