How Many Characters are Too Many?

Zombie apocalypse.

More characters, the longer the novel and more action, drama and sympathy as you pluck each character out of the story one by one.

Mwhahaha I love it...

 

I started my book-to-be (so to speak) with twice the amount of characters there are now that it's finished. So I think you have to ask yourself a question... Does the existence of John Doe (John being your character) have a point in the story, or is he just there because you like him? If John has a point, keep him. If he's useless, save him for another time.

 

As long as the story is told coherently, there is no limit as to how many characters can be in it. Just look at the Wheel of Time series. That thing almost needs it's own reference guide to keep up with, and yet every single character has an important part to play in the story.

 

So true.

Also, I was concerned about having too many characters so I chose the ones that I was unsure about and wrote the pros and cons of having them in the book and weighed them against each other so see whether they were worth having or not. In the end, I ended up rejecting at least 4 characters

From what you've said though, I think you'll be fine with that number of characters.

Whilst I'm here - would people who are mentioned briefly count as characters? For example, someone who died prior to the story but it mentioned more than once?

 

Well if I was to split your first statement that means there are 25 minor and 25 main characters. 25 main seems to convulted to me that I would either be too confused on what's going on or to bored because it keeps on changing for person to person to person.

 

only in movies, or onstage... doesn't work that way in novels...

 

I think that is the best advice you'll get regarding your question.

 

As long as the characters would have an impact to the story's development and in conveying your message. A story does not necessarily require you to have few characters; I mean, even if you have few characters but you can't really convey your message, then wouldn't that be useless?

Bear in mind that one of the most important things in writing in a story would be to convey your message through conflict, it could also be through character development and relationship. I once made a story with 20++ characters in it, I didn't know what a good story is; basically I made the story for the action and stuff. 20++ characters would be good for an action based story, but I came to realize that the most important thing would be conveying the message and getting the readers to feel your emotion.

 

sez who?

you can have a good action story with only two characters, depending on what they do in it... and you can certainly have a good one with a lot fewer than 20++!

 

I don't know the Deathly Hallows ending chapters were epic, but that book only has four main characters, but a bunch of side characters.

 

Agreed.

There's few things as annoying as a flat character, or two characters that are way too similar. The more characters you have, the greater the risk.

 

Some books/series have hundreds or thousands of characters, possibly over a dozen POV. There's obviously no fixed limit. Whatever the story calls for. . whatever you can handle. Those are the only limits that apply.

Stick to what you need, as maia said.

 

I' not saying that the ideal action-based story should have at least 20++... I'm just saying 20++ characters would be suitable for action based story ... -_-

 

I think as long as the character serves a purpose you can't have too many. If you go into great detail about a character and he serves no purpose to the story readers will become frustrated. Don't waste our time.

 

...if you'd included the remark i was referring to, you'd see you are contradicting or confusing yourself there, swo, as my comment was aimed only at the ending featuring a 'big cast'... see below...

 

I agree.
I've noticed that happen to me before, it's really frustrating when you realise that two of your characters are practically identical.

I hate it when I realise I have a character I'm unsure about needing, 'cause then I have to make the agonising decision on whether to cut them out or not...I think I become too attached to my characters. Even the ones I hate.

 

War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy) has nearly 600 characters

 

A Song of Ice and Fire has nearly 300 characters whose names begin with the letter B.

I have no idea how many characters there are in total, but it has to be well over a thousand. . . There are around 180 for the letter A.

 

Now, when you say "characters" are these people who appear throughout the stories? Or are they mentioned on one page and then never seen or heard from again?

A partial list of The Hobbit says there are 34 named characters... I probably have about the same in my first novel.

 

Certainly not in my novel. The similarities between my main character and his second cousin are central to the plot, and because of it, I had a revelation that my MC doesn't understand his cousin because he doesn't understand himself. In fact, it leads to both of their downfalls.

 

But the characters still must be distinct to the reader. Drawing parallels is powerful. The parallels between Harry Potter and Tom Riddle are a central element of the series, but no reader will be confused as to which is which.

On the other hand, Merry and Pippin in The Lord of the Rings are practically conjoined twins until they are physically separated at the end of the first book of The Two Towers. Only when Meriadoc becomes a soldier of Rohan and Peregrin pledges his service to Denethor do they begin to stand as distinct characters, and even then, their characters remain very similar. If they had exchanged places, they probably would follow exactly the same actions.

 

Hi all of you.

I am writing about two kids in a boarding school. (Nothing like Harry Potter.) They are being placed in a foster home already in the 2nd chapter but in order to create atmosphere, I gave 15 of the other kids names and described them briefly and their characters because later in my novel I might want to bring them back but also not as main characters.

On the other side, I read that too many characters are confusing the reader but a school has many characters and I kind of like these kids that I have created and don't want to cut them.

Do you find 15 kids in one chapter confusing??

 

Did we not just have this thread? I think it is still running, in fact.

 

Yes, and I have moved the post. Please take a few minutes to look around before starting a new thread. You can very often find a lot of answers have already been given.

Don't introduce too many characters in a short period of time. You can drop some names, but don't expect the reader to remember them. But the reader needs to focus on a character for a while before moving on to the next one, to really get to know the character.

The greater the rate at which you introduce them, the better your skill as a writer must be to make each one imprint clearly in the reader's mind.

 

yes, introducing/naming 15 in one chapter is way too many...