How many main characters does your novel have? I'm working with four main ones. I feel like it's manageable without being too sparse. It's new that I bumped one of them up to join the main characters. It's helping the story to feel fuller. Have you noticed a good number for main characters in your novel writing? A lot probably depends on the story. But what's the magic number that's working in your novels? Was there some trial and error involved when it came to how significant some of your characters ended up being? I have one POV, but four main character. And I would really like this to be a great American novel.
As far as I define main character, which is broadly, I have seven in the first part (novel?) of my story. In approximate order of how main a character they are: Sarah, Jade, Alex, Ashling, Damian, Stewart and Wesker. Of those, the first five get regular POV (EDIT: I should add that I'm unsure about the distribution of POV) and the last two are most tenuous as main characters and get fairly limited time where we follow their perspective in particular. I think as an general rule you probably want between three and nine main characters. You want more than one or two characters that you actually follow in detail but you don't want so many that it's hard to keep track of everything and there isn't enough focus. As a rule I'd also say longer series can do more characters, like with Song of Ice and Fire, simply because you have more time for each.
Good question. In my current WIP, the lines are a little blurry. The short story that started it all has two main characters: Tormaggon (with crew) and DeLùmè (lone wolf). There are also snippets from the antagonist's POV, but I'm not sure if I consider him "main". He's still in the story, but in more of a supporting role, and has no POV past the first chapter. His associate does, and I consider him a main character. Later, 2/3 of Tormaggon's henchmen rise to main character status, which puts us at 5. Then there's Janus, the only villain with a significant POV. Tulip is also a very important player with tons of POV. Definitely a main character. Add in Erich and Jeremiah for nine total. Jeremiah and Janus are kind of debatable, but I'll count them, because they have POVs and at least some kind of character arc. Main Antagonist #1 is also debatable, but I won't count him. I have a slew of new characters to introduce, one of which may qualify. Tl;dr: Nine or so.
Each of my novels uses a single POV character, so I guess technically there is only one “main” character. This is the central character to the story and the character the story is “about.” However, most of my novels have a main cast of about five characters who are the most prominent.
I think structurally everything is much easier if you can limit yourself to one POV character, and that, to me, means one MC (although there may certainly be other characters who play significant roles). That said, I usually write romance so I usually have two POVs, two main characters. I think anything with more than two POVs is significantly harder to do well.
I'm actually struggling to imagine having only one POV but more than one MC. I guess it depends on how you define MC? Like, unless you're pulling a Gatsby, it seems as if the POV character is going to get more attention than anyone else, just because EVERYTHING goes through him/her. So is there a sort of hierarchy with the POV-MC being the MOST Main, and then some other characters who don't get POVs but who are still significant enough to be considered Main? I guess for me, as soon as there's one character who clearly gets the majority of attention, that's your single MC and then the rest are major secondary characters. So this could all come down to definitions, to some extent. (Like, in the few single-POV romances I've written, I'd classify the POV character as the MC, and the other romantic interest as a secondary character, even though he's important to the story and has his own character arc. I can't really think of a way to make the two characters equal when one has a POV and the other doesn't...)
For me the two people who fall in love are the MCs, because in my mind that's what the story is about - these two crazy kids getting together. But I agree, there's no true definition, I think every writer has a different feel for that sort of thing.
If there's one character who is the driving force behind the story, but the story is told by another person who takes part. It wouldn't necessarily mean that the MC is passive either. I briefly thought about writing my story in single POV in just that way, however, I don't want to, even if I could do it with my setup.
Yeah, that's what I meant with my Gatsby exception. But this seems like a pretty convoluted way to tell a story, doesn't it? I'm not sure I can think of any examples other than Gatsby. And if you did use that technique, wouldn't the other character (the "driving force" one) be your MC, even if he's not your POV character? So we're still looking at just one MC for one POV...
My current story is told in 1st-person, so technically there is only one "true" main character. But that's not to say that other members of the cast aren't important. It's just that their importance is told through the perspective of the main character. However, past stories I have written were in 3rd person, so it's much easier to count how many MCs those had. One story technically only has two main characters, but chapters are told from the PoV of others as well, and almost everyone gets equal coverage (think of the Song of Ice and Fire books, how those are written). I think I usually like having 2-4 main characters, and that includes villains as well.
The novel Grace by Anthony Doerr has one POV and one main character. I only mention this book because it's one I read recently and I do love Doerr. My POV character is driving the story but is part of a makeshift team of characters that also drives the story. It's kind of like if a handful of people are trapped in a building and need to get out, their storylines sort of merge and I can see making them all main characters even if the POV sticks to just one of them. My main characters are the story pretty much or the story belongs to them collectively. My POV is just how I've chosen to deliver this story. I wouldn't say my POV character is any more of a main character than the other three. This novel has become their joined story. The single POV helps keep things smooth for me and my writing. It's just a style a do much better with. But I do love a heavily populated story. Though four main characters isn't that many, I don't think. My last novel had a single POV and a single main character. There were plenty of other characters, but I wouldn't have called any of them main characters. This one is completely different. When I started writing it I had one main character and one POV character, but I realized it needed much more. I needed my team of characters to take center stage together for this one. I don't think what I'm doing is all that unusual. The same story could probably be written with all four of my main characters taking turns with the POV. I don't think it would change the story all that much other than to muddy the waters perhaps. Using the single POV in this novel is all about maintaining clarity in my prose. I find it the easiest way to deliver the story, but I don't think it was my only option. It's just the one that works best for me. But there are definitely four main characters. None of the other main characters are outshines by the POV character. It's just someone had to tell the story, and I'm just not a fan of the shifting POV.
Do you feel as you were successful with your past stories? Because I certainly agree that multi-MC books exist... I just think they're REALLY hard to do well. I thought Martin did it well for the first few books, but then, in my opinion, he lost control of his story and was introducing new POVs, new MCs willy-nilly and the whole thing sprawled into an unworkable mess. And he's a pretty damned experienced writer!
For my sci-fi story with the multiple PoVs, yes, I do believe that it is a story that will work out well. I've only written a few chapters, covered only three PoVs so far, but I've had this story idea for many years and I already know how many characters the story will focus on. As much as I enjoyed the "ASoIaF" series (so far; waiting patiently for the next book), I agree that it got more muddled as more character PoVs were introduced. So I have a good idea of what not to do. My story will focus on: 1) the main protag of the "good guy" side of the war, 2) his fiance, 3) the leader of the "good guy" government, 4) the main protag of the "bad guy" side, 5) his girlfriend, and 6) the leader of the "bad guy" government. There could be other characters that I've already created that could get a chapter or two focusing on their PoV as well, to add more details about the story as a whole, but it will be predominantly from those six, with the protags on each side being the key characters. Just like with "ASoIaF", each of these characters are in different locations and each tell the war from the PoV of either a soldier, a civilian, or a head of government, so all sides get covered. Basically, that story is going to be a first for me, just like my current 1st person story is a first, even though I am already used to writing 3rd person with different characters' perspectives.
Depends on what you're going for -- I love multi-character books some are kinda big, sexy summer reads or disaster fiction -- The Poseidon Adventure, The Glass Tower, Blindness, Descent. One of my favorites is Christmas at Fontaines by Kotzwinkle a rather slim read. I've only tackled one novel with lots of main characters. My inspiration was Twin Peaks. That was hard to write. Hard but fun. There was over two hundred name drops in the book. Lately I like to focus on just one or two main characters ( In the Pit -- two cellmates in a prison, Falling Child Star -- a director and a child star, Pecking Order -- twins -- one remaining human the other transformed, House of Cadre -- a family and an ex-husband in a very strange house that's probably my biggest cast.) For me the multi-character story gives you a chance to explore a lot of varied viewpoints to an event like a war or a disaster or a murder or examine a ripple effect -- like the growth of a business. I think I pick two characters cause I like the simple contrast and I haven't found too many stories where I want to expand too much on multiple characters. Sometimes they're hard to keep track of or one storyline isn't as exciting as I thought it would be.
I'm not sure about the 'convoluted', but yeah, it's definitely non-standard. I can't think of examples either (but I'm not a great reader of the classics, so I may not be the best one to ask). The original question was if a MC needs to be a POV character or not, so I guess it's really about the definition of main character. Is a main character someone who drives the story, or is it the POV character per definition? Because for me, those are not exclusive. The other way round, is it possible to have a POV character who's not a MC, would be in my view all examples of omni/second person point of view. And now I think I've confused myself
