How many characters are too many?

Well, I guess that depends. How many can you keep up with and how many can your readers?

70 Solutions to Common Writing Mistakes by Bob Mayer, from The Writers’ Digest Writing Kit, states “If the curtain on a play opened and there were thirty people on stage and all of them had speaking roles, would you be able to identify and keep track of everyone? Or if you went to a party and opened the door and the room was filled with people you’d never met before, would you have a good time? Throwing too many characters at the reader creates the same sense of bewilderment and diminishes the reader’s ability to empathize with any of them.”

I can usually remember two to four people when first introduced. Usually faces, and names if they interest me. The rest go into the blur of new people to be sorted out later. Even if they interest me, it takes me at least one more visit and good conversation to remember their name.

So why is it in writing we think we have to introduce all our characters up front? And why do we feel that if we don’t have ten plus people in our books, that no one will want to read them?

I’m not saying to limit your novel to 4 people, I have many more than that in mine, but everyone does not need to appear on stage at the same time, and they don’t all need speaking parts. I have been an extra on Touched by an Angel (yes, a long time ago) and was just that, an extra. Background. I have had speaking roles on stage that added to the scene, and been on stage again as background.

There will be background characters. Give them life, make them move, shift, walk stage left to stage right, but they don’t all have to speak, they don’t all have to show up at important scenes.

Writer’s Digests tip for the day goes on to say, “Larry McMurtry can do it in Lonesome Dove and win the Pulitzer Prize, but we’re not Larry McMurtry. He’s able to do it because he makes each character distinctive. It’s a question of how much you’re able to change personalities with your characters. Most of us can only take on a handful.”

So in order to have more than one character, they need to have personalities different from each other. Know your characters, even the background ones.

In theater, we were required to do character analysis of who we played. Not only did we know their first name, given to us by the playwright, usually, we had to know their last name. What their favorite ice cream was. Who was their best friend? We were asked to read the play with that one character in mind and learn as much as we could about them. Even if we were background and off stage most the time.

What did that create? A play people wanted to watch. Actors that knew and understood why they moved where they did.

The importance of knowing our characters is so important, if we don’t care enough about a character to get to know them, our readers won’t either.

Bob Mayer’s solution: “Before you start writing, decide how many characters you feel you can handle in the story. You will have your protagonist and your antagonist. Then you will have your named supporting characters. Named characters will be those who appear throughout the story.”

This is helpful if you know your story before you put Uniball pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, but as you’ve read, I don’t do that. I don’t know my story before I start writing. So I have to figure it out as I go. Often, I get to parts of my story that require me to go back to an earlier part and share more about characters, put in what I’ve learned about them, change their profile. (If you want a good Character Profile sheet, email me and I’ll send it.)

Often, I get to know my characters as I write. I get rid of characters that aren’t important, giving their lines to someone else, if they’re worth keeping. I’ve even added new characters, or made background characters more important, replacing someone who I thought might have played a larger role. So for me, I role with the punches. But if you outline and plan, this is something to plan for.

Mayer continues, “It’s probably not a good idea to give names to characters who appear only once. Those characters might be described as spear carriers, analogous to those people on stage in the opera who stand in the background, carrying—you got it—spears. They’re window dressing, and you can describe them by their roles, such as “the taxi driver” or “the desk clerk” so as not to confuse the reader.

“Make sure the reader can keep track of your named characters, and keep focus on the protagonist and antagonist.”

I agree wholeheartedly. Even though I knew my name when I played background, the audience did not. You can know them, or not, but know why they are there, if you don’t, the reader won’t either. It’s been said many times that we should know 95% more about our novel than the reader; this is one of those things to know more of.

So know your characters. Introduce them with the reader’s memory in mind. And if you’re going to start all your characters with the same letter, know that the reader, at least this one, will be confused as to who’s doing what and saying what. Made up names are fine, but remember your reader when making them up. Just saying.

*Writer’s Digest offers great advice to its subscribers. Worth checking out.

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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