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Hey! I hope everyone is having a great summer!
I have a quick question: Can you have too many characters in a novel?
So I decided to do a Carrie count because in the last year there have been a lot of uninvited but intriguing character barging in on my WIP.
I have 34 named characters!! Is that too many. Not all of them are in the same chapters with each other. In the first few chapters 3 Carries leave. Later on someone dies. At the climax someone is born and two more people show up. I’ve examined my characters and killed of a couple and combine one. If you read my book it has the kinda Charles Dickens feel to it, with characters who flit in and out a lot but help the protagonist on her journey. (But I’m certainly no Charles Dickens lol)
Note: Genre is Christian, Drama, Realistic.
Any thoughts?God bless you!
@gracie-j. @lrose5. @ava-blue. @joy-caroline. @elishavet-pidyon. @lydia-s. @lorelei-writer. @keilah-h. @koshka. @godlyfantasy12.
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@maryg3. Hello Mary! I do not believe we have met, but I’m here to let you know what I personally think.
First off, that’s a LOT of characters! And I get you! I have many, MANY characters. XD I get lost sometimes, trying to remember them.
Second, I personally believe that there isn’t such a thing as too many characters so long as each of them serve a purpose. If they don’t serve a purpose, they really shouldn’t be in the novel, in my opinion. 🙂
God Bless you as well! <3
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@maryg3 Oooh, love this question! SO, in my experience, you can never have too many characters…BUT that only applies to minor characters. I recommend no more than 5-10 POV characters (depending on how many POV scenes they get, how important they are to the story, if they’re third- or first-person).
For minor characters, you can have up to 30 or more…but you have to be careful about it.
1) Have a cast list – for characters that readers will need to remember, not necessarily every single name.
2) Don’t include too much detail about characters that are only there for a sentence or two.
3) Cut back on names if you can. (i.e., use “the doctor” or “the storekeeper” if they’re very, very minor, so that readers won’t have too many names to keep track of.)
4) Use unique names when you do. A Jack, Jill, Jane, Jillian, Jamie, and Jess will get confusing very quickly. XD
5) Explain who the character is and why they matter when they arrive on scene. For example, “Nancy, one of the nurses on the floor, smiled.” Or “I turned to the clerk who’d led me through the department store.” Nothing too long or info-dumpy, but just enough to let the reader know who they are and ensure them that they didn’t miss anything.
Hopefully that helps! Usually, if the author’s not confused, the reader won’t be either! And lots of minor, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them characters are much easier to handle than large casts of main characters!
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@gracie-j has already given some awesome advice, and I don’t think I have much to add, but I will say that I definitely concur with her point on not having too many POV characters. And as @freedomwriter76 said, all your characters should serve a purpose.
I do have one point of my own to add though – if you’re looking to make your cast a bit simpler, you could try combining characters. I read this article by Go Teen Writers once (I looked for it on their website so I could give you a link, but I can’t find it now lol). In the article, they pointed out that if you need a theatre owner character, a friend’s uncle character, and a spy character, a good idea would be to create one character with all these attributes rather than creating three separate characters with each character having one of the three attributes. (Sorry if that was worded confusingly, lol.) So then you’d have ONE character who is a theatre owner, the uncle to the main character’s best friend, AND a spy.
In the end, you know what’s best for your story! Whether you decide to keep all your current characters or cut several is totally up to you. I hope this helped some! <3
@freedomwriter76
I don’t think we have met, but it’s wonderful to meet you!!
Thank you for helping me out! I appreciate your input, it was very helpful! I think most my characters do serve a purpose but it may be a matter of combining them.
God bless!
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@gracie-j
Thank you so much for those 5 helpful tips!! I will definitely keep those in account going forward.
God bless!INFJ/ChristianFiction/ IceCreamAddict/ StarGazer/ https://lamplighterletters.wixsite.com/mysite-1
Hi @joy-caroline
Thank you so much for your advice!
So far I’m sticking with one POV (third person limited).
No worries! That makes perfect sense!! I find it challenging to combine already written characters but I guess I’ll just have to brainstorm some more and then do some crunching of characters:)God bless!
INFJ/ChristianFiction/ IceCreamAddict/ StarGazer/ https://lamplighterletters.wixsite.com/mysite-1
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@maryg3. It’s wonderful to meet you as well! 😀
You are so welcome! I’m so glad I could help. All the best of luck to you! 🙂
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You’re so welcome! Wishing you the best of luck!
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@maryg3 You’re so welcome! 😀
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