I am editing and rewriting my first novel, still. I am learning as I am going along. One thing I have been worried about is that I may have too many characters in my novel. I have an investment in each and everyone of them. And together, I belief they are a complete symphony of people who are needed to cohesively tell the story of my novel. Sort of like if you take out a piccolo and French horn player, would the symphony sound the same. So I’ll come clean and give you some numbers. My story is a character driven novel told first person through the protagonist. Then I have ten secondary characters who at times also serve as antagonists to varying degrees. Then I also have about another 10 minor characters and finally, another 18 walk-on characters (Who are briefly only in one or two scenes.) My novel should finish up with about 70,000 words.

So is that too many? Well, ‘War and Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy contained 134 characters. While the 19th century novel ‘Walden’ by Henry David Thoreau had only one character. How many characters do you need in your novel? Too few and you are likely to bore the reader. Too many and the reader may become confused and find it difficult to follow the story. So the answer is you need enough to competently tell the story you are writing. Vague answer? Yes. So keep on reading for the tangible advice that will better explain how to arrive at the ‘Goldilocks Number of Characters’ needed in your novel.  (more…)