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.
First let’s list the types of Characters:
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Major Secondary Characters
– Friends of protagonist/antagonist
• Important Characters
– People whom the story depends on, but don’t interact much with the main characters.
• Minor Characters
– People who play small roles and may be in several scenes.
• Walk on Characters
– People in one or two scenes who don’t do much, and often don’t even have names.
There are only two characters a novel really needs: the protagonist and the antagonist. All other characters are secondary or minor.
• They are there to help drive the story forward.
• The average 80,000 – 90,000 word novel can have between 20 to 30 characters.
• Characters should be memorable in some way, so that the reader remembers them, recognises them, and relates to them.
• Main characters should get full characterization and backstory, which gives them complexity and depth.
• One major problem with too many characters is that the higher the number, the less chance of having fully rounded and realised characters. Characterisation will suffer.
• Having too few characters in a novel can mean that the story won’t move forward. It would be difficult to tell an entire story through just a handful of characters.
• Not only that, but sub plots cannot be explored with too few characters.
• Characters who are similar should be considered to be combined into one.
• If a character serves no purpose for the story, then get rid of them.
In pursuit of the Goldilocks number of characters for your story.
• We label characters depending on whether they have an arc, whether scenes are shown from their point of view, how much they drive the story, and their story purpose.
Protagonist:
• Usually have a full arc over the course of the novel. They have goals and change in some way to overcome obstacles.
• Their driving of the plot is often their purpose in the story.
• Much (if not all) of the story is told from their point of view.
• So keep your protagonist.
Antagonist:
• Every story needs a bad guy or two.
• So keep your antagonist(s).
Secondary Characters:
• These characters often have goals, but might not have a full sense of an arc, where they change over the course of the story.
• These characters may or may not ‘make things happen’ during the story. If they do make things happen, their actions often directly affect the protagonist.
• At their essence, these characters can be categorized by their function for the story:
– A mentor who teaches the protagonist an important lesson.
– A best friend who forces the protagonist to look at the situation from a different perspective.
– An antagonist who creates obstacles.
– A bumbler who sets a plot event in motion, etc.
• Still though, we wouldn’t include them if they didn’t serve a story purpose.
Minor and Walk On Characters:
• These are characters who exist only for their purpose to the story.
• They may or may not have dialogue, but we give no sense of their own goals beyond their story purpose.
What Causes us to Have too Many Characters?
• We can care so much about secondary characters that we want more of them. We also want to spend more time with them. These types of issues can lead to a loss of focus, slow the plot progress, and the introduction of tangents.
Do Secondary Characters Need an Arc?
• We don’t want to give all our secondary characters an arc with change, if it would distract or steal focus from the story we are trying to tell.
• We do want our secondary characters to have goals and a purpose beyond the story so they don’t feel like simple puppets. But we may only hint at those goals.
• We can care about secondary characters just because of their humour, skills, insights, or bantering.
Secondary characters can often be the glue that holds a story together, or the spark that make the story come alive.
• Limit introductions of characters to two or three at the most, per page.
• Use varied names so we don’t have names with similar initial letters or sounds.
• Avoid using names for walk-on characters unless necessary.
• If appropriate, give characters a memorable feature, trait, or mannerism.
What then is the right number of characters for our story?
• For intimate novels, the number of characters might be as small as five or so characters.
• For broader novels, the number of characters might be 20 to 30.
• Note: If we have 30 or more major characters, it will be difficult for readers to pick up the book and re-immerse themselves in the story after a pause.
• On the other hand, if we need 30 or more characters to juggle all the pieces of a giant chessboard story, that’s what we need.