Writing Characters

[BJ Swabb]

Hiya!!!

So I've been writing my novel series for almost four years now, and I am sill bringing characters into the series. Is having a lot of characters in one volume to much or do you perfer having many characters? I attend to run across at the least 30 to 40 characters in one volume. All who the protagonist runs into through his journey. He also runs into many different creatures as well (most in which he must face in a challenge or fight).

What are your thoughts on this?

Also I have gotten into recreating characters into a unique new way. I would like to involve as many classic characters form old classics that are freely avalible to use without copyrights, but I have a pile of other characters that I have gotten approved to use as well. If you were writing a mythical land full of dragon riders, beast tamer, thieves, spellcasters, rangers and much more, what classic character would you like to involve in a series and how would you recreate them and make them part of the journey?

 

[ThinkerX]

Large numbers of characters is a good way to confuse the reader, especially if -

1 - many of them are interchangeable - aka all warriors in the same company or some such, and

2 - they have complex names.

 

[Finchbearer]

I like to write in quasi-historical worlds, either in real life or fantasy worlds, so I like to pay homage to those classic tropes such as:

Maiden
Witch
Wise woman
Warlock
Priest
Nun
Knight
Thief
Mage / mage in training
Earl / Lord / landowner
King and Queens
Wanderer
Step-family member
Peasant
Shopkeeper / innkeeper
Tradesmen
Farmer
Wizard
Master of the dark arts
Seer
Healer
Warrior

A E Lowan, where is that medieval character sheet you posted??

I don’t know if that’s what you’re getting at but I like including those tropes into my own stories.

 

[pmmg]

Just from the outside looking in, when you mention details of your story, such as the changing tense, the multiple POV, and here, a lot of characters that pass through, I am thinking you have not spent enough time getting feedback on your stuff. It could be its all very well done, so I wont know, but I'd rather have first hand knowledge than taking guesses from the outside.

Many stories have many characters. The question is not how many, but how many does your story need?


I personally would not do that, take public domain characters and use them. It would destroy the illusion I was trying to paint. If Dracula or Santa Claus (Narnia) was to show up in my story, I think the reader would go...Huh?

If others do this in their own stories, I would hope the tale was one where that should be happening. Like if I was writing a tale in mythical america and came across Paul Bunyun or John Henry.

 

[Finchbearer]

I’ll add on mythical / folklore creatures and beasts

 

[BJ Swabb]

I like to write in quasi-historical worlds, either in real life or fantasy worlds, so I like to pay homage to those classic tropes such as:

Maiden
Witch
Wise woman
Warlock
Priest
Nun
Knight
Thief
Mage / mage in training
Earl / Lord / landowner
King and Queens
Wanderer
Step-family member
Peasant
Shopkeeper / innkeeper
Tradesmen
Farmer
Wizard
Master of the dark arts
Seer
Healer
Warrior

A E Lowan, where is that medieval character sheet you posted??

I don’t know if that’s what you’re getting at but I like including those tropes into my own stories.

I am actually looking more for classic characters such as Fairytale characters like Peter Pan, Alice, Dorthy, those kinds. But I do appreciate this list as it may help me as well

 

[BJ Swabb]

Just from the outside looking in, when you mention details of your story, such as the changing tense, the multiple POV, and here, a lot of characters that pass through, I am thinking you have not spent enough time getting feedback on your stuff. It could be its all very well done, so I wont know, but I'd rather have first hand knowledge than taking guesses from the outside.

Many stories have many characters. The question is not how many, but how many does your story need?


I personally would not do that, take public domain characters and use them. It would destroy the illusion I was trying to paint. If Dracula or Santa Claus (Narnia) was to show up in my story, I think the reader would go...Huh?

If others do this in their own stories, I would hope the tale was one where that should be happening. Like if I was writing a tale in mythical america and came across Paul Bunyun or John Henry.

Thanks for the feed back on adding too many characters. But as for the other area, I tend to use characters in which fits the storyline. Not just placing characters in just because I want too.

 

[BJ Swabb]

I’ll add on mythical / folklore creatures and beasts

I have a whole list of forty pages on creatures and beasts. I don't need anymore. Thanks.

 

[Finchbearer]

You’re looking for fairy-tales and folklore characters?

I take a lot of inspiration from these kinds of sources…I feel another list coming on…

Tristan und Isolde
The History of the kings of Britain (The Legend of Arthur)
Anything by Shakespeare, he was inspired by fairytales himself
Anything by the brothers Grimm
Anything by Hans Anderson

And there’s tons of inspiration online for free where people have posted classic fairytales from around the world, I think it’s just called fairytalez, have a look.

Baba Yaga fascinates me with her hut that spins around on chicken legs…

 

[Phori Stone]

I think adding too many characters are confusing and can lead to the reader not finishing the book. Personally I'd limit it to 4-10 if possible.

 

[Prince of Spires]

It depends on a lot of things. How long a series are we talking about here? It's very different to have 40 characters in a 70k word novel than having them in a 2.5 million word novel.

How important are the characters? All novels have a plethora of walk-on characters. Many never get a name. They're the guard at the door, or the random shopkeeper or whatever. You can have plenty of those, and as said, they don't even need a name. Main characters? Not so much. For the simple reason that main characters need enough words to have a decent story arc. You're probably looking at 20k words minimum for a main character's story. If you then have 40, you're looking at 800k words, which is something like 8 novels. Minimum. More likely, it will be double that. You can do that of course, just don't expect your readers to attach to all 40 characters or even remember the characters from book 1 by the time they get to book 8.

Personally I think as a good guideline for a beginning writer, I think you should aim for 1-3 main characters, another 3-6 supporting characters, and a handful of background named characters who come up every now and then. At most. That way, you can work on making your characters unique, you can give them all enough screen-time, and you have less risk of confusing your readers (and yourself).

 

[BJ Swabb]

It depends on a lot of things. How long a series are we talking about here? It's very different to have 40 characters in a 70k word novel than having them in a 2.5 million word novel.

How important are the characters? All novels have a plethora of walk-on characters. Many never get a name. They're the guard at the door, or the random shopkeeper or whatever. You can have plenty of those, and as said, they don't even need a name. Main characters? Not so much. For the simple reason that main characters need enough words to have a decent story arc. You're probably looking at 20k words minimum for a main character's story. If you then have 40, you're looking at 800k words, which is something like 8 novels. Minimum. More likely, it will be double that. You can do that of course, just don't expect your readers to attach to all 40 characters or even remember the characters from book 1 by the time they get to book 8.

Personally I think as a good guideline for a beginning writer, I think you should aim for 1-3 main characters, another 3-6 supporting characters, and a handful of background named characters who come up every now and then. At most. That way, you can work on making your characters unique, you can give them all enough screen-time, and you have less risk of confusing your readers (and yourself).

It's a Fourteen Volume Series. So A long one. And to let you know I'm not a brand new author, I just never written in this genre before. I've done screenplays, murder mysteries, and fan fiction Sci-fi.

 

[pmmg]

Well...I did get the impression you were a new writer. Have any of the murder mystery and scifi stories been published?

Prince of Spires is still correct and would be good advice for any looking at a similar question. Its hard to know if you have too many without seeing it and having a firsthand opinion. Anything that was 14 volumes long, I would expect to have many characters. I wonder how many important characters Harry Potter had? I bet it was 40 or more.

 

[BJ Swabb]

Pmmg, my sci-fi could not be published but it has been posted online to read back in 2017. My murder mystery was suppose to be published as I had publishers, but I could not afford it, so it is actually tucked away for the time being. I do need to get that back out and contact the publishing companies that were interested now that I have gotten some money in.

I do not disagree with Prince of Spires, I was just stating that I am not a new writer / author. I have done a few of my own works, and have assisted with storytelling with many other books. Helping friends get their books published. So I know the layouts and such on things, but with fantasy the world to me is quite different as it involves magic, and magic can go into many directions. But than again so does having super powers in a way, which I have experience with. I just wanted others opinions on this genre. Fantasy has always been a huge love of mine, and my adventure is taking me into some interesting routes.

 

[pmmg]

Fair enough. It would seem to me the difference between SciFi and Fantasy is not very much, and superheroes are probably just fantasy as well. Mysteries would probably get very convoluted if there were 40 characters. (Try limiting the suspects on that...).

I bet Star Wars has more than 40 well known characters, and I can probably tell you something about all them.

 

[pmmg]

Incidentally, how long is volume and how do you know it is 14 volumes?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Coming in on the side of Characters Yay! My team is about 15 years into a long-running Urban Fantasy series, 20+ books planned, with about 500 named series characters. We run with on average 7 - 9 POV characters per book. We don't just add new characters. We add entire books. Three books published, two in process, two of those are new additions.

Send oxygen.

What I'm getting at is that having a lot of characters is doable. We do it and haven't had anyone complain, yet. Give us time. The trick is to make each character unique, to sound differently, and to keep their names simple and easy to remember. And the key to that is good notes.

I pulled this out for another thread yesterday, but it bears repeating. This is a glimpse of our series bible, which we maintain in OneNote. There are a couple of things we keep track of in Excel like ages and timelines, but for everything else it's OneNote and Word. This is how you keep track of eye colors, heights, ages, interests, quirks, etc.

 

[BJ Swabb]

Incidentally, how long is volume and how do you know it is 14 volumes?

I have a outline of all the volumes already. Though It could all change over time, as my characters seem to be dragging me in different directions as I make several drafts. My volumes are around thirty chapters each, if not more.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

This is a depends on the writer, depends on the reader, issue. Some people love War and Peace and all its characters, others get confused as hell and put the book down. Write it well and it will have an audience.

 

[Foxkeyes]

I'd be wary of too many characters at the beginning of your series. It could put agents and publishers off.

But you can certainly work in that many characters over time as the series progresses.

And use some typical archetypes:

Gatekeepers
Hero.
Trickster
Mentor
Threshold Guardian
Herald
Shapeshifter
Shadow

These archetypes are broadly representative of most characters created from the Ancient Greeks right up to today.

BTW. Greek mythology has some great characters, too. I'm pretty sure they're not under copyright any more.