Okay, I blew it.
And I’m here to fess up.
An old writing rule of mine went, “Thou shalt not multiply characters beyond necessity.” Sort of a spin on Occam’s Razor, that kept me from packing my fiction with every character that popped into my head at the time.
Why have five characters if you can tell the story with four? And why have four characters if you can merge a couple of them and tell the story with three?
Fewer characters means a tighter story, fewer distractions, a faster plot… and a lower word count. You can make that 8,000-word unpublishable beast into a lean 3,000-word speed demon that’s easier to sell.
Notice we’re talking about short stories here. In short stories, limiting the number of characters to the minimum that you dramatically require is a good rule.
So last month I’m reading the latest Steven Johnson, a random library pick called Everything Bad is Good for You
To help prove his point, he presents a “social network” of an episode of Dallas (1978-1991), a character map of everyone in the episode.
Then he presents the character map of an episode from the first season of 24 (2001). It’s quite a bit more complex, with more characters and more relationships.
Johnson’s argument that TV viewers have gotten used to, and enjoy, complicated dramas with a mess of characters, is only peripherally interesting to me as a novelist. Unless…
How have novels changed over time?
I was just wondering about that when I picked up a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
(Austen was a source of inspiration for Stephenie “Twilight” Meyer. Plus, Pride and Prejudice is wicked old, published in 1813, five years before Frankenstein. Generally I dig old fiction.)
I didn’t get very far in Pride and Prejudice. Sorry, fans. Austen broke a lot of rules of modern fiction. Good rules. Like, use speaker attributions in dialogue, so readers know who is speaking. And, don’t give characters similar-sounding names — Austen blesses us with five, that’s five sisters, all called “Miss Bennett” by other characters.
So rather than reading it, I started reading about it… and came across a character map (Johnson might say a “social network”) of it.
Holy crap, it’s a mess. No wonder I was confused.
It reminded me of Johnson’s map of the 24 episode.
2001.
1813.
Whatever the date, it’s clear that my old rule, “Thou shalt not multiply characters beyond necessity,” er, um… needs revision.
Still dandy for short stories. Not so useful for novels.
What, then? Pack your novels with characters?
I’m going to turn, again, to Robert McKee’s Story
In essence, the protagonist creates the rest of the cast. All other characters are in a story first and foremost because of the relationship they strike to the protagonist and the way each helps to delineate the dimensions of the protagonist’s complex nature.
When McKee says complex, he’s talking about the Yin-Yang complexity of characters, the dual presence of opposite traits, that I’ve talked about in an earlier post.
Consider this hypothetical protagonist: He’s amusing and optimistic, then morose and cynical; he’s compassionate, then cruel; fearless, then fearful. This four-dimensional role needs a cast around him to delineate his contradictions, characters toward whom he can act and react in different ways at different times and places. These supporting characters must round him out so that his complexity is both consistent and credible.
Then McKee lets loose with a character map of his own.
Character A, for example, provokes the protagonist’s sadness and cynicism, while Character B brings out his witty, hopeful side. Character C inspires his loving and courageous emotions, while Character D forces him to first cower in fear, then to strike out in fury. The creation and design of characters A, B, C, and D is dictated by the needs of the protagonist.
Wow. I’m not saying that Jane Austen and Joel Surnow included big casts of supporting characters in order to reveal the complexity of their main characters.
But forget them — I’m talking about me here. And you. No one is stopping us from doing it. Lesson learned.
Novel Dog 
Well, you’ve just pointed out to me why I don’t like a lot of books and TV. Too many characters are sometimes so confusing I can’t follow the script. Guess I’m lazy. If one watches a TV show from it’s inception and characters are added, it’s OK. If you start off with too many, I’m lost. It’s one reason I don’t watch shows when I’ve missed the first few episodes. Perhaps it’s why lots of good shows don’t make it for a second season. I read a lot but some books I just can’t tolerate. Looks like I can’t spell either.
Here are some more off-the-wall books that might help your writing.
No wonder your copy of P & P confused you if it had ‘five sisters, all called “Miss Barrett” by other characters’…?
Only one sister, Jane, can be called “MIss Bennet,” because she is the eldest. The rest are called Miss Lydia, Miss Kitty, Miss Lizzy and Miss Mary. It is odd, however, that in both P&P and S&S Austen always includes at least one “superfluous” sister. P&P would not change substantially if Mary and Kitty were eliminated, for instance.
Dramatica also does a great job of using characters as functions. Very interesting!
The last graphic was my takeaway from this article. Rightly said, from the POV of the protagonist, of course.
PS. I was unable to tackle P&P myself. Still don’t know if I disqualify from being a literature lover henceforth!
The total number of characters in a story should not be determined by some formula or rule, but rather by necessity to convey the development and emotional power of the story. In some cases, a large number of characters can be used as various lenses to better see the facets of the protagonist and/or main characters and understand their view and emotional process and motivations. However, a reader emotionally buys into only one-to-three main characters at a time and will not care as deeply about more than a very few at one time. Therefore it is best to give the readers what they need to either love, hate, fear or in some other way strongly relate to very few main characters, one to three. A larger circle of ancillary characters can be developed with whom the protagonist or main characters interact which further help the readers understand and relate to the emotions and motivations driving the story.
[…] So, how many characters should your novel have? Here’s what the Internet had to say: Does Your Novel Have Too Many Characters – Janice Hardy First Chapter Characters – Better Novel Project How Many Characters Do You Need? – Novel Dog […]
thank you for this. I am working on a tv show and this provides much needed clarity for figure out my characters and relationships.