Population Explosion

TheIT said:

Any suggestions on how to deal with the population explosion? How do you keep the supporting characters from taking over the story, and how do you deal with the nameless crowds?

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I'll see your questions and raise you a couple questions of my own (sorry been watching Poker Superstars ): Are these supporting characters important to the plot? Do they have any other role besides being background? Do they effect the main characters enough to sway the decisions the main characters make? If the answer is No to any of these questions, you don't have to go into their history.

Naming them is fine but the problem with names is you feel the need to explore these characters...which is also okay...but if it slows down the story and has no point then they gotta go.

TheIT said:

Any suggestions on how to deal with the population explosion? How do you keep the supporting characters from taking over the story, and how do you deal with the nameless crowds?

Click to expand...

My best advice is to know your story. Know the plot, know where you're going with it. Know what your main characters need to accomplish in order to reach their ultimate goal, and then set those events in motion. It's easier (IMHO) for secondary characters to hijack a story if you don't know where the story is going.

In the novel I recently finished, I have three MC's, seven secondary characters, and half a dozen named peripheral characters. One way that I have managed to keep the story focused on my MC's (and it's hard, believe me, my secondaries could carry their own stories if I let them) is by using limited POV's. I mostly stick to the three MC's, but occasionally jump into one of the secondary's minds.

And then there is always Stephen King's method of population control. Put a bunch of them in a house and blow it up.

Not important? Deep Six. Important, but minor? Leave nameless. Important to the plot? hand them a name tag and a personality.

I saw someone post that they start out stories naming non-major characters as whatever they were - "Sidekick" or "Tricky Salesguy" or things like that, and then if they ended up needing to be more or less important, he could go back and fill them out.

I rather like the idea. I get too wrapped up in charactesr and they all want to be the lead. I need to specifically relegate them to a lesser status until I see what I really need to give them.

Several years ago, when I first started out writing, I would just "go with the flow" and develop my characters as I went along. It drove me crazy because ALL my characters wanted to be on center stage!

Now when I do my outline for a novel or short story, I designate which category each character falls into: Main Character(s), Major Characters(s), Minor Characters(s), and Extras.

With the Main and Major characters, I do extensive character outlines - several pages worth. By the time I'm done with that, I feel I really know them and I already have a feel for their voice and personality.

For the Major characters, I do a modified outline, but not nearly as extensive as the MC's. I don't develop their characters and personalities as much because those aspects won't be needed.

For Minor Characters, I formulate a few facts, but not much else. For Extras, I just give them a name.

As I go along in my writing, I refer back often to my lists of who is who. When I start to go off on a rabbit trail with a Minor or Extra, I cut it - unless of course, it opens up a whole new avenue that holds some promise!

I don't know if this helps you, but it works for me.

Cheryll

I think a book is far more intersting when even the minor characters are well described and interesting. I think it is a plus when they are unique as opposed to the stereotypical. A petite truck driver, for instance as opposed to a burly brute.

Some characters are insignificant, perhaps a cabbie or a grocery clerk that you hardly notice in your breif interatcion with them. They need far less description, because you pay them much less attention in you encounters.

"He tipped the cabbie and got out." Might be sufficient for such a character.

But we certainly have to have characters to have a story, sometimes a cast of thousands. How we describe them depends on their significance to the story, but they must be there.

I choose based on the type of support the main character needs. Many of my supporting characters are much more than just support. I mean they started as various spear carriers, medicine men and accountants, but as the story fleshed out, so have they. Some of them will meet a 'Kingsian' end. ( I did LOVE the destruction of Derry. I never believed he'd do it.) Several of the rest will just live out their natural life spans, dying in book 2 or 3 or even 4.

But, just to keep them happy, I sometimes stop and write short stories about the secondary characters. I keep them in the same context and in the same world, but for example, I have this guy named Carmel. In my(first) book, he's a mention, an evil character in the shadows. Instead of saying the boogey man did it, I blamed everything on Carmel. So in the second book he got to step out of the shadows and murder someone. Then he started thinking he was all that. But the book was not about him. SO I wrote a 3,500 word short story that focused on what he and a few other secondary characters were doing 20 years before my book begins. He got to be the Main, and one of the mains became a secondary. They were all happy. The main got a little vacation and went back to work happy to do what I'd outlined, and Carmel realized that he really is one nasty !@%!&!$!###?!**!!! and he's gone back to the shadows, killing off tertiary characters with glee!

I do hope this helps. ( So does Carmel)

I guess I treat people in my books like I do people in real life. I get into a cab, he talks with me, but I don't bother learning his name. I'll never see him again. I go grocery shopping, I need some beef, I talk to the butcher, but I don't bother to learn his name, I usually buy from the refrigerated section and never talk to him otherwise. I might chat with the checkout lady, but I don't know her name unless I look at the nametag and to be honest, she's forgotten by the time I get to my car.

Now the guy at the deli I get lunch from every day, Otto, nice old world German kind of guy, he likes to try to push the liversausage on me because he knows I have a weakness for it even if I'm just in there for some summersausage for the party I'm planning with the relatives. "How's the wife and kids?" "Fine, and yours?"

That sort of thing. That's how I populate my world. And my characters know their place.

I only had problems with the old farmer who down the lane. Him, he demanded that I create an entire geneology for him dating all the way back to 1808. He was a pushy old guy, but dagnabit if he didn't let me take home some fresh cream for my coffee.

Cheryll said:

Now when I do my outline for a novel or short story, I designate which category each character falls into: Main Character(s), Major Characters(s), Minor Characters(s), and Extras.

With the Main and Major characters, I do extensive character outlines - several pages worth. By the time I'm done with that, I feel I really know them and I already have a feel for their voice and personality.

For the Major characters, I do a modified outline, but not nearly as extensive as the MC's. I don't develop their characters and personalities as much because those aspects won't be needed.

For Minor Characters, I formulate a few facts, but not much else. For Extras, I just give them a name.

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This sounds similar to what I do. I have a folder with detailed Major Character bios, a folder with shorter Minor Character bios, and a list with a paragraph each for each Peripheral Character. I also have some extra characters that have a name and a role in the story, but they aren't important enough to warrent a bio.

I've never put much thought into this, but your post has made me stop and think.

In most of the things I've written, if the main character interacts with a minor character more than once, then the minor gets a name. If the interaction is a lengthy, personal one, the minor character gets some background as well. If the last time the minor appears something dramatic happens to him/her, then their background will be revealed in even more detail.

The background stuff helps to show the minor character's motives, which I think is important if they're going to do something significant. They can't just pop up, do there stuff, and then disappear never to be mentioned again.