How big is your cast?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Coco82

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
393
Reaction score
11
Location
Olympia, WA
How big is your cast of characters, MCs and secondary characters?
 

GeekTells

Tick tock...
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 18, 2012
Messages
590
Reaction score
191
Website
www.geektells.com
I'll bite:

1 MC, four supporting characters, another few minor characters, and all manner of people that the MC encounters. 1 main villain with a few supporting roles.

How about you, OP?
 

randi.lee

Certified Non-Genius
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 19, 2012
Messages
1,222
Reaction score
87
Location
New England, USA
Website
www.rlwrites.com
I have 3 MCs, one antagonist, two supporting characters and that's really it. Sure, I have the lady who pours coffee in the cafe, the wacky mailman and that uncle no one likes to talk about, but the story would be perfectly fine if everyone but those six were cut.
 

fdesrochers

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 21, 2010
Messages
213
Reaction score
10
Location
Fredericton, NB
First ms:

MC: 2
Supporting: More than half-a-dozen

Second ms:

MC: 2 + 1 planned addition
Supporting: 6+
 

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 16, 2010
Messages
16,441
Reaction score
1,529
Location
between rising apes and falling angels
Website
www.cranehanabooks.com
Several dozen, with any novel. The WIP right now has 3 main characters plus 16 - 20 supporting characters. The main characters get the most viewpoint time, but 4 or 5 other characters will have moments where the action is seen through their eyes.
 

veinglory

volitare nequeo
Self-Ban
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
28,750
Reaction score
2,933
Location
right here
Website
www.veinglory.com
My current book has about 20 named characters that appear in more than one chapter. But it is told from only one point of view.
 

aheggli

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 21, 2012
Messages
80
Reaction score
4
1 MC, 1 antagonist, 6 supporting and a bunch of minor characters :)
 

Apologue

Pure heart, filthy mind
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 2, 2011
Messages
82
Reaction score
6
2 MCs (dual viewpoint), 4-5 important secondary characters, and a smattering of other people that just have a few lines or are mostly in the background. My book is only about 80k, though, and I don't think it's ambitious enough to be classified as epic fantasy.
 

katci13

creative genie
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 11, 2012
Messages
1,374
Reaction score
119
Location
tennessee
2 MCs, 1 secondary, 1 villain, 2 supporting, and a bunch of random extras and creatures.
 

Kerosene

Your Pixie Queen
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 29, 2012
Messages
5,762
Reaction score
1,045
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
6 MCs (2 guest one here and there, 4 stables ones) All multiple limited, switching off.
20 Major characters (guessing)
10 Minor characters (Name and page presence, but don'e affect story).
 
Last edited:

CrastersBabies

Burninator!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 24, 2011
Messages
5,641
Reaction score
666
Location
USA
Epic fantasy... 140k words at least (no debating wordcount please... I have done my research).

6 rotating POVs
2 are "main"
4 are supporting
10ish semi supporting
10 plus named folks that characters meet or interact with... maybe more.

In truth... not a huge cast compared to most epic fantasy books
 

Lhipenwhe

Moving with my soul, step by step
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
745
Reaction score
94
Location
Saint Paul
One main character, two supporting characters/love interests, two supporting characters, and a main antagonist. I only have one viewpoint, that of the MC. I was wary of having too many characters to keep track of; I dislike leaving any of them superficially/badly developed.
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,083
Reaction score
10,781
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
I've got my protagonist, two very important support characters (who get a fair amount of pov time), a main antagonist and a few more "lesser characters" and baddies who show up several times throughout the book.
 

Coco82

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
393
Reaction score
11
Location
Olympia, WA
Epic fantasy... 140k words at least (no debating wordcount please... I have done my research).

6 rotating POVs
2 are "main"
4 are supporting
10ish semi supporting
10 plus named folks that characters meet or interact with... maybe more.

In truth... not a huge cast compared to most epic fantasy books

Mine is similar in scope. My WIP is a epic scifi/future history novel and have 5 main POVs possibly 1 smaller one, and each POV has supporting characters in it.
 

StarryEyes

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 9, 2012
Messages
224
Reaction score
29
One MC, 6 almost MCs (very important characters but their viewpoints are never given since it's all in first person), 2 antagonists, about 5 secondary characters and about 15 named but minor characters. And then there's the rest of the city, the soldiers and so on ;)
 

Melanie Dawn

Gypsy, wasted from the hips down.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 30, 2012
Messages
463
Reaction score
33
Location
Nor Cal
MC:2 with a third that becomes a MC for a time, then fades away.
hmm prolly half a dozen true supporting characters. I wanted to keep the cast small because I want to focus on development of the 2/3 MCs.



ps when I see MC I think Motorcycle club LMAO
SAMCRO-Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original.
 

zanzjan

killin' all teh werds
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
VPX
VPXI
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 5, 2010
Messages
9,728
Reaction score
3,208
Location
home home homityhomehome
I'm attempting to stick to a single POV in the current novel. I had too many in my first novel, and it's one of the primary things that kept me from selling it.
 

xC0000005

An exception has occured.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 23, 2012
Messages
159
Reaction score
32
Website
www.authorjcnelson.com
1 MC with four supporting chars, one primary antagonist with two supporting characters.

Several lampshades with names.
 

TomGrimm

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 19, 2009
Messages
282
Reaction score
55
My current WIP has 4 MC's, all of whom also double as antagonists for each other.
Maybe 3 or 4 supporting characters.
Then quite a lot of minor characters.
 

ClareGreen

Onwards, ever onwards
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
791
Reaction score
121
Location
England
WiP has 1 MC, 4 major characters and a whole slew of minor characters.
 

DeleyanLee

Writing Anarchist
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 6, 2007
Messages
31,660
Reaction score
11,407
Location
lost among the words
Nine POVs (all major characters). I think I remembered them all. That includes protags and antags.

The cast list has roughly about 70 named characters. Seeing as there's two armies battling, there's thousands of characters yet to be named (should I have reason to pick them out, of course).
 

victoriakmartin

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 18, 2012
Messages
328
Reaction score
22
Location
Ottawa
Website
www.victoriakmartin.com
I've got four MCs in mine, off-hand I can think of 2 major supporting characters (I'm in the middle of revising between what I call draft 1.0 and 1.5, the latter of which involved one completely new MC while another supporting character was upgrading to MC). There are a handful of other characters as well, obviously, though most of them are not incredibly well-defined at this point in time. I don't see the main cast getting beyond 10 though, at least not if I can help it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.