How big is your cast?

1 MC, 1 Secondary with about 10% POV time
2 antagonists
7 supporting with one pulling some antagonist duties

Hmm Let's see.

2 protag MCs, 1 secondary protag, 1 antag MC, 1 secondary antag, and a bunch of supporting characters.

And this is just one of my WIPs.

1 MC, tight third person.
His parents, sister, brothers and foster brother
The FMC and 3 characters associated with her.
1 other medium character with lines in several chapters.
10 or so other supporting characters with lines.
3 or 4 antagonist characters.
4 or 5 walk-ons.
Servants, soldiers and functionaries

I have a MC, a side kick, two antagonists, maybe five reoccurring background characters, and a dog.

25 named characters, including the main character, his sidekick, about 4 antagonists, and various other people who wander in. I'm thinking of adding a cat and a dog, too.

You guys probably think I was kidding, or making a joke, when I said my story has 42 characters.

I'm not.

I'm writing about a society of some half-million people, who are for the most part at odds with not only one another, but their situation.

To be more specific, of those 42 characters, one is the main, half a dozen are supporting protagonists, half a dozen are antagonists, and the rest have names because it's easier to do that than to continually say stuff like "the big male, the one with the cauliflower ear" every time he shows up.

To be more general, the story involves some thousands of extras who wriggle in and out of various scenes much like the crowds at the mall. They are, in some ways, as important if not more so, than many of the named characters.

1 MC, 3 secondary characters and then a bunch of little extras here and there. The second one I just started is all over the place, lol.

GRRM's ASOIAF has over 300 characters... so there's a top end number.

1 MC, 5-7 supporting cast, and 7-10 uncredited extras.

It must be the genre. I'm seeing a lot of writers here using a large cast. I go anywhere else and people start making dire predictions because they think I have too many characters.

Our books tend to be big and frequently involve whole nations and several different civilisations (if not several different planets).

It's not just us - epic-level stuff in the Historical section tends to have large casts as well - but we are sort of known for it.

Let's see... two MCs, a handful of supporting characters and a rapidly dwindling number of named but not ultimately important people... but there's reinforcements to the latter camp inbound soon, so I don't think I run the risk of running out. If I do, I'll turn my sights on the slightly more important ones...

3 MCs and 11 secondaries, some of whom have bigger parts than others and 2 who have their own subplots.

Plus a supporting cast of thousands whose job is mainly to die in battle.

An interesting exercise;

9 Major Characters (including 3 potential antagonists),
8 Minor Characters,
4 Bit players (named characters that pop up for a couple of chapters then vanish again)
10 Unnamed characters, such as soldiers, guards, cartographers, Noblemen, etc... that the MajC and MinC have dialogue with. I use these alot.
... and a dog

Aiming at 100,000 words and it is a one off novel, so I may have too many characters. For me the challenge is;
- to slowly introduce the characters, (human brains can only take so many characters at once)
- making them memorable once introduced
- not putting too many words between a character and when they next appear (so that you do not go 'Who?')
- killing them off quickly enough
- tight control of word usage and descriptions

... anyway... I probably have it all wrong... and too many characters...

1 MC, three supporting characters and two antagonists. Apart from little bit-parts, those are the main cast.

Linda Adams said:

25 named characters, including the main character, his sidekick, about 4 antagonists, and various other people who wander in. I'm thinking of adding a cat and a dog, too.

Click to expand...

Pthom said:

You guys probably think I was kidding, or making a joke, when I said my story has 42 characters.

I'm not.

I'm writing about a society of some half-million people, who are for the most part at odds with not only one another, but their situation.

To be more specific, of those 42 characters, one is the main, half a dozen are supporting protagonists, half a dozen are antagonists, and the rest have names because it's easier to do that than to continually say stuff like "the big male, the one with the cauliflower ear" every time he shows up.

To be more general, the story involves some thousands of extras who wriggle in and out of various scenes much like the crowds at the mall. They are, in some ways, as important if not more so, than many of the named characters.

Click to expand...

I am not alone! *wipes tears*


I have many characters in my epic fantasy series. Seeing y'all's post makes me feel so much better!

Fantasy writers have rights! As ClareGreen said,we are about serious business here! Plus,I am just plain old yappy.

Coco82 said:

Currently I total I have 31, counting MCs, secondary, and small walk ons. I assume it'll get more, but hopefully not too many more.

Click to expand...

Two MCs, six or seven secondary characters, an unknown amount of orphans and Three side characters.

I can't even give exact numbers. Of my Shadow of the Revenaunt-series (2 books published <in Dutch>, 3rd to appear 2013, 4th and 5th partly done) I've some ten to twelve main characters and several hundred named characters (regulars and extra's).
My Scarfar Saga w.i.p. has a.t.m. some 6 main characters and over 50 others.
Both are epic tales, spanning large area's and several peoples.

I'm actually wondering if my cast is too small for a heroic fantasy. (It eventually morphs into an epic.) Two MCs (dual POV), one ally turned antagonist, one antagonist turned ally, four major supporting characters, five named characters that appear in one or two scenes at most, and...I dunno, maybe ten other characters with lines. I'm not counting the unnamed characters who die in the same scenes in which they're introduced.

3 MCs
1 main antagonist (although 1 MC is an antagonist to another so 2)
10 supportive ( 7 now as three are dead.)
About 15 extras at present.
Many more mentioned but never seen.

Not forgetting two dogs one of which is beaten to death with a rock (In self defence.)

Let me think...
2 main characters.
6 antagonist.
20 supporting.
And 16 extras.
Is that an okay cast?

Two MC, two antagonists, four supporting characters, and six side characters

Lets see, my current story that I've been working on for the past month:
2 MC
5 supporting characters.
2 villians
5 supporting characters for villian
20+ other characters with names so far.

Last WIP:

1 MC, 9 Secondary (7 of them die and needed to be replaced...) plus a few one-scene characters.

Current WIP:

1 MC, 1 Secondary (3-4 prospective but not implemented yet) and a few one-scene characters.