Is 10 too many? [# of characters]

Is this a story of a two or more factions or families vying against each other? That kind of story does often have a lot of characters. They can be very funny too. The Hallelujah Trail is an example. Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother is another example.

Or, is it a story where a main character and possibly one or two companions encounters a sequence of obstacle characters who test the main character in various ways? That kind of story can also have many characters and be funny. Jim Henson's Labyrinth is an example.

Or maybe it's a sitcom or comedy of manners with love triangle on top of love triangle plus lots of interfering parents, siblings, and friends? That could be funny and require a lot of characters. Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, particularly the Kenneth Branaugh movie version, is an example.

It's not the number of characters - it's how you structure the story. Of course, more characters means a larger cast, more scheduling, higher budget, blah blah blah... but in terms of story flow - it's about making the story, or STORIES distinct.

Is it warring 'factions'? Okay, we know the five people on this side, and the five people on that side - so really - it's only two characters - the opposing 'sides' that you're writing about. Each 'team' has a number of players - but the audience understand's that the STORY follows the dynamics of each side. So when a 'player' is on screen - we know who and what their motivations are.

Is it a POV series? Perhaps there is ONE EVENT taking place. A disaster for example. The ship has overturned, the invasion has begun, the building is on fire. Then the story moves from group to group, to show THEIR point of view on how they are dealing with the disaster. THIS team is trying to climb out a window. THIS team is trapped in a stairwell. THIS team is on the rooftop, trying to start the helicopter. Again - the story is CLEAR. Get out of the building - survive the earthquake - whatever. And we are simply jumping from point of view to point of view. The motives are clear.

Is it a VARIATION on a theme? This is handled brilliantly in "Love Actually". There are a series of interlocking stories. Each story examines the THEME of the film, in this case, the nature of Love and Relationships. We see how it works with the Prime Minister and the Clerk, with the Young Boy and his School Girl Crush, the Married Couple and the Affair, the Desperate Single off in the Strange Land, The Best Man's Crush on the Bride... Each relationship is a self contained story. The screenwriter and director deftly weave the stories into a single tapestry, with the barest hint of connections between the characters. This is the most challenging, and most rewarding of the 'multiple character, multiple story' constructs.

There IS economy in time and budget to be had in smaller casts. Sometimes you'll see production companies explicitly looking for "Low budget comedy, no more than five characters, three locations" for example. That's the sort of thing one usually sets out to write with the budget in mind - if YOUR story is a ranging multi-character epic - then write it. If it's good, it'll get some heat.

Write on.

WriteKnight said:

Okay, we know the five people on this side, and the five people on that side - so really - it's only two characters

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You could also do it the Ocean's 11 way. Where most of the characters basically assist the main ones.

gettingby said:

I finally started writing my screenplay. I really don't know what I am doing, but I am just trying to have fun with it for now. It is a funny story, and it is cracking me up to write it.

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If you're just doing it for fun and you're enjoying it, then proceed. At some point in the future, once you have an entire draft, maybe you'll reduce/combine some characters if necessary/helpful.

gettingby said:

However, I can't help but wonder if I have too many characters. The story revolves around a group of people. Right now that group has 10 very different characters. Is that too many? Or is there a way to do this where it won't be too many?

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I think it's harder to write a brilliant script with ten main characters as opposed to five, because you have to be very tight and concise with your story arcs and execute with precision. So, while ten may not be too many, if you're relatively inexperienced (which I presume when you say "I finally started my screenplay"), it may be wiser to write a script with fewer characters. Then again, you only get experience writing a large ensemble script by actually writing a large ensemble script.

Stephen King tells a great story in "on Writing" how killing half his characters improved his novel "The Stand" immensely.

I'd say finish your rough draft with as many characters as you want...and then trim it down later. (you might find many characters can be combined into one.)

For main characters - my opinion is that 10 exceeds the "limit". I'd say anywhere from 4 to 7 is ideal. In a relatively short time to tell a story (one and a half to two hours), once you exceed 7 people for the audience to enthusiastically keep track of - best of luck.

You can have lots of folks in the script, passing-through types. Yet I've found, in the scripts I've written, 5 or 6 biggies. Not much different with novels.