Number of characters / Character drop-offs

More characters can cause a tangle in some reader's minds - but if you handle it well you should be fine.

My second book had a lot of characters, and were in categories similar to yours. I did have to pay special attention to be sure characters knew what they needed to know when they needed it... and that they didn't receive that information more than once. For me, it presented an organizational challenge. The book is published and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on it... but it certainly was a learning experience. My WIP starts out with a lot of characters, but they die off over time. I think I'm doing a better job with the multiple character thing this time.

I hope.

How long is a piece of string?

If it's well written and interesting it doesn't matter how many characters there are.

I think the question here is rather: how do you present it so that these four and these nine characters in categories one and two are the ones that need to be kept in mind. Gimmicks help here I think. Dissimilar names are a given, but also giving peculiar characteristics. I usually have troubles with books that have more than ten named characters if the characters don't have an instantly recognizable thing that the reader is reminded of when the character comes to view or speaks.

Bufty said:

If it's well written and interesting it doesn't matter how many characters there are.

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Totally agree with this.

As a reader, I get apprehensive if there is a huge roster and all the names start with the same letter - BUT - if the characters are strongly developed, I'll keep reading and enjoy myself.

I don't think it's that bad, especially if you don't introduce them all at once. Put more empathizes on the people who matter, those first two blocks, then barely even talk about the others. If you don't give them any mind, the reader won't either.

I've added so many characters in my novels who are rarely brought up again. Do you name the unremarkable ones? I'm thinking they're like the baker down the road, the guard who patrols at night, witnesses to a crime who statements are checked and they are never thought of again. Are these the kind of cast players you're talking about?

There are some great break downs of different novel metrics at the link below, and at related posts at the link.

This guy has written algorithms to analyze all sorts of details in fantasy fiction. Historical thriller is sort - of similar in feel so I bet the numbers are going to be close too. Short answer: sounds like you are squarely in the right ballpark.

Link: http://creativityhacker.ca/2013/07/05/analyzing-dialogue-lengths-in-fantasy-fiction/

Speaking Characters: Another dimension in which these titles varied dramatically was the number of characters who are given speaking roles. This was counted by examining the speech attribution tags themselves. Any dialogue passage that ended with “said Xxxx,” or “Xxxx said” after the closing quote was considered to be a direct dialogue attribution, and if ‘Xxxx’ was capitalized, it was assumed to be attributed to the name of a character. By collecting and counting all of these occurrences, the analysis tool was able to give an approximate count of the characters with speaking roles. Obviously, any character who only ever “whined,” “barked,” “demanded” or even “asked,” but never actually “said” anything, would not be counted. The other cause for imprecision was double counting. No attempt was made to merge attributions for two labels that were in fact the same character. So, Strider and Aragorn, for example, were counted as distinct characters.

Given these caveats, I was nevertheless surprised to see such a broad range of cast sizes in this group. The smallest chorus of characters was found in The Wizard of Earthsea, with only 7 speaking roles, though it is probably no surprise at all that The Lord of the Rings set the bedlam standard with 76 distinct voices. (One day, I’ll have to compare it to A Song of Ice and Fire, just to see who has the larger cast of voices.) The average number across the complete collection was 24 speaking roles, and the median was 18. So my slight concern that Strange Places might have more voiced characters than normal is shown to be completely groundless. (Funny how we can obsess about minutiae, isn’t it?)

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A couple of things jumped out at me:

ecerberus said:

Type 1: Main characters, appear in most chapters = 4; readers need to know them intimately

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Are these POV characters? How do you handle the transitions between their POVs?

After around 55% of the book, the characters dwindle and the story focuses on a smaller set. That's because the story moves to a narrow "quest"

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So most of these characters are front loaded? If so, that might create some problems with overwhelming the reader at the beginning.

A good exercise might be thinking about how the story would flow if you didn't actually present the character. Would the story be essentially the same if, say, Alexander and Ptolemy were only talked about?

Keep in mind - You already have the other POVs in our working knowledge. (I know what Henry VIII thinks about things.) I am guessing your MC is fictional and observing/interacting/driving events.

It might be interesting to see other POVs, but it seems you have this particular tool (of other POVs) in your box already because of the genre....

One of my big complaints with a lot of recent fiction is that the core cast appear to inhabit a very underpopulated world that consists almost exclusively of themselves and a few nameless functionaries.

That's not what my real world is like, mostly -- I know the names of my close friends and family, who would be core characters of my life story -- but I also know a lot of other people, many by name, who float in and out of my self-story (the people at my current job, the people at each of my previous jobs, the people from all the schools I attended, the people from writers groups and book clubs and listservs), or have important roles in defined sections of my life (the people at the auto shop, the people at my favorite cafes, the cleaners, the furnace guys, the handyman, etc). And I am a pretty extreme introvert with a pretty narrow circle of acquaintance. Most people know lots of people, and deal regularly with even more. The world is well-populated! And because everybody's circle is different, the populated world has messy edges that extent out and out and out.

And a glance at any thorough biography or memoir will show that this has always been true of people who lead interesting lives. Their lives and activities mostly involve interacting with a lot of other people (some more intensely than others, of course). Their worlds are well-populated too. Some of them very densely so.

On the other hand, it seems increasingly common in fiction that there's almost no one there outside the center of the story. The cast is cut down to the barest minimum. This creates a sense of isolation, even claustrophobia. Sometimes this is what the story needs. But sometimes it's just a byproduct of this reluctance to burden readers with the presence of additional characters because the readers, poor dears, may possibly be confused or annoyed to have to notice more than three or four people in the fictional room.

Most of the characters in a well-populated world will not, of course, be POV characters. But that shouldn't erase them from your fiction.

-- signed, a firm believer in big-ass casts of characters

Aw, I just fell a little bit in love.

I have plenty of characters too. My main characters don't stay in a place, and I am writing the history of groups So yes, it is the same for me.

Game of Thrones has lots of characters are that's phenomenonly popular. As long as characters serve a clear purpose and you don't have too many samey names- Tim and Tom- unless there is a specific reason (like them being twins), you'll be fine.