• Basic Writing questions is not a crit forum. All crits belong in Share Your Work

Cast of Characters: Main and Support

Joined
Nov 8, 2017
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Location
Someplace in Florida
Ah, hello everybody. It's been a while since I posted anything on here: I've been busy with both life and my writing, the latter being the reason why I'm posting my own thread. This inquiry has likely been asked before, but I felt the need to start my own because, tbh, this is one of the problems holding me back.

From a reading standpoint, I love stories that involve Loads and Loads of Characters: from the Redwall series to the Alien Chronicles (the one starring Kitty Katt, not Ellen Ripley) to the Homestuck webcomic, I'm drawn to large casts, mostly due to the variety of personality, character growth, relationships, and the network of talents such a large group of people can offer to the plot. I think this started way back when I was little and saw a movie that had a big cast and pulled it off to awesome effect, becoming a family unit surviving on their own. And so I thought, "If they say right what you like/know, why can't I pull off a story with a big cast?"

I've got a cast of main characters and their supporting cast, that's not the part that's plaguing me: I am really good at character creation. My problem, unfortunately, is that I don't know how to apply those characters to the plot I've crafted. I mean, I know who they all are, I gave them all names and ages and talents, I know their relationships with one another, I know where they live (Setting and Antagonist have already been figured out; they were the first things that I focused on going into this idea), and I know their likes and dislikes.

But what I don't know is how to manage all 30 of them :( My sister says it's because that that's way too many for a main/supporting cast and maybe she's right, but I love all of them and I don't want to cut them out of the story. 16 of those 30 are the Main Characters, who most definitely can't be cut out of the story. The rest are the Support, who range from family members and best friends who stick by their loved ones amid a crisis to public officials who get sucked up into the events kicked off by the Inciting Event, including military (the knowledge of which I only know through movies and NCIS, hoo boy).

I...need help :( Does anyone know any Cast Management techniques? Am I in over my head?
 

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
12,979
Reaction score
4,522
Location
USA
Website
brightdreamersbookreviews.blogspot.com
You can have the greatest characters in the world, but unless they're doing something to interest the audience, nobody will care - and if nobody reads them, your characters will never live. (I'm sure there are a few authors who can get away with nothing but characters. There are also people who can swallow sharp objects without harm, and people who can lift trucks with their teeth. Odds are that, good as you think you are, you're not one of them, at least not yet.)

30 is an awful lot of characters, even for a doorstopper novel. Even 16 might be pushing it, if there are so many and they're so tangled you can't find a plot through them. The phrase "kill your darlings" probably applies. (You may have an easier time if you consider it "cryonically suspend your darlings"; set them aside until you find another story for them.) Try to pick out one or two characters or character clusters (three or four max, if this is your first go at writing a novel) to focus on; these are the ones most integral to the story, the ones with the most dynamic changes, the ones with the best viewpoints of the action. Let the rest fade into the background, at least until you get a first draft done. Once you understand your story better - which requires some semblance of a plot, which may take a draft or two to discover - you can better judge who "lives" and who "goes off to a story farm where they can live wild and free."

Good luck!

(ETA - A little off the character topic, but on your comment about not knowing much about the military while planning to utilize it in your story: you can get away with sketchy info on military and such for the first draft or so, but you will definitely want to do more research if you plan to finish and market, even self-publish. Watching movies and TV can get you started, but don't mistake scripted action for the real deal. More knowledge will also have the benefit of opening new plot options.)
 
Last edited:

sideshowdarb

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 15, 2017
Messages
352
Reaction score
73
I'm a pantser, so I don't know I need a character until I need one. A scene requires them, an element of the plot, etc. So that's how they generally come to me. I would say for you, try and determine who is essential to the story. Why is the character necessary to the scene or plot/thread? What function or role do they play? You may find a lot of redundancies. I sometimes do, and will combine characters or eliminate them. Have you finished the book? An outline? Write through, and you'll have a better idea of your story and its needs.

Best of luck with your writing!
 

The Urban Spaceman

Existential quandary
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 22, 2017
Messages
1,013
Reaction score
144
Website
theurbanspaceman.net
I...need help :( Does anyone know any Cast Management techniques?

Murder them. A large cast may work well in a long-running TV series like Lost or Once Upon a Time, but even in a long-running book series, it's extremely difficult. If you're into fantasy and want to read authors who include a workable number of interesting characters, check out Terry Pratchett and Tad Williams.

If you want an example of why a large cast doesn't work very well in literature, read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.

As someone who would also add 'realistic character creation' to one of their strongest writing skills, I can tell you that I would much rather read (and write) a story about a half-dozen fascinating characters, than a story involving thirty of them; no matter how well-fleshed out they are. It's a book I'm just not picking up, sorry.
 
Last edited:

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,584
Reaction score
1,412
Location
The land from whence the shadows fall
Website
www.sunyidean.com
I would put some aside. Have a pool of characters off-screen and whenever you need one, dip into them. Unless your book is mammoth in length or very meandering, it will be a struggle to fit them all in as major players.

Storywise, consider the roles you need. No story "needs" 30 or "needs" 16 unless you make it so; the story is not a thing outside yourself exerting demands. You make demands on it ;-)


I've briefly betaread a MS with 45 MC as separate povs. That's more than yours, in fairness, but... it didn't work.
 

mccardey

Self-Ban
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
19,214
Reaction score
15,830
Location
Australia.
Merge. I would merge them. Give them more than one bucket to carry. Make them work harder.
 

The Urban Spaceman

Existential quandary
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 22, 2017
Messages
1,013
Reaction score
144
Website
theurbanspaceman.net
Merge. I would merge them. Give them more than one bucket to carry. Make them work harder.

I love that idea, and imagine it would make an awesome writing prompt. "Here's a list of 30 characters, merge three of them together into one". — She's a twenty-six year old American football player who lost her parents and her pet cat in a tragic biplane accident during a WWI-era airshow

:roll:
 

Quinn_Inuit

Not a real eskimo
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
938
Reaction score
110
Age
44
Location
DC area
Website
www.steve-quinn.net
One other thing to consider is that you've got a limited amount of space to handle everything: setting, plot, characters, etc. Just the character development for thirty characters would take several hundred thousand words, IMO. And if they don't develop, that initial awesomeness is going to wear away fast.
 

Lakey

professional dilettante
Staff member
Super Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Messages
2,714
Reaction score
3,968
Location
New England
Merge. I would merge them. Give them more than one bucket to carry. Make them work harder.

I agree with this. I had always read about merging characters as a common type of revision that people do when they are revising novels or screenplays. And I found, as my own novel has developed, that it’s become a neat way to tighten up the story and ratchet up the stakes.
 

Lady Ice

Makes useful distinctions
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 11, 2009
Messages
4,776
Reaction score
417
Merge or cut/put them into another story. Unless you're writing a soap, I doubt that you need that many characters. Focus on having fewer but more interesting/well-written characters.

It's like if you went to a party. If I introduced you to thirty different people, you'd find it a bit of a slog to remember all of them and their names.
 

Atlantic12

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 1, 2017
Messages
573
Reaction score
77
Location
Both sides of the Atlantic
If you walk into a room and there are 30 people, are you going to get comfortable with all of them all at once, or are you more likely to seek out a smaller group to mingle with? A smaller group is more intimate in real life and in the world of a story. 16 main characters is just a bunch of people stepping on each other's stories. But 1 - 5 main characters (and 5 is pushing it!) gives the reader the chance to get to know them. Isn't that what you want, since you love them? Once you narrow down the characters, the plot and everything else becomes more manageable and powerful. Save the discarded characters for other stories. They'll be there for you when you need them.
 

Hbooks

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 18, 2011
Messages
558
Reaction score
72
Merge some of them, save others if you plan to make it a series, or save them for another novel. Use only the number your narrative naturally needs. If you try to force extras in just so they can appear, it will read as forced.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2017
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Location
Someplace in Florida
Wow, so many... Ah, hang on, let me try it this way:

Brightdreamer
Research is probably a good idea: I have several info sites related to location and military already saved, plus some Wiki articles.

The story itself is a Chosen One-type story with a Theme to its Chosen (pardon my capitalization). I feel shy admitting what that Theme is just yet, but I enjoyed fleshing it out and applying it to my characters. Maybe some of them do need to go to the Story Farm, I just don't know who needs to just yet...

That being said, would assigning each character an Important Plot Duty help with management?


sideshowdarb
I've got an outline of the first two books, actually. I'm hoping to increase that number, but I think focusing on finishing the first will be important for focus.


The Urban Spaceman
There's actually going to be some character death in the story; I kind of surprised myself, since I don't like killing a character unless they're the Antagonist.

“adds names/titles to Shopping List” I love books, so I'll very likely hunt these down. Thank you ^_^


Harlequin
Wow O_O

The Character Pool is a good idea. I think I'll use it :)


mccardy/Lakey/Lady Ice/Hbooks
I think I'll have to...


Quinn_Inuit
I was thinking that character development would take place over the course of the series (and this is a series, just don't know how long it's gonna be). I've seen it done before and I wanna follow suit. It's one of the things that captivated me about series stories, watching the characters evolve before your eyes.


Atlantic12
I remember all my classes in school and, while my memory is iffy in regards to some classmates, I remember just as many. Heck, a large majority of my characters are based off my old classmates. I liked each class for its different blend of kids (even if some of said kids would call me names and poke me with pencils) and books are kind of the same thing, if you stop and think about it.

Still, I think maybe you're right....
 

sohalt

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
1,725
Reaction score
392
Location
Austria
Website
notsosilentsister.tumblr.com
I love huge ensembles. I don't even mind if you can't tell who's the main character or if there's a whole chapter in the middle solely devoted to a minor character, who's later only mentionned again once in passing. I'm not a terribly typical reader, I'm afraid.

Generally, people will always suggest paring it down. Here's what I've found about writers who do get away with large ensembles (more or less; think Dickens, Hugo, Tolstoi):

There is a pretty clear hiearchy between main and support, with regard to the amount of lines devoted to each. Main characters' development must not suffer from trying to set up too many side characters. (In the examples given, that's also achieved through increasing the total amount of lines by writing doorstopper novels).

Making side characters memorable without giving them a lot of space is an art form. They usually can't be as psychologically well-rounded and nuanced as the main characters, but they shouldn't be entirely cardboard and interchangable either. One of Dicken's tricks is using quirks and catchphrases. (G.R.R. Martin does it too, come to think of it. "You know nothing Jon Snow"). It's one of these writerly short-cuts that reviewers like to make fun of quite a bit, but I'd say it works. The quicker the sketch, the more like a cartoon, so that's a danger to keep an eye on. But I'd say you can always complicate those first impressions later; there's some wisdom in focusing first on making side characters stick in your reader's mind.

You can't introduce all 30 charcters at once. How these introductions are set up will also be crucial for keeping your readers on board. The safest way to do it seems to be to get readers properly invested in a couple of main characters first and than gradually expand. Whenever you introduce new ones, make sure they immediately get to interact with a character the reader's already invested in. (This might be one of the reasons, why the Ironborn chapters in A Song of Ice and Fire worked better for me than Dorne. Both settings don't appear in the first novel, and on paper, the Ironborn are mostly horrid, and much about Dorn is pretty cool. But the Iron Isles are shown to us through the eyes of Theon, who's also pretty horrid, but already somewhat established in the first book and has strong ties to the Starks, so it's easier to see how that's going to tie into the main storyline. With Dorne, it just took way too long in the books until any of it properly affected any of the characters we were already invested in).

Most importantly: it doesn't all have to be on the page to have its effect. It's great if you know the favourite ice cream flavour of all your characters, their worst nightmare and first pet. But you don't always have to display that deep knowledge explicitely. A writer should always know more than what makes it onto the page. Trust that your knowledge will somehow seep through anyway. Save the navel-gazing and endless soul-searching for your mains. With your support characters, a tantalizing glimpse into their inner abys here or there will have to do. Preserve a bit of mystery, just hint that there might be more than meets the eye. (Often, that's why a certain kind of reader tends to latch onto the minor characters way harder anyway).
 
Last edited:

BethS

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 21, 2005
Messages
11,708
Reaction score
1,763
I...need help :( Does anyone know any Cast Management techniques? Am I in over my head?

This advice probably comes too late, but maybe try not creating characters until the story calls for their creation. Start with a few characters, the fewer the better, in your opening scenes and then add more on an as-needed basis.

Since you've already created a large cast, they'll just have to wait in the wings until their moment to walk on stage. Which may never come, for some of them.
 

mrsmig

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Messages
9,885
Reaction score
7,179
Location
Virginia
I may be wrong, but your process sounds more like someone creating a game than someone writing a book. Seems to me you've gotten bogged down in the planning stage and it's keeping you from actually writing. Outlines and character creation and world-building are all fine in their place, but don't let that be your focus - which should be words on the page.
 

Twick

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 16, 2014
Messages
3,291
Reaction score
715
Location
Canada
I agree that you're starting from the wrong end, more like you're doing character sheets for Dungeons and Dragons. It's not a bad thing to have a background cast of characters you can call when needed. But I think you're falling so in love with your characters that you're trying to make the plot serve them, not them serve the plot.

Stick with your plot. Add characters only when needed. And if the coolest of the bunch never gets included? Maybe s/he needs a book of his/her own.
 

Layla Nahar

Seashell Seller
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 6, 2007
Messages
7,655
Reaction score
913
Location
Seashore
A story is a series of events related by cause/effect (one event leads to the next) in which a person deals with a problem and attains (or fails to attain) a 'visible goal' - that is, an action that you could film on camera - maybe you save the world by dropping the Ring into the cracks of Mt Doom, or maybe you are the first person in your family to go to college, so the visible goal would be sitting down to attend your first lecture, or it might be signing a lease if you've been homeless.

Who is your MC? What does your MC want? Who or what stands in his/her way?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 8, 2017
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Location
Someplace in Florida
sohalt
Holy Cow, I need to write all this down :heart:

BethS/Twick
I'm actually tweaking my plot around a little bit: thinking long and hard about the suggestions made on this thread. They got me to fire up my noggin' for a change and I think I've found a way to cut back on character stressors. That being said, there's probably a lot more tweaking to go.

mrsmig
That is my biggest problem, yes. I'm trying to improve, but it's hard. Some of my ideas go onto the page super easy, usually when I'm writing something off the seat of my pants. But for the big stuff, I have to plan.

Layla Nahar
Noted.
Ah, do you want me to actually answer those questions for you? Here?
 
Last edited:

Layla Nahar

Seashell Seller
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 6, 2007
Messages
7,655
Reaction score
913
Location
Seashore
No. But if you know those things, how is your story coming along?
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,083
Reaction score
10,783
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
When you say thirty characters, do you mean thirty viewpoint characters, or characters who will be focal in some of your novel's scenes--characters with complex and detailed arcs that drive the overall plot? If so, I'd say that does sound like rather a lot, even for an epic trilogy. GRRM is the closest I can think of to this approach. Some love it, but others think it's a hot mess or are frustrated with switching focus every chapter (or scene) and not getting back to a given character for many more. It certainly does lend itself well to television. I don't know if even GRRM has thirty viewpoint characters, though. Not in any one of his books, certainly.

If you just mean thirty characters who are named and interact with a smaller group of viewpoint characters in important ways that help move the story forward, then no, I don't think that's an excessive number. It often goes higher in the novels I've read.

I do feel that every character, from the briefest of unnamed walk ons to the central protagonist(s), should bring something to the story. In the case of casual, one off "spear carrier" types, it could simply be giving the reader a glimpse of the world and how it works, but for named characters who interact with the main characters multiple times in the story, I think they should impact the story in a deeper way. And characters with names should be memorable, as in impacting the viewpoint character(s) in a way that predisposes the reader to remember their names and significance when they pop up throughout the story.

I've read a number of epic fantasies where I mix up two relatively minor characters, or forget what one or another did earlier in the tale, so when they show up again I have to flip back through the book (easier with word search feature in e books) or keep reading and hope my memory gets jogged. It's not necessarily a deal breaker if I'm otherwise caught up in the story, but if it happens too often, it can be.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 8, 2017
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Location
Someplace in Florida
Laylar Nahar
Well, the good news is that the tweaks that I mentioned have opened up a new avenue in terms of plot flow. It might even become easier to write. I need to experiment with it a bit more before I can be sure, though, which means more writing.

Roxxsmom
I've been thinking about following everyone's suggestions: merging some characters together and assigning important plot duties to others. I'm hoping that it will make things even easier in terms of management.
 

Curlz

cutsie-pie
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 5, 2016
Messages
2,213
Reaction score
382
Location
here
Does anyone know any Cast Management techniques?
Yeah - give each one a part in your story ;). If you have invented a character who is a baker, then you make somebody enter a bakery for some reason. Maybe the baker has something the other character needs, like really yummy brownies! If you have invented a character who is tall, dark and handsome, make them somebody's secret crush (maybe the baker's :e2brows:) And so on and so forth :e2bouncey
 

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,727
Reaction score
9,711
Location
USA
I...need help :( Does anyone know any Cast Management techniques? Am I in over my head?

No, I don't know cast management techniques. I love my characters, too.

But since I have a different thing to offer than what you've seen so far, I'll pipe up here with a tangent to your problem. I've personally referred to information online, about the numbers, in order to see how my story compares (it is average on every metric at the link).

The link below provides an analysis of the number of speaking characters in fantasy fictions. (It also provides an analysis of other qualities of dialog, like utterance length.)

From 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?)

That may or may not be useful but seems tangentially related to the topic. I think I have 27 named characters, but only 3 or 4 who are main plot-drivers, another ~9 - 10 who are secondary, and maybe 14 -15 who are very minor indeed (a small boy who says a few things, a neighbor, a hired hand, a shop owner, each of these have hardly anything to say, though. etc.)

30 MCs sounds like a lot (for MCs) but not too OTT for an entire cast. Maybe make a card for each character and divide them into three piles - Yes, No, and Maybe. Then among the Yes's, see which combo's have built in tension. I was surprised to see tension between one of my MCs and a secondary character that is similar to his mom, who he hates. I didn't expect it, but then when they started arguing I realized it made sense. See if some of your characters have qualities that would push buttons of other characters.
 
Last edited: