by Anne R. Allen
One of my personal writing issues is I tend to pack my books and stories with way too many characters. If a fascinating person walks into one of my stories, I feel it would be rude not to let them join the party. I suppose my inner Manners Doctor takes over. 🙂
This drives my editors batty. They think confusing the reader is worse than being rude to fictional people. And of course they’re right. They usually tell me I need to consolidate minor characters or eliminate them altogether. Someone even told me there’s a “rule” that a novel should have seven characters or less.
I’ve always been annoyed by all this. But this week I saw a thread in a readers’ Facebook group that helped me see the reader’s point of view.
Someone had put up a post saying they hate “when there are a million characters in books and it’s hard to keep track.”
A long thread ensued. Seems a whole lot of readers agreed with her. Many said they have to take notes to tell characters apart. Others brought up a number of books that have “too many” characters. George R.R. Martin got several mentions, and big sagas like The Thorn Birds and Peyton Place. British mysteries and 19th century novels were the biggest culprits. Especially the Russians, who not only have too many characters, but each character has too many names.
Strangely, most of the readers said they liked those books anyway, even though they have to take notes to keep the characters straight.
So I don’t think the problem is too many characters as much as it is too many confusing characters.
In the drive to make books more readable, we have made books less complex and less populated. That can be a good thing when you’re writing spare, literary stories, but there are readers out here who still love to get lost in a big family saga, complex mystery, or epic fantasy. By definition, these books need lots of characters.
So how do you keep your readers from getting confused by all those people?
1) Make Characters Vivid When You Introduce Them
Let us see characters when you introduce them. (And don’t introduce them all at once!)
Two men arrived to take Lulu to the mysterious meeting
The taller man offered her his hand, which was adorned with a large spider tattoo.“I’m Stanislaus,” he said. His handshake was firm, but not too squeezy.
“And I’m Hamish.” The other man offered his hand too. Hamish couldn’t have been more than 5’5” and had a head of unruly red hair that would make Bozo the clown jealous.
Whenever a spider tattoo or Bozo red hair appear in the action, the reader will remember them.
How not to introduce them:
Stanislaus was six foot three, with brown eyes and hair. Tattoo of a spider on his right hand. When he was seven years old, his Aunt Hilda died of a spider bite. One early spring morning, Aunt Hilda took the old GMC pick-up to town to buy ingredients for her beebleberry cobbler, and one of the spiders who had been nesting in the engine all winter….
In other words, don’t give us backstory that will take us out of the main storyline or a police-report description of height, weight, and eye color. Just give a memorable couple of things to identify the character, introduced as part of the action.
Also, don’t wait until Chapter Ten to mention what a character looks like. As one reader said in the same Facebook group, “When a book does not adequately describe a character, you just fill in the blanks. But later you actually get a description and you want to shout, ‘Wrong! You had your chance and now you are wrong.’ “
2) Don’t Name “Spear Carriers”
Incidental characters don’t need names. If Stanislaus and Hamish drive Lucy to the mysterious meeting and never reappear, they only need to be called “the driver and his henchperson.” They don’t need names, and we don’t need to know anything about them.
Ditto the pizza delivery guy, the teller at the bank, or the barista at the coffee shop. If their only job in the book is to deliver pizza, cash that iffy check, or make a heart in the foam of the hero’s latte, and they never re-enter the story, they don’t need names. Even if the guy delivers pizza four or five times, if he doesn’t do anything relevant to the story—he’s a no-name pizza guy.
Unless, of course you want pizza guy to be a suspect in a murder investigation. Then you’ve got to give him a name and backstory, and get people wondering why he always delivers an anchovy pizza instead of what people ordered.
But each named character should be essential to the plot, and each should have a personal motivation in the story.
3) Don’t Give Your Characters Unpronounceable Names
Several readers in the Facebook group complained bitterly about characters whose names they couldn’t pronounce. Being able to hear names in your head helps you remember them.
Except for Mr. Mister Mxyzptlk in the Superman comics, I don’t think many unpronounceable characters have captured the public’s imagination. (I cringe for that poor child of Elon Musk and Grimes, saddled with an unpronounceable name that looks like one of those super strong passwords you never can remember.) My prediction is that as soon as he’s old enough, he’ll change his name to Jack.
You can use weird made-up names—who can forget Zaphod Beeblebrox? But because that name can be pronounced, I can remember him three decades after I read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
So be as inventive as you like. Just make the name pronounceable.
4) Make Sure the Name fits the Character.
I remember reading a book where I never could remember the villain’s name. It was Larry, but that name so much didn’t fit the character that I couldn’t attach it to him.
Zaphod Beeblebrox is such a perfect name for Douglas Adams’ character that you can’t imagine him having any other. What else would you call a narcissistic, two-headed, intergalactic con man who’s somehow become president of the Universe?
The hero—of sorts—of the Hitchiker’s Guide, is Arthur Dent. Also perfectly named. He’s a very ordinary Englishman padding around in carpet slippers, always looking for a real cup of tea. If he were named Hydrophilius Durdorvian, not only would we confuse him with the aliens around Beeblebrox, but there would be no story.
Arthur Dent’s ordinariness is the very essence of the tale. We’ll never forget his name
5) Don’t Give Too Many Characters Similar Names
This got the most complaints. Two characters whose names start with the same letter is the number one pet peeve of these readers. We learned not to do this this in creative writing 101, but there are a number of things that push us to break the rule.
I sure did when I had two characters named Morgan and Merlin in my Grail Saga novel, The Lady of the Lakewood Diner. There was no way I could change the names of Merlin and Morgan le Fay when I wanted my story to echo the Grail Legend. But I think I made the characters vivid enough that no reader has confused them.
So if you have two sisters named Betti Ball and Bobbi Ball, you need to make sure they are wildly different from each other. Or you might want to rethink, unless the similarity of names is of vital importance to the plot.
The biggest problem the readers complained about was characters who are rivals for a heroine’s hand who are unmemorable because of similar names. If they’re George and Garry, or Jack and John, or Sam and Stan, readers are going to be gritting their teeth—or just stop reading.
Of course, sometimes you want to make characters interchangeable. I solved the problem of Camilla’s interchangeable employees named Jen: she always simply calls them “the Jens.”
6) Avoid Predictable Names, Too
You also want to avoid overused and clichéd names. I read three books in a row last winter who all had a love interest named Jack. I kept confusing them. I’d think, “Wait! he can’t do that. He’s a park ranger.” But then I’d remember that no, Jack the park ranger was in the last book. This was the Jack who owned a limousine company—or was he the detective who’s a Gulf War veteran with PTSD?
Picking generic names from the British Isles often indicates lazy writing. Ask yourself if the names can be more diverse. Could Dick, Jane, and Sally be Dietrich, Josefina, and Soraya? A diverse cast of characters is easier to remember.
A great way to find interesting names is reading baby-naming sites for different countries.
7) Consider Listing a Cast of Characters at the Beginning of the Book.
This was a common practice back in the days of big family sagas. And some authors still do it. I think it helps a lot. All the major characters are listed in the front matter so the reader can flip back to check who’s who if things get too complicated.
I think it’s a practice worth reviving.
8) And Yes, Cut Unnecessary Characters When You Can
I hate doing this. I feel every character I’ve written to be essential to the story. But I usually can find some to eliminate or consolidate if I’m pressured. If the character is really wonderful, I may take out her whole subplot and write her a story (or book) of her own. I did that with Regina, the fat princess in Food of Love. She was originally a character in The Lady of the Lakewood Diner.
It helps to reread the whole manuscript, looking for characters to cut
- Could the heroine’s love interest can have 2 brothers instead of 5?
- Does the scene where Mr. Hot Boss’s old friend shows up at the office dressed as a pirate actually further the plot? Could you sneak in that backstory about how Mr. Hot Boss played Buttercup in his prep school production of H. M. S. Pinafore in another way?
- If two of the heroine’s friends expose dark secrets about Mr. Wonderful at different times in the story, could they be consolidated into one nosy, gossipy friend?
I know it’s hard, but if you’re hearing from beta readers or critiquers that your cast of characters is getting unwieldy, go through the manuscript asking yourself: could somebody else serve this function?
But I like a book with a big, juicy plot and lots of characters, so just keep tabs on them, and I think you’ll survive the “too many characters” police.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) May 17, 2020
What about you, scriveners? Do you have a habit of putting too many characters in your novels? Or are you keeping under the limit of seven? Have you had readers complain that your names are too cliched or too weird? How do you solve the problem of too many characters?
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I too like a small cast of characters in the books I read–and tend to write books with few characters. But I must confess that I like to give my characters unusual. My mom’s ancestors came from Iceland–and I love those names. But I’ve learned to choose ones that are easier to wrap your tongue around. Thank you for this article, Anne.
Leanne–Books with fewer characters lend themselves much better to screenplays, so that’s good. I keep trying to shrink my casts, so I admire you for that. Icelandic names are wonderful. I love it that some surnames come from the mother, not the father.
Icelandic surnames can be rather confusing as children can take either the name of their mother or father and add son or daughter. For example, my surname would be Jamesdottir or if I took my mother’s name Olavdottir. Whereas, my brother Rick’s last name would be Jamesson or Olavson. But your name doesn’t change when you are married. You have your name for life. It makes researching the family tree challenging. Although, when I visited Iceland there many people there to help me. As you can see, I was very pleased by your interest, Anne.
Leanne–I admire the Icelandic culture very much. I hope you’re writing more about it!
Anne—Great post! Been there. Done that. Especially combining characters. Aaaargh.
This is another instance where keeping a style sheet can make a big difference. You will be able to see right away—
If there are too many characters.
If two (or more) characters (or locations) have the same initials or similar (or confusing) names.
Your style sheet will also stop you from confusing yourself. What? You don’t think writers don’t confuse themselves? Ask me how I know.
https://selfpublishingsites.com/2015/09/style-that-doesnt-go-out-of-fashion/
Ruth–I should have included a link to your advice on style sheets! Thanks much. And you’re right. If you see the names listed all in one place, it’s easy to see when there are too many.
Thanks once more, Anne. You’ve prodded me to finally make a change in my WIP that I’ve known needs changing, but have been avoiding.
CS–Good for you! That’s so tough for me. Once characters are on the page, I don’t want to change them.
Anne R. Allen, In every book of my series there are many characters, thank you for the advice!
Marta–You sound like me!
Oh, I’ve suffered from that vice too, Anne – too many characters – in my early books. Now, every character must earn their place, and I am always combining two on rewrites. One naming trick I’d like to add: be careful that your names fit with the times. If you call a gal Mildred, we are going to think she was born in the first half of the last century. Ditto, you wouldn’t call someone born in 1922 ‘Tiffany’. You can instantly place us in a period, or have us imagine the age of the character, but using a name popular in that time period.
Melodie–Oh that is one of my pet peeves! Good reminder. A Baby Boomer named Mildred makes me want to scream. Nobody in my generation was named Mildred. Even worse are the Victorian characters named Crystal or Seth. It’s easy to find lists of most popular baby names for a given year. They help a lot.
I swear by the lists of popular baby names by year!
Liz–Aren’t they great!
I swore by them until I realised that when naming my (far too many) characters with popular names, if they’re all around the same age you’ll essentially be choosing from a very limited pool.
Your article caught my eye as I’m working on a novel which I have asked myself, if I was putting too many characters along with other points I’ll go over in editing my story. Thanks for the info.
JoAnne–It helps to make a list of characters on a style sheet, as Ruth Harris suggests in her comment. When you see page after page of them, you probably have too many.
As an author of science fiction – and a reader of both it and fantasy – I am well aware of difficult to pronounce names. I tried to keep my short, simple, but still alien sounding.
I did have two main characters with names beginning with B in my first book, but that story had been with me for over thirty years and I just couldn’t picture any other names. (I did avoid that issue for my other books though.)
I find writing small casts much harder with mysteries. Red herrings and twists make fewer characters in the story a challenge. Spreading out the introductions seems to help readers. Your 8 points are excellent reminders, and I especially like the cast of characters in front of the book. That’s a brilliant idea!
Marlene–I think that’s why I like to have so many characters. How can you have red herrings and false clues if you only have 7 characters. We’ve got the sleuth, her sidekick, her boyfriend, the dead person, the kid who discovered the body, the policeman, and the murderer. Oh, gee, I wonder who done it? 🙂
As a veteran of too many characters, here’s some additional points:
Number of characters does depend on the genre. An epic fantasy is going to have a lot of characters. Some types of thrillers will, too. For those, you really have to be on the ball about managing them and making them stand out.
Always have a primary main character who the story focuses on. In one of my books, I had four main characters. When it came to write the query and the synopsis, it was ugly. There was no one to focus on, which made it impossible to do either of those without running too long.
For number of characters in a scene, you probably want interaction with only two, maybe three at the max. Any more than that and the characters will start self-editing on their own. It doesn’t mean you can’t have more than that in a scene. You might have one character leave and someone else comes in.
BUT…if anyone follows Story Grid, it is natural for your characters to talk about characters who aren’t there. I was tracking this and found that even though there were two characters in the scene, I might have nine that were referenced as part of the narrative or the dialogue. Like in a crime story, the name of the missing person, who sent the detective, the detective thinks about how his mother would react to this, how does this fit in with what happened to this other person.
Linda–That’s one of the rules I think we all should follow: A novel only has one protagonist. You can have other major characters, but one character’s story arc has to drive the story. I had a book with too many protagonists too. It ended up being two books and a short story. Good point about limiting speakers with dialogue. Shouting matches do not translate well to the page. 🙂
I’m with you about not naming one-time characters, Anne. I think if a reader is introduced to a name it immediately sticks in their brain that the character must have some importance in the story and they have to remember it. As the plot progresses and those characters don’t reappear, the reader subconsciously dismisses characters of importance. That deflates what’s otherwise a good read. At least that’s the way I see it.
Speaking of character names, I think if they’re going to get a handle then the moniker should be fitting. I find potential names in the strangest places – in the news, the obits, on a donor wall plaque in the university and even random ones that jump off the net. When I get a memorable name, I write it in the list at the back of my notebook. I must have 50-60 in the name bank. Here’s a sample of real people I’ve got booked: Melvin Stonebreaker, Lisle Bich, Archie Beeswax, Jennifer Travelbea, Robert Canard (aka Bob Duck), Helen Redwine (actual liquor store clerk), and who wouldn’t want cops named Captain Bobby Superb and Officer Brad Justis 🙂
Garry–I have a list like that too. I love obits for character names. And sometimes spam! I got some great names from spam. One I love is “Zotticus Weatherwax” –he’s got to have his own story sometime.
Great advice as always, Anne. I’ve never heard the 7 character “rule.” While reading your post, I flipped through my mental rolodex to see if I’ve broken it. In my Mayhem Series, I have a larger cast of law enforcement (bigger department than in my other series), but at most I’m teetering on the 7ish line. It’s funny how someone, somewhere, once tossed out a number and now it’s “rule.” 😉
Sue–Yeah. I have no idea where most of these rules come from. But seven is definitely too few for a lot of genres.
Marvelous, brava, brava! At least until you got to number 8, then the crazy talk started… no, you’re absolutely right and I admit it. The dilemma of epic fantasy is that in some way the world is at stake. Pretty much involves a significant proportion of the world’s population!
People have so much going on, and if you have a twenty-character novel, a week’s delay is simply lethal.
I do run with a Glossary in the front or back of my tales, mainly the character names plus a few terms unfamiliar to those in the Alleged Real World. I keep meaning to pursue my genius project of Cast of Character Bookmarks. One per tale, and then the reader has the information right there whenever they pick the book back up. I think it will be better than those old book cards, or even the business card for fairs and other in-person sales.
Will–A glossary really helps. It’s kind of standard in fantasy, but not in other genres, and I think they would be helpful in a big-cast books.
Cast of Characters bookmarks are genius!! Brilliance. I might just steal that!
I have a tendency to kill off characters’ siblings. Nobody wants a bunch of brothers and sisters cluttering up the joint.
Liz–Haha. Yeah, good way to get them out of the way. 🙂
I usually stick to about 4-6 characters for my story. Any more can confuse the heck out of me. Not sure about anyone else, but I have a tendency to fall in love with a character name and just work it to death, much Italian cinema from the 50’s through the 70’s did with a particular genre. I’m currently (HA!) working on a series that will finally finish/kill off a fave character name, Nikia. I have used that name, at last count, for about 5 books/stories, and it’s high time that I find another one to work to death.
GB–You sound very self-disciplined with the number of characters. I do like certain names and tend to overuse them, but usually my critique group lets me know they’re tired of names like “Julie” and “Peter.”
Hooboy, a big issue I wrestle with while mentoring new writers. One actually counted the characters in my opening chapter so she could say, “But you used X number in X book.” True, I had, but the walk-ons (LOL at spear carriers) did their jobs then melted away. My mentee had jumped into the walk-ons’ viewpoints, characterising them instantly. If the butler takes the heroine’s coat and sneers inwardly at her cheap clothing, he becomes a character. Let the heroine notice his sneer and feel inadequate, or comabtive or whatever in her POV and she remains key.
Valerie–You brought up a really important point. If you’re writing in an omniscient voice, be careful not to go into the heads of the minor characters. You can show how somebody feels with the reaction of the major characters as you’ve done here. Thanks!
Excellent advice as always Anne. You covered it well. The problem isn’t too many characters if they are warranted for the story, but not identifying them well enough to leave an impression and visual of the character. Also, head- hopping could become disasterous if characters aren’t properly identified and referred to. 🙂
I agree. Debbie!
Thanks Traci 🙂
DG–You’re so right. As Valerie mentioned above–you really don’t want to hop in and out of the heads of the pizza guy, the bank teller, or the barista. I think this is one of the reasons writing teachers tell newbies not to try the omniscient voice. It seems free-wheeling, but the author needs to be very precise to keep readers from getting confused. It’s easy to show the emotions of the walk-on characters without hopping into their heads.
Absolutely agreed! 🙂
Thanks for another great post. I always appreciate your good examples. I will be going through my manuscript and seeing if I can kill off a few characters. I will be posting your link on my blog.
Rosi–Killing characters can be bittersweet. But a leaner book is usually better. Thanks much for spreading the word!
No handshakes of any kind by men with spider tattoos or red hair or otherwise post Covid, unless your story is set in an alternative world or pre 2020. This is a shame, as it used to offer some insight into a character (in real life or in fiction). We are yet to discover how people interact, how society functions, how offices and other workplaces look, in a post-Covid world. It is going to be very tricky indeed to write believably about the real world, however many or few your characters, and however they are named!
Julia–There’s a lot of talk in the writing community about how much present-moment reality to add to your fiction. It depends a great deal on your genre. If you write cozy mysteries, they tend to exist in a slightly fantastical world, so bringing in dark aspects of our current crisis would be a bad idea. Ditto a lot of romances and rom-coms. If you write up-to-the-minute realistic thrillers or literary fiction, then you might consider adding current political or medical realities. But if you don’t have a crystal ball, you won’t know if what’s true today will be true when your book comes out.
Hi Anne, I enjoyed this article. As a writer of traditional mysteries, I often struggle with the issues you’re talking about. Too few characters, suspects may be eliminated too quickly. Too many=confusion. I’m glad you mentioned reviving the cast of characters tradition. I loved those in the golden age mysteries. How about bringing back the map of the village as well? Thanks for your humor and good advice.
Ann–I love the idea of bringing back the map of the village! Making maps is great fun, too. I think this is a time when a lot of us are turning to mysteries of the golden age, so reviving those things would make many readers grateful, I should think.
Great advice, Anne. Thanks for this.
“When a book does not adequately describe a character, you just fill in the blanks. But later you actually get a description and you want to shout, ‘Wrong! You had your chance and now you are wrong.’ “ Haha – so true.
Number #4 is key for me. Finding the right name is synonymous with finding a character’s voice.
Pity the writers of historical fiction. Hillary Mantel’s “The Mirror & The Light” has about 4000 characters and they are ALL named Henry, Thomas, Richard, Mary, Anne, or Jane! The “Cast of Characters” at the beginning of the book therefore is not much help…Henry…Henry…’nother Henry…’nother one…*sigh*
Helia–I had some disagreeable person on Twitter accuse me of telling authors to change the names of historical figures with this article. The last thing I would do. I’m talking about fictional characters with this advice. Unfortunately real characters do tend to have boring names. I hear you totally about Tudor names: Henry, Henry, Edward, and Henry. 🙂 In Russian novels, they are all named Sergei or Alexei. But no, you can’t change the name of Henry VIII to Justin just because it’s easier to remember. 🙂
All these are such great points to remember. I know that one of my favorite authors begins her books telling about so many characters, I tell myself that, as she continues with the story and fleshing them out, eventually they’ll become “memorable”. But I still hate it.
Your suggestions for making each character memorable in a particular fashion is a great idea and don’t introduce all of them too quickly, because that can be frustrating. Your post is good guide for populating your book appropriately. Thank you, Anne.
Patricia–I read authors like that too. I know I can trust them to flesh out characters later, but I wish I didn’t get them introduced all at once. Populate appropriately! Great phrase.
Oh, I am absolutely struggling with this in my WIP! A dance crew in high school is 10 characters right off the bat, even before bringing in a few love interests and nemeses. I think I will have to have a glossary for them, but the struggle is how many are introduced at once.
Re: naming the barista, henchman, and pizza delivery guy… since it’s high school, what I’m doing is just giving myself three or four names to do all the little things I need done. So the handsy couple interrupting Talks About Feelings also crack jokes, get injured, point out wardrobe malfunctions, and do a bit of helpful gossiping. Hopefully that’ll work better than the myriad occasions when “a random boy” or “a random girl” need to do a bit part in the story.
Irvin–A High School certainly can present you with a lot of characters. It sounds as if you’re “populating appropriately” as Patricia says in her comment. 🙂
Great ideas here! I definitely have a tendency to name spear characters. I will reference this post as I revise my current manuscript 🙂
Deanna–It’s great to know this post will help!
I love my secondary characters! But, I do begrudgingly pare them down. I struggle with the descriptions at introductions, but I am working at that. And the similar name problem? Oh, guilty, as charged. I had twins with K names in one trilogy. Never again. Or, I guess, if I go there again they are each going to have some kind of extreme quirk.
Tyrean–I like those “supporting actors” too. Hard to let them go. I use a kind of style sheet like Ruth, so listing all the characters in one place lets the name similarities stand out.
Ha! “One early spring morning, Aunt Hilda took the old GMC pick-up to town to buy ingredients for her beebleberry cobbler…” 🙂
One of my personal pet peeves is number five. Too many characters AND similar names. Drives me batty and I have to keep flipping back or re-reading sections to see what’s going on. I usually stop reading. It’s not enjoyable for me and life is too short to read books that drive me batty.
Sarah–I’m glad you enjoyed my little funny. I used the name Lulu so I thought beebleberries would be appropriate. 🙂
Yeah. I read slowly, so I’ll read a book over many days. If all the characters mush together in my memory, I’m not going to enjoy finishing the book.
Hi Anne – what an encouraging article! And I love the straightforward steps, too. This will be one I point my authors toward.
As a reader, I like the family saga feel of large casts of characters that span many years – centuries, even. The Lord of the Rings has been sending me to sleep each night for the past few weeks, and I had forgotten about the appendices at the end, which reach waaay back into various paths of lore. When that part arrived last night it was delightful, as the connections fell into place in memory — just like hearing old family stories.
As an editor, the clamoring crowds of characters can be daunting sometimes, and I wish I had a term for character infatuation, like ‘bro-mance’. :O)
I also often encounter lots of characters that haven’t been written to full maturation, they just show up for a particular purpose in scene after scene, to the point that we know what’s next because that character has just entered the scene. Incomplete characters become stunted activators or triggers, and I usually ask which character could be expanded to include this weak character’s purpose.
Glad Ruth added the link about style sheets in her comment – a bit of work that gives some great results, and can also be pretty revealing.
Thanks for your wonderful sharing, as always, spot on!
Maria–The “incomplete” characters can so often be eliminated. As I said, every named character needs a motivation. If your character doesn’t want anything except to deliver a line (or a pizza) then he doesn’t need to have a name and can be part of the setting.
Style sheets are so helpful. When I worked as an editor, I wish I’d asked clients put them together before they sent me a ms. It would make an editor’s job so much easier. And give the writer some insight into problems even before the edit.
Yes, pet hates are people, particularly closely related people or ones we may swap between, sharing the same initial letter.
I have a large cast of characters for my series, thankfully reaching its end. I started including a Cast of Characters at the start at about book 4. Then I moved it to the back of the ebooks, because, you know, Preview. It’s linked in the contents, but who read contents? So I guess my ebook readers find it at the end and wish they’d known sooner. I take the view from Lindsey Davis’s wonderful Falco series, that descriptions should be wry, fanciful and funny.
That’s such an excellent post! I enjoyed your humorous and reasonable approach to character names. Of course, you could have mentioned inserting a blank spreadsheet for some of the Russian classics, where there are SO many characters and they each have 3 or 4 names! Tolstoy and Chekhov come to mind. Thanks again for your insights.
Teach–Thanks! I have definitely wished somebody could show me a spreadsheet with those Russians and their multiple names all mapped out. They are soooo complicated!
A fascinating post, Anne. I gave up on a book recently. It was a fantasy book with a whole load of characters. (I thought the author had read George R.R.Martin and modelled his story on A Song of Ice and Fire.) what was worse was that all the royalty to distant cousins, all had the same pre-fix to their names. I had to keep going back to see who was who–a pain in an ebook!
As to numbers of characters, I have 8 in my first book. One person said they thought two of them felt like make weights. In the second and third of the series I split the group, book 2 following one half and book 3 the other.
I have fewer in my other books, though.
VM–George R.R. Martin has a lot to answer for. He gets away with so much because he’s such a brilliant storyteller. People try to imitate him and end up only copying his flaws, not his genius.
In one book I needed four characters as enemies. They were a group and functioned as such, but needed to be referenced as individuals in the fight scenes. So the narrator gave them their descriptive names: Number One (the leader), Herbie (after the comic book character), Bones, and Blondie. In two separate scenes of physical combat those are the only names they have.
Anne, one thing I really appreciate about your blogs is that it shows me I occasionally do the right thing. I’ve been mining the internet for baby names for years.
Fred–Isn’t it awesome when you find out you’ve been doing things right? 🙂
I tend to exceed the seven character limit too, Anne. Both my current book and the last one have about fourteen supporting characters, even though I’ve tried to hold them to a minimum.
I try to eliminate and coalesce, but I suppose my own rule is that if each character serves a purpose, has a distinct personality, and their presence makes sense, they can have some time on stage. If each extra character makes the story feel more real and natural, and has her own distinctive ‘voice’, I allow her to stay.
I think as long as it’s a very conscious decision, and you do everything in your power to keep things clear for the reader it can work.
(For added difficulty in my upcoming book, my assassin protagonist has accumulated over a dozen identities, seven of which are called upon this time around. I’m pretty sure that’ll be a high water mark for the series – it’d better be! Keeping them all clear for the reader was a real challenge.)
Luke–The truth is that as a reader, I like a lot of characters–as long as they are distinguishable. So it sounds as if you’re writing the kind of book I like to read. Dozens of identities–that’s hard. But it’s intriguing to have a character who’s a chameleon and can’t be pinned down. Have fun with it!
This was incredibly helpful for me. Thank you for being so generous, funny, and thoughtful in your advice!
Branden–I’m so glad you found the post helpful!
An interesting topic, Anne, and you make some good points. I do think sometimes for ‘spear carrier’ characters you need to go just a little beyond the driver and his henchmen if you refer to them several times in the course of the scene, but that doesn’t necessarily mean giving them names since chances are your main character wouldn’t know their names. I tend to pick a characteristic and use it as a kind of nickname.
For example, Archibald is watched some English men-at-arms one of whom is ‘a hard faced fellow with sun darkened skin’. For part of that scene what he has to say and does is significant in the plot although he actually isn’t and only reappears briefly to be killed, so he became Hard Face when I referred to him after his introduction. ????♀️
It may be a bit cheesy but it seems to work for my readers.
You saw on twitter my complaint about several historically significant characters in my current novel being named William, which is a different problem but is somewhat related. They are all so historically significant that I will not even consider changing their names and all essential to the plot. I hope that using the device you mention (thanks for the idea) of a list of characters at the beginning may help. I will then mainly refer to two of them by their titles. Unfortunately that will *still* be confusing because William Douglas, Earl of Douglas shares the same surname as my main character Archibald Douglas. Please remember we poor historical fiction writers in your prayers. We suffer a lot for our craft. ????
JR–I love giving those characters nicknames that bring humor as well as identifying a “spear carrier”. I love to call them by their outstanding characteristics, like “bad toupee” or “ferret face” or “Ms. Louboutins” I think that’s a fun thing readers appreciate.
A character named Archibald always stands out from all those Williams. But then, my dad was named Archibald William. 🙂 But I agree, writing historical fiction is hard. I tried and didn’t get much past an outline. My hat’s off to you!
Your idea #7 is the real answer to readers connecting with characters. Authors have spent hours, months and more developing these characters but fail to realize their readers don’t know them like they do. Why wouldn’t you provide a list? If you are at a party and you introduce someone to another guest or host, who doesn’t know them, you would tell them something brief about each other so they can connect. SO AUTHORS PLEASE DO THESE AT THE FRONT OF EVERY BOOK YOU WRITE. Thank you.
George–I’m glad you agree with me. A cast list at the front of the book can also provide great advertising. If your characters are interesting and quirky, when people “look inside”, they’ll see some enticing characters they might want to hear more about.