Too Many Characters?

 By Thomas Kies

How many characters in a book are too many?  I’m struggling with that because in the book I’m working on now, it just feels like there may be too many.

I found one opinion that 4-7 characters should be the number, except for an epic where 20 or more are acceptable. I found another opinion that set the number of characters as 8. Period.

I took a look around the internet and the consensus seems to be that there is no set number.  The number of characters is what it will take to tell the story. But there is agreement that each character should have their own identity.  They should stand out from the crowd somehow.  

Sometimes, that’s as simple as identifying their profession, like Joe is a cop or Mike is a chef or Clara is a Supreme Court judge.  Sometimes it is as simple as giving them a distinctive name, like Clara.

Maybe the distinction is in the physical description.  Ted is tall and built like a linebacker or Sally is petite, had dark hair and one eye is blue and one eye is brown.  

So, make the character vivid and memorable when they’re first introduced. 

One bit of advice I saw was avoid introducing a lot of characters all at once.  It’s like walking into a crowded room and your host tells you the name of everyone there.  I don’t know about you, but that’s information overload and more often than not, I don’t recall anyone’s name.

Speaking of names, don’t give the extras names.  If the pizza guy is delivering dinner, he’s just the pizza guy.  If the Uber driver is taking your protagonist to the airport, he’s just the Uber driver. Don’t confuse the reader with more names than they need to recall. 

Don’t give characters similar names.  In a book that was never published, I was admonished for using Jake, John, Jim, and Jack. All different characters but with names like that, who could keep them straight?

All of your characters should have some relevance to your story.  Why are they there? If they don’t add something to the storyline, kill your darlings.  

An example of that is in A Song in Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin upon which the hit series Game of Thrones was based.  Just when you identify with one of his characters, he kills him or her off.  Most likely in the most gruesome manner imaginable. But in their death, that character has become more relevant.  It often becomes a reason for revenge.

I distracted myself with the Game of Thrones.  What I really mean, if the character doesn’t add something to the story, they shouldn’t be there in the first place. 

A disadvantage to a bunch of characters, especially in the same scene, is the use of dialogue tags.  We all try to stay away from them as best we can, instead, showing some action and then the dialogue.  But when you have more than two characters in the same scene, sooner or later you’re going to have to write Roberto said- or Matilda argued- or Ludmilla shouted...

Giving your characters distinctive names helps the reader recognize the players more easily when they show up.  I hope that I do that in my mystery series.  Geneva Chase-a crime journalist, John Stillwater-ex-cop and now a private detective, Shana Neese-dominatrix and leader of an organization that fights human trafficking, and Nathaniel Ruben-owner of Lodestar Analytics, an open-source research company. 

Time to go back to my work in progress and see if I need to kill any of my darlings.