Young Writers Society

Okay. This story idea that I am writing includes eight main charecters. A lot I know, but bear with me.
so i had over a hundred pages all typed in small writing on the computer, I let an eleven year old girl read it. And then I come back to my computer and POOF! It was gone. Urgh. At first it was written from the point of view of one charecter thinking that one was the main one, but I changed it and need to introduce all the charecters in the begining. So do I write eight chapters and just have alot of chapters since I want to write from the 1st person point of view, or what. I am very confused.

Ooh! *claps hands* A kindred spirit!

I've got...*counts fingers* five different characters who narrate in my story. Then I split up the story into several parts- and each would have maybe two or three different people narrating (with the exception of the beginning, which has four). I picked a 'main character' who has a narration part in every part to keep the flow going strong. It's a lot easier for the reader when you switch them up a little- plus it allows for some variety.

Just don't forget to specify who's speaking!

I had eight main characters once... Yeah. It got really crazy, really fast. But it can work out... Just don't give the reader TOO much to learn too quickly. Give the reader a little at a time so he or she doesn't choke on all the information.

ooh, fun fun. You will have to PM me when you post this. How awful would that be to have all that POOF, GONE?

Well the thing with writing for several characters is that they all sort of need to intertwine. You know? So introducing them all in the beginning is difficult. What I usually do (as one of my narratives from Spring Break had [counts] er...five main characters) is introduce one of the main chars as being a friend to another char, and then have them make a passing reference to another character who comes later, and so on from there.

Complex, but fun! I always enjoyed having little blurbs from other characters in my characters narratives. There was a feeling of inter-connected-ness. Lol. Please PM me when you start posting.

Oh dear, hehe. I have another story in the planning stages that's going to be this complicated. XD

First of all, do you have to do this in first person? I think, in this case, third person would be infinitely more easier because of the way first person is written. If you get too many main characters, they're going to sound the same. Why? Because after a while, you get tired and forget which character sounds like what and it all gets blurred. And this isn't good. So figure out whether you really want to do first person. It's good, but for a story this complicated, third person might be better.

Now, for your question.

I like short chapters, so I don't know. It could work with tons of chapters, sort of like, No More Dead Dos by Gordon Korman. Hehehe, that's a funny book.

But! If the sheer amount of chapters leaves you worried, what you might want to do is to to break up the chapters into little sections. Like this:

Chapter 1

Snoink's POV

Blah, blah, blah, blah....

* * *

Sam's POV

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

* * *

Nagem's POV

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

Chapter 2

And so on...

Hopefully that makes sense...

Anyway, there's lots of things you can do. Just don't make it completely confusing!