Too many people

OK while making my character bios (Later I'll make a tip about how to make the perfect bios) Anyways while I was doing this I discovered that I may have too many characters. Since I only planning on writing four books this poses a bit of a problem. You see I go very in-depth with most of the characters.

Their are five main characters and 6 supporting. (Note this only refers to my teenage characters, and doesn't include villains. I have ten main villains.) Anyway each one of these characters have a deep back story. So much in fact I considered writing a prequel to my series after I was finished.

Back to my problem I just don't see how I can do it in four books. And it has to be four books because four is a powerful number in my books. (I have a thing about the number four.)

The worst part is that I can't bring myself to kill any of them. I killed one but I never much liked hi.

OK I guess what I'm asking is how do you deal with a character heavy story. Is that a bad thing? Should I break my rule and extent the book? Should I just suck it up and kill some of them? And if I kill them how do I get the courage to do it?

Hey there. ^^ I think you have a LOT of options for what to do with this. The key is to pick the one that works for you.

- First of all, remember that although you may know these characters top, down and center, down to their heart of hearts (like you should!) you don't have to put everything in the story. The key is to have their backstories and personalities influence their actions within the actual story. That brings their characters out but doesn't take up page space with tons of exposition.

Should I just suck it up and kill some of them? And if I kill them how do I get the courage to do it?

Characters are like children, of course, so it can often be hard to kill them off. But we're writers, not parents. If it seems reasonable or likely that one of these characters would die, then do it. If not, don't force it. I wouldn't kill any off just to make the writing easier, that's a waste of a good character. ^^

Hope that helps a bit! *hands cookie*

-Hawks-

Going into that much detail is lovely. It really helps you get into the characters and make them more real. ^^ However what seems to be going on is you think the whole bio needs to show up in the work. You don't need to create a sub-plot for the sixth supporting character and how he lost his mother at age six and he now feels resentment at people with happy families with a father and mother (random example). All you do is show that he doesn't like happy families, have a line or two why, and you move on to the MC's stories. If the character changes, he changes. We may or may not notice, but we probably won't. It'll be the MC's actions that drive the change anyway, so you'd still be focusing on the MC's story.

Remember that as you're writing you're telling the MC's story. Just the MC. You can have him/her interact with the people around them, you have to in order to have a plot, but don't take forever on the supporting characters. They do play a minor roll after all.

Hope this helped.

~Rosey

I agree with Hawkie: knowing a lot about characters and not putting it in your story (but possibly hinting that there is more) builds a believeable world. Even if you don't consciously hint, it will come through in your writing and strengthen the characters. Someone reviewing my novel complained that there were too many characters in the first chapter, which I eventually solved by not giving names to the very minor, one-use-only characters from that scene. Unnamed minor characters add depth and realism, particularly in urban* settings, without making the reader freak out that they have to remember every person the protagonist happens to chance upon.

*additionally, I strongly support the use of unnamed characters in urban settings. In a city, it is implausible that anyone would know the name of every person they come across.

I agree with all of the above except for one small comment. Supporting characters play as big of a part as the MC.

First off, if you think you have too many characters, then look at the Harry Potter series. Sure, it took seven books, but notice how she introduces new characters in each book. The reader instantly has an opinion about them. In the first book, The Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, most readers had the impression that Professor Snape was the bad guy. In the end, it was Quirrell. We don't need to know why Snape is who he is. In fact, we don't know this until the fifth and/or sixth book. It's a personality thing that sometimes we learn to accept.

So what I'm saying is, you don't have to spend chapters on explaining the characters. Characters are very important, but the reader is reading this for the story. Characters help make a story. If they want to read about your characters, they'd read that prequel you mentioned. We read for the story.

Now, you have a bunch of characters, and it's hard to keep track of. Give them each a place in the story. Hermione Granger was there to give Harry Potter information that he didn't know. She was the brains. Ron Weasley was there to keep situations light, for humor. Hagrid was there to gather information as well as teach, keep games, and serve tea. Lavender Brown was there to make Hermione jealous and to give readers the final jab, "Hermione and Ron are meant to be together just by the way." Every character plays an important part, no matter where they are, so show the readers that.

And also, whatever your point of view is, you'll be sharing a lot of background information through dialogue. Dialogue is a huge part of characterization. How they talk and what they talk about is key, and if it's important to know that Sally's dad died when she was three, mention it during a sappy moment among friends/family or something. Think about how you would mention it and when. Would you mention it for attention? Maybe one of your characters is an attention-seeker, so make them talk about themselves a lot. Or maybe they're the opposite and wish to keep their troubles to themselves. How would they talk about their problems? Diaries? Caring friends pushing her to say something?

So basically, find a place for your characters, and keep them there. If JK Rowling can do it, you sure can!

PM with any questions. I'd be happy to help out. ^_^

Jabber, the One and Only!

*_* Whoa, Hawkie, Rosey, and Jabbs have spoken.

Those are some really good pieces of advice there, Amon ^^

However, I don't think they mentioned anything about how to kill a character:

So in my book, Angel's Symphony, I have 6 main characters, and in the first book, they're all kids (for the time being.) When I started writing the book, I started writing the first chapters as windows to the characters' backgrounds. So, it went like this:

Jade's Past

King's Past

Leila's Past

Valentina's Past

------------------

If you were counting, you would've noticed there's only 4 biographies
If you did, good job! The way I worked in 6 main characters (well, Jade is the "official" main character, but the rest don't just have supporting roles) is by combining some of their stories.


Rather than having 6 completely different kids from 6 completely different places, I made some of them siblings. Jade has a little sister, who's another main character, and King has a twin, the 6th main character.

While writing, I had another problem. The beginning of the story seemed like bio after bio after bio. Someone suggested I start off with one main biography of the MC, and then continue the story from there. Once she meets the other characters I did bios for, then I can add the chapter about their past. Flesh them out after the main character meets them.

And when I have important supporting characters, I have them relate somehow and have history.

So, just for random examples:

Let's say Aria is a supporting character, and let's say that you've made her background already: She's a snobby heiress who attends the same boarding school as the MC. And then all of a sudden, you want to include Kaleb, a different character.

So how do we do it without giving him a completely different background? Simple. Tie him into the past of Aria's life, or any other character. Aria's an heiress, but she remembers having a crush on a boy that faintly resembles Kaleb. Or, Kaleb was her childhood friend and now he's going to the same school.

The best way to make it all work is by intertwining the characters. Love interests, friends, family, enemies, and so on. And like the others said, you don't have to give them the whole information. Characters in a book only follow a few traits unlike humans. So give them one or two distinct traits, and be consistent. Characters must always be consistent! Even if their personality is bipolar or inconsistency!
-----------------

So, how do you kill a character, eh?

xD There will never really be a time you kill a character. Only remove them from that particular story. You may add as many frilly things as you want to one character, but there will always be another character out there, whether it be yours or someone else's, that resembles your character.

So if you can't include a bossy person in this story, save it for another. If you don't get a soul eater as a villain in this book, save it for another. Remember it's all about quality, not quantity Save some goods for another story, otherwise, you'll have nothing to write.

Another good way to "kill" characters is by combining them. So you have a character who's an orphan and another who's thief. Well, now you have an orphan who became a thief. It goes with just about everything else. Mix and match and make them as good as you can. It's like baking a cake, so find the right mix to make a better cake.

And like I said, you could also make people related. You want a fire manipulator and an ice manipulator. Well, Gregory has a twin named Gabe and their personalities are sarcastic and wimpy. Easy peasy lemon squeazy. Or if you wanted, you could've either made Greg both a fire and ice manipulator, his powers just depend on the time of day or his mood or he can switch them out, or give him water bending, the middle ground.

Hope this helps ^^

-Shina

Yes thank you for all the advice., It was alot of help.