Young Writers Society

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to keep numerous characters straight? Iḿ trying to rerwite something, but last time I had so many characters that it got confusing for others to read.

Are all of these characters necessary?

Some stories and forms of entertainment lend themselves to extremely large casts. There are a number of these in existence today—I'm going to use Homestuck as an example, because I've been a fan of Homestuck for a few years and that's one that I know how to navigate fairly well. Another big example would be Bleach, if you're into that sort of anime.

In Homestuck, there are numerous iterations of numerous characters, due to time-warps and alternate realities. This is arguable, but most of these characters serve a purpose in furthering the story—whether it's through their death, their actions, what have you, and their reactions to what's going on in the story. Every character's actions have an impact on other characters, and affect the way the story is moving through those characters.

This is why large casts are difficult: Each character needs to have an individual presence that's strong enough to carry their purpose in the story, and they need to have effects on the people around them. Think of characters' actions as having a ripple effect, and you'll see why it's difficult to write with small casts, let alone huge ones, and have everyone keep everything straight. (Even in an organized-chaos work like Homestuck, there are times when dedicated fans have difficulty keeping all the characters straight.)

Personally, when I'm dealing with a cast, I cut it down to the number of characters I need in order for their actions and impacts to be manageable and reasonable within the story. I could have an important party of twenty knights, or I could have a core group of five that are easier to write and easier for my readers to keep track of; I could have a class of twenty that each have their own narrative voices and time in the spotlight, or I could cut it down to three or four and have the other characters be still important, but more on the sidelines.

You don't need a hundred thousand characters to make a good novel; cut the number down to what you do need, and work on it from there.

Working on cutting a few.

I have one core group of 6 (maybe four, still playing around with their roles) 'main' character, but my minor characters still wind up playing pivitol roles. I'm just not sure how to introduce them in a way that won't confuse the reader