Young Writers Society

I'm writing the first chapter of what-is-most-likely-an-epic (that's going to be converted into a comic) and I have a large cast to work with. During the first chapter we see the antagonists and they're planning on striking in a group of eight, with five of them taking on one half and three taking on another.

I think I may know how to do this, but I'm a little shaky about it.

I'm thinking their leader is going to speak to them individually and then I'd describe them but isn't that method a little bland?

Also, how can you handle a large cast without it confusing the reader? A lot of people are either dying or leaving, so does that help?

Thanks a lot. <3

With that many characters in play, I think that introducing them one by one is just about the only way you can do it. Trying to introduce them in a more fancy or complicated way will probably just confuse the reader even more. And it's not going to be bland unless you make it bland.

What I would do is try to give each character their own quirk or trait that the reader can identify them by. Maybe the character stutters when they get nervous or they constantly pick at themselves. You could give them a certain word or phrase they use. This is a really cliche example, but maybe one always says "Dude!" or says "like" every other word. I'm sure you can come up with something much better. Haha.

I hope this helped. You can PM me if you have any more questions.

airbear320 wrote:With that many characters in play, I think that introducing them one by one is just about the only way you can do it. Trying to introduce them in a more fancy or complicated way will probably just confuse the reader even more. And it's not going to be bland unless you make it bland.

What I would do is try to give each character their own quirk or trait that the reader can identify them by. Maybe the character stutters when they get nervous or they constantly pick at themselves. You could give them a certain word or phrase they use. This is a really cliche example, but maybe one always says "Dude!" or says "like" every other word. I'm sure you can come up with something much better. Haha.

I hope this helped. You can PM me if you have any more questions.

Yeah, I was thinking of doing it like:

"So-and-so," Character X said, looking toward a woman with *insert description* one by one or something similar and then showing how they respond. Is that basic enough? c:

That method would probably confuse me, sorry. Unless each character has a good voice to them, as in, their own well-developed traits and speaking patterns, then characters are going to quickly become blurred together. The way to get character voices is to practice and write. Write sketches in their viewpoints, write the whole story then rewrite/edit, ect. Get to know them to get their voices in check.

Also, will all characters be very important in the story? If they aren't, see if you can cut the cast down to the bare minimum. If some of the characters need minor rolls but need to be at the meeting, consider having them only mentioned in passing, hardly described and only named by their roll. Or, add in extra scenes where we get to know the characters without such a large group around them.

One of my favourite methods for a large cast was done in Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small. At several points in the story (Protector of the Small is a quartet) the MC was around over seven other characters, and that's just humans. She was also followed around by several named animals. The way Pierce handled that was slowly introducing them all (If the MC was in a large group, she'd talk to one, maybe two people at a time, slowly building named characters and their personalities), and giving us long enough scenes or memorable moments when the characters were introduced (One was introduced when the MC saved him from a group of bullies). By doing character introductions like this, our memory isn't taxed by too many names and important characters at once. Characters are only introduced when they start to become important in the story. Her animals are introduced like this too. The MC's largest group of followers is a group of sparrows. Not even half of those are named, but those that are have either defining features or important rolls. Like the sparrow Crown for the leader, Peg for one of the scouts, ect.

Hope this helped! PM me with any questions. ^^

~Rosey

If your struggling to identify your characters, you probably have too many. Or else you just need to hold some back instead of revealing the whole ensemble at the beginning. But, I must say, 8 antagonists is probably way too much. Really look at which characters you truly need. Maybe have someone who could care less about the characters, like a teacher, help you make the chop, so sentimentality doesn't get in the way. Good luck though.

Critiq wrote:If your struggling to identify your characters, you probably have too many. Or else you just need to hold some back instead of revealing the whole ensemble at the beginning. But, I must say, 8 antagonists is probably way too much. Really look at which characters you truly need. Maybe have someone who could care less about the characters, like a teacher, help you make the chop, so sentimentality doesn't get in the way. Good luck though.

There are actually more than eight who are being held back or aren't even showing up until much later - and there's a large group of protagonists, too. xD Aha. It's mostly me who got character-happy since I have a partner, but I've figured out ways to interweave them with each other and make them important to development. c:

Thank you for the advice. I have a better idea of what to do now.

You already have some great advice here, but I would like to emphasize working with the character's voices. I think having one person go and talk to each of them in order would be a little repetitive, but, if your characters have distinct enough voices, you can drop into a conversation between the characters and focus in on each character as they become important. Does that make sense? Drop into a conversation/event which will bring out the differences and really work on developing that voice. Hope that helps.

I know characters are really really hard to let go of... But, I wrote a novel that had ten MC's... and halfway through I realized I had five too many.

Take it or leave it, having too many characters is going to bog down your story and is likely to deter you from even trying to finish it. It sure ruined my novel having ten main characters. It was part that I couldn't keep up with them, and the rest realizing anyone who read it would be left thinking "Now was that Leeza or Martha?"

Too many characters is just too many characters. I read a really good book with about a dozen main characters, and still, after re-reading it more than once, I could not keep up with who was who. And this was really well written.

Summary: cut it to as few people as you can. You will be glad you did!