Ha!
Ahem.
Okay, so, I’m not the person to ask about managing large casts of characters — I’m shit with large casts of characters. Frankly, I get exhausted reading about a large cast of characters.
I might give you six or eight named characters who influence the story, but really, the story is only about two or three of them. Or, one or two sets of them; I love writing about relationships and interaction, be it between brothers or enemies.
Can you name the original X-Men? Do you know who the first members of the Uncanny X-Men (the second team) were and how many are still in the group? All right, how about the Reavers? Or the New Mutants? What about Generation X?
My point being that as a reader, anyone who followed the far-ranging cast of characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s taken by Chris Claremont in the late 70s and expanded beyond any scope or definition of Reason into the 90s had to have an inclination toward keeping literally hundreds of mutants straight. Fortunately there were visual cues. Unfortunately, not every artist interpreted those visual cues the same way.
But there was a lesson there for young Jason as he aspired to his own dreams of writing. (Sorry, the Claremont pretentiousness sometimes slips over the levee. <cringe>) The lesson was that for a reader to enjoy a story with an enormous cast, the author had to have a kind of shorthand that immediately cued the reader. Sometimes it’s the way a character talks, or a catchword or phrase. Or maybe it’s patois that’s stylistically disguised as “accent” ala having an English character say “Eh, wot?” That’s all in the writing.
Writing a story involving multiple characters is never easy. Heck, it’s hard enough writing a story about one main character, knowing there are going to be secondary characters moving in and out of their story. But the bar gets raised when — to the writer’s surprise — several supposed secondary characters begin to cry out for attention.
This is what I call the “Justice League Effect.”
In the comic book world, there are two types of superhero comics: solo titles and team books. Some characters (think Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) are big enough to anchor one or more solo titles. But other characters never have enough fan support to manage it.
When I’m writing I can picture all the characters from my story interacting. In my mind they are fully realized individuals with their own strengths and personalities. They entertain me with their uniqueness, their specific way of speaking and their wacky fashion statements. It’s easy to forget that a reader coming to my work fresh might not perceive the characters as I do! Readers will need to be shown all the things that make a character unique before that character comes to life for them.
Continually putting myself in my reader’s shoes and trying to view the story as someone else helps me keep from getting lost in my own imagination or taking my characters for granted.
Writing a story with a large cast of characters can be tricky. My books tend to have a large cast, and with each progression in the series, the cast gets bigger.
Book three, especially, has become a little out of hand, but that’s a major plot point, so whittling down the number of people/creatures would erase the entire point. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that it might get a little overwhelming for the reader in the first few chapters, simply because it must become overwhelming to my main character. The plot sort of revolves around it.
But that’s not the normal way I go about handling a large cast. In previous books, and even in a few short stories I’ve written, I’ve had to use a few tricks to keep everyone in line.
Nobody ever told me I was supposed to have a large cast of characters! This is actually something I have a bit of trouble with managing. In short works I tend to limit my characters to a central protagonist and a few sidekicks. I mean… side characters. Depending on the length of the piece, my story might not actually have more than two characters. Sometimes more characters are mentioned in passing, but not always.
Even in my novel, I tried to limit the number of important characters my viewpoint character interacts with. I’ve found that writing in first person really allows me to get inside my protagonist’s head and allow her opinions and views of the other characters to color how they are presented to the audience. She has very distinctive opinions about different characters, and I hope that those opinions allow them to become more memorable. (more…)
I admire the way writers like Tolkien and George R.R. Martin juggle enormous casts of characters. Martin has an entire appendix dedicated to all of the different houses, for crap’s sake. How in the world do they keep track of them all? Extensive note-taking, I’m sure. They are obviously masters of their craft.
I have never had as much luck managing that many characters, but I’ve found a few tricks help me keep everyone straight.
As shallow as it sounds, names are probably one of the most basic ways to avoid character confusion. I learned early on that names that sound the same or to have too many names that start with the same letter make it hard to tell everyone apart. I also tend to use simple names, even in my fantasy writing, to make them easier to remember. (more…)
I’m not a very social person. I try to be nice to people, but overall, I have a very small group of friends. It’s hard to maintain a large number of friends and give them all the attention they deserve.
The same applies to your cast of characters in a work of fiction. Keep them under control. It may seem like a lot of fun to sit and make up characters, but in the end, you risk losing the focus of your story and confusing your reader.
There is a story about The Stand that I came across in which Stephen King realized his cast of characters had gotten out of hand. His solution was to immediately kill several off. This resulted in the closet bomb scene that you may remember, if you are a fan of the book.
The next time you’re at a party or in a crowded restaurant, try listening to the conversations around you. Usually it all becomes an auditory blur, that can be mimicked by saying “watermelon, cantaloupe, watermelon, cantaloupe” over and over. Now imagine trying to write that dialogue.
For writers, large casts of characters present some unique problems. Not only is there the very real possibility of over-lapping conversations, there is also what is known in theatre as “blocking” — the movement and positioning of characters on a stage. A writer must know where each character is and what he or she is doing at any particular moment.
So we’ve asked our writers in the Cafe to share with us their tips. What’s the best way to write dialogue for a crowded room? When is it a good time to give secondary characters a chance to shine? How does one keep crowds of characters from spiraling into chaos?
We hope you’ll find the advice from our writers helpful. Be sure to leave comments with them if you have any questions or if you’d like to share your own tips.
Until Next Week,
The Cafe Management