What is the max amount of characters you can focus on in a novel without getting confused?

Question

I want to write a story with 7 or 8 important characters, is that too many?

Answer 1

If your readers can define your characters in relation to each other, it's much easier than if they're eight random people. For example:

Character #1 is the father of two
Character #2 is the wife of character #1
Character #3 is the daughter (elder)
Character #4 is the son (younger)
Character #5 is the daughter's best friend
Character #6 is the daughter's teacher
Character #7 is the creepy uncle
Character #8 is the creepy uncle's oblivious wife

There you have 8 characters, but because they differ in things like age, setting they're shown in, and whether they're the protagonist or the antagonist, they're very distinct.

I have trouble with things like "Pride and Prejudice," where you have half a dozen young females and half a dozen young males, some of whom are related to each other and some not, but who have no major differentiating factors other than "once you get to know them, they're obviously different."

In my opinion, you can have as many characters as you want as long as none of them share more than one or maybe two of the following characteristics with each other:

Age category (infant, child, teen, adult, senior)
Name starting with the same letter or sounding similar
Gender
Setting they're usually in (so the mom and the teacher probably won't be mixed up, but two female teachers might be)
Whether they're a protagonist, antagonist, or neutral
Any major quirk that you'd immediately associate with the character ("she's the one that stutters" or "he's the gay one")

Answer 2

I once read an agatha christie book, Murder on The Orient Express, that had about 12 people in it. It was really tough to keep up with all the characters and to have a go at actually solving the mystery.

What Christie did was to list down the characters she had on a page before the start of the story (usually its the first page) so that her readers could always refer back to that page if they ever got confused. Also most of her chracters tend to link up with other characters in the story. This makes it easier for the reader to form links.

eg: A is the uncle of B who turn has a butler C who once went out with D who is the daughter of A.

But, personally, I would prefer to read a book with about 8 character max. However if the book is well written and links are formed between characters so that they're easier to identify, then i guess it's really not so bad to have more.

Bottom line is if the plot is good and if it make the book a page turner, then it really doesnt matter if there are alot of characters.

Look at harry potter for example. We have harry, hermione, ron, the professors, the weasley family, the ministry of magic lot, voldermot and the death eaters, and a whole lot of other magical folk, but harry potter still made it big.

Answer 3

The trick to writing any number of characters is to make sure they are individuals. It might be hard to squeeze 7 or 8 main characters into your average sized novel, but an epic with 1,000 pages could easily do it.

Make sure each character you write has his or her own personality, quirks and way of speech.

Make sure they have different looking names too. (The sound isn't so important in a book. It's the letter it starts with and the number of letters.) I would completely mix up two characters named Samuel and Stephen, but probably would have an easier time with Samuel and Timothy, or even Samuel and Steve.

Answer 4

Someone mentioned that it depends on your writing skill and I agree with that, but it also depends on how the characters are focused on. George Eliot had tons of main characters in some of her novels, and you had to pay attention to them, but it wasn't hard. Tolkein also used a lot of main characters in his novels and look how popular they are! The ability to get your reader to relate (in some way) to these many characters and to know enough about each of them is tricky, but it can be done. Some authors do it by breaking characters up by chapters/sections, some do it so that all the characters are always around, it just depends on the story.

Good luck!

Answer 5

It really depends on the story, and the writer. It's quite possible to write a story with 7 or 8 major characters without the plot going completely to scattershot, though.

Happy writing!

Answer 6

No that's not too many. Just make sure the story is not confusing. You know, so the people reading won't get the characters mixed up.

Answer 7

i don't think so. i mean like a lot of authors that i no have as many as 10 important charactors. an idea for this novel : tell parts of the story for each charactor in their own chapter (s) and u can then interwieve them into a story and the ending is where they all are connected to eachother. a good reference to this type of writing is called 'Dragon Tears' by Koontz

Answer 8

Master and Magrarita has around 500 characters overall and 3 plots, and its a worldwide known masterpiece and one of the best books ever. The wellness of teh book doesnt depend on the number of characters

Answer 9

No, that is not too many. There is an author that is a favorite of mine who regularly uses around two dozen characters that all have important story lines.

Answer 10

For me it is five point of views unless you are a very skilled writer. When you are starting out I really think less is more.

But that is point of views not characters. You can have as many characters as a novel needs.