Should all the main characters in a book be mentioned in the first chapter?

Question

I read this somewhere and just wondered if anyone agreed with it?

Answer 1

Not necessarily. It all depends on how your story is going to develop, what the characters have to contribute to the plot of the story.

Answer 2

I have read books in which all the characters were introduced in the first chapter. There were so many that I had a hard time remembering who was who, and had to go back to the first chapter again. The author has written several books, and I have had the same problem with each of his books.
Rarely, if there are many important characters in the book, one can find a list of all of the characters in the introduction.

Answer 3

I hope not or I'm in major trouble. I introduce main characters into chapter 3 and plot line central characters into chapter 7. So, no I don't agree with this. Let your story flow, and if you introduce a main character in chapter 3 or 4 or 5, so be it.

Answer 4

Definitely not. You don't want to overwhelm your readers with a who's who, especially if not every character is central to the first chapter's subplots. If a main character is introduced in chapter six, it will soon become obvious to the readers that (s)he is important to the story's plots. It's like the Harry Potter books - not every character was introduced in the first book, and not every character from the first book will be in the last book; see how central Sirius Black was to the plot and the fact that he was only in books 3-5.

Answer 5

Absolutly not. Have you ever read a novel that takes place in 2 diffrent time periods. Usually the chapters are broken up by the time periods and the flip between them calubus rex is a good example not all the main charecters are in the first chapter

Answer 6

Not necessarily if doesn't go along with the plot line, then it doesn't go along with the plot line. I've read plenty of books that do not mention all the main characters in the first chapter, I personally had no problem with that.

Answer 7

No I dont agree with this opinion there may be many diffrerent varieties of writing plans .For example writer can introduce a main character at the beginning and write a travel for him/her so writer continues to add new characters during travel .That s an idea just came to my mind when I read your question.

Answer 8

No. It is more interesting to have sone of the main characters be introduced later in the book, though most of them should appear in the first three chapters or so.

Answer 9

That depends on the plot. I don't think you should give all the details too early, or everything gets too big, to unwieldy and too confusing. If there aren't too many characters and they all know each other or come into play early on, then of course there's no problem bringing them all in early. But, if one character doesn't even exist in the other characters' world yet, why introduce him before his time. We'll just wonder who the heck he is and then promptly forget about him until he comes back, at which time we'll be wondering where the heck he came from because we forgot his introduction... So, there's no point in bringing him in before it's logical to do so.

Answer 10

No, it's not necessary. Some books do, others don't.

However, all main characters must be mentioned by the LAST chapter.

Answer 11

The secret of a good read is the voyage of discovery,linking hints and clues to those already mentioned,so I would not want to introduce all my characters in one chapter.Charles Dickens that great story teller had so many characters in his books that it wold ruin the whole thing if they were all mentioned right at the beginning.