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Why do we read books and become fans in the first place?
Sure, sometimes you can fall in love with specific worlds, but let’s be honest;
it’s really the characters that win our hearts. The perfect group of characters
is what makes a book go from a good read to a fantastic I-want-to-read-this-book-again-and-again
read.
But as a writer, balancing out how many characters you need
for a story can be hard, especially when it comes to the main characters. Sure,
you always have your protagonist, but sometimes, you need more than one,
whether you change points of view, or you have a group of companions as your
main cast, most of the time you’re not going to just have one character in the
limelight.
So how do you craft your Fellowship? Here’s some pointers
and things to think about.
Duos
The duo is always a great option. Think Sherlock and Watson.
Whether this comes in the flavor of best friends or a hero-sidekick thing,
siblings/twins, or even your MC and their romantic interest, everyone loves a
solid duo. Duos are the most versatile of main character groups, because being
made up of only two people, it is pretty much to be expected that they are
going to be joined by other characters along the way. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Sam are the main duo, but they are
joined by Merry and Pippin, as well as Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir
later. Even though the Fellowship as a whole really qualifies as more than just
a duo, you can break them up into duos and trios as the series progresses,
which is a great tactic for fantasy/quest stories. Romances usually feature
duos for the main couple, but this too can branch off as he and she usually
have their besties, or family members along with them, sometimes creating
sub-duos, but your couple should always be your main duo. If it’s a duo like
Sherlock and Watson, they should always take precedence over any other
characters. Best friend duos should never have one of the other usurped by
supporting characters, unless that is purposefully part of the plot.
Trios
Trios are my personal favorite. I used this tactic in my Anthony Maxwell book with Anthony, Tobs,
and Scamp as the main trio. The trio is also very versatile, and sometimes a
duo can become a trio with like the addition of Castiel’s character to the
Winchesters’ duo in Supernatural.
Trios are perfect for series books and procedurals like mysteries (such as in
Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood series or
Percy, Annabeth and Grover in the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan) because
they have enough characters to offer differing opinions, but not too many to
confuse the reader by having to add too many characters to a storyline. Trios
can also be branched out into four people (like the Three Musketeers plus
D’Artagnan). Maybe your trio picks up another member along the way or there is
another, secondary character, that they sometimes go to for help and can be an
honorary member of their gang. The important thing to remember when writing
trios is that even if you do add more supporting characters along the way, the
trio, especially if it is one loved by the fans, should always stay the main
focus of the story. Good characters are never going to get boring, and your
readers will always want to see more from them.
So What’s the Perfect Number for a Group?
Sometimes, you need more than just a duo or trio. Some
stories need to share space with more main characters. I ran into this with my Modern Tales of Na Fianna series,
because there are a lot of characters the reader needs to get to know, and I
put emphasis on different ones throughout the series. But my main group is
Ciran’s Company, a group of six friends who got thrown together in Book One
because they were all going on a mission to rescue their family members who
were being kept prisoners by the Goblins. There were even more characters
introduced in this story between King Eamon, and his Captain of the Guard
Killian, as well as Ciran’s family. Balancing this many characters can be tough
and from a reader’s perspective, very confusing, if done incorrectly. The best
way to introduce a bunch of characters is to do it gradually. Think about the
beginning of The Hobbit. That book
featured a company of 15 characters including Bilbo and Gandalf, but we were
introduced to the dwarves a couple at a time as they came to Bilbo’s door.
While we don’t truly get to know a lot of their personalities from the book,
the idea is a good one. Start off with your main character and his closest
family members or companions and work outward from there. I also like to think
about Eight Cousins by Louisa May
Alcott. Rose was introduced to her seven cousins by the eldest of them, who
pretty much explained their characters in a quirky and humorous way. The reader
is presented with a group of very different and unique characters and doesn’t
have a hard time figuring out which boy was which throughout the rest of the
story.
Five to seven characters is a decent number for a larger
group of main characters. It’s not so many that your readers will be
going…wait, who was that again? And few enough that you, as a writer will be
able to create several characters with distinct personalities that will not
just all run together after a while as can happen when you are forced to come
up with too many characters. It is also enough characters to be able to
accomplish deeds of daring do, or a good crew for heists and such (Like the group
in the show, Leverage or Kaz’s crew
in Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo). They
can even be joined by other people too if needed, my advice on that subject is
to introduce any other characters you might be planning to join with them
separately so they are not lost in the main group. Then you can have fully
established characters to work with once you join groups up so you don’t have
to do a lot of awkward characterization when you should be focusing on your
action scenes.
How Many is Too Many?
Yes, it is possible to have too many characters. I have
written several books where I had to scrap characters from the original idea
because when I started writing it, there just didn’t seem to be a need for them
or their inclusion would just complicate the storyline. This is a worthy
sacrifice for the sake of your story, and if you like the character you can always
use him in another book or even a sequel, but it is important not to swamp your
readers with too many characters.
If you think your book might have too many characters,
here’s an easy way to figure that out. Set aside the MC and the characters you
know need to be in the story and look at each of the others. Think about what
they add to the plot, and how their existence effects the plot and the MC.
Everything in a book needs to tie together, or the story will be confusing, so
if you add characters that you think might be a cool addition, but really have
no effect on the plot whatsoever you may just end up confusing readers. I have
read various books where it’s pretty obvious the author just threw in a
character either to prove some kind of point or for comic relief or something
but the character never really fits in and it just turns out to be more
annoying than anything. So learning how many characters is too many, is a good
lesson both for new writers and even for experienced ones to remember. The last
thing you want is for your readers to wonder, why was that guy even in this
book? If you’re not sure yourself, this is a good question to ask your trusted
beta readers.
So there are some tips on how to figure out how many
characters you need in your book, and how to handle them. I hope this might
have offered some assistance J
Let me know how you decide how many characters your book needs. Does it just
happen? Or do you take a lot of time and consideration with it?
