I’m speaking of characters in a book. Have you ever read a book where you had to constantly flip to previous pages in order to figure out who was who? I have, and it drives me crazy.
I’m a minimalist. I may have said that before in reference to description. Seems it goes for characters as well. I’m currently reading Murder at Longbourn Inn, by Tracy Kiely. I haven’t gotten far in the book, and I’m enjoying the chick-lit/mystery/romance aspect of the story, but I got lost early on when there were roughly fifteen characters in one scene.
Now, in fairness to the author, there really wasn’t any way around it. The house was filled with New Year’s Eve guests, four or five of them, actors hired for a How to Host a Murder dinner. Now, without reading the jacket, I knew the murder would take place that evening, still I had a hard time keeping up with who was who. Kiely did a decent job introducing the main and supporting characters before the party, but too many characters at once had my head spinning.
My personal taste is to have no more than two or three main and/or secondary characters per scene, though I occasionally have five or six. I adore the intimate two-character scenes, but too many, too close together, can become boring.
There are no hard and fast rules concerning the number of characters in a book. The important thing is to make sure each character adds something to the story. All books need minor characters. It’s up to the writer to decide how important they are, and whether they add or detract. Is their presence necessary? If a writer goes into great detail describing a waitress whose only job is to collect a bill, say, “Thank you,” and never be seen again, then what’s the point? If, on the other hand, said waitress flirts with the male MC, causing a rift between the male and female MC’s, resulting in some pertinent piece of information, then that’s another story.
So, how many characters should a book contain? However many are needed to tell the story without bogging it down with unimportant detail.
Hi Lucie!
I’m happy to see your blog. It’s an interesting question about characters. Like you, I sometimes get lost when the cast of characters is too large, and I find myself flipping back to see who is who. I don’t read a lot of mystery, but when I do, I’m doing lots of back and forth.
My preference tends to be a smaller set of protagonists with a good – but not overwhelming – amount of supporting characters, but I agree that supporting characters help to round out the story.
Nice food for thought, Lucie!
Thanks for the post, Kimberly. I’m glad you found me. I’m just getting my feet wet in the blogging world, and haven’t ventured very far. I was thinking about what to post while reading the mentioned book. It took me a while to figure everyone out, but I finally got there about 3/4 of the way through.
I’ll check out your blog as well. Right now, I’m off to lend my daughter a hand, then prepare for overnight guests.