To fix this issue, Mr. King had an Event take place about 75% of the way through the book that drastically downsized the number of characters we were following. And while it was dramatic and pulse-pounding, the author later said that it was done more as a matter of practicality, because he'd allowed the cast to get so bloated it was becoming impossible to manage.
And if a problem like this can happen to one of the best-selling authors of our age, it's definitely something that can happen to you, too.
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| Look, brothers, we can't ALL be the chosen one... |
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How Much is Too Much?
An average book, or even a short story, is going to be filled with a lot of characters. From the waitstaff at restaurant scenes, to the cops manning the barricades at a murder investigation, to the arena full of sports fans during a climactic showdown between our lead and the terrorist they've been chasing, books are just crammed with characters... but a majority of them are going to be in the background. They're characters whose names we may never get, whose faces we may never really see, and who might not even get any dialogue in the story.
However, you aren't expecting your audience to remember those characters. Their motivations and backstories aren't going to affect the plot as it unfolds, and they aren't going to be personally tied to what's happening. They're supporting cast, who are there to provide information, keep a scene flowing naturally, or to provide the appropriate background while your leads drive the story forward.
No, the question you need to ask is what happens when your main cast gets too bloated, and it starts to become a problem.
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| Especially if you're trying to get a manageable word count. |
The problem is, of course, that there is no hard-and-fast rule for when your cast of characters has grown too large. There are novel series with colossal cast lists, like A Song of Ice and Fire, and the character bloat doesn't seem to have hurt the readers' opinions of the work... but was it a feature, or a flaw?
As an example, considering the translation of Martin's books to the small screen provides us a lot of solid examples of characters either merging together, or characters who were less important being ignored in favor of maintaining a stronger, central core, with their actions being taken by one of our established, "main" characters.
For instance, Bronn ends up wearing a lot more hats in the show than he did in the book. While he was originally just Tyrion's bodyguard, he also took on the role of guard captain of King's Landing (a role which was originally filled by a character who was named, but rarely seen). There were also several moments where violence had been done by relatively unimportant characters that were instead given to him. One could argue that it was because the costs of a bigger cast are far more noticeable in a TV show, where a new actor has to be given a costume, choreography, lines, etc., and so it's just easier to use members of the cast who are already under contract, and whom the audience already knows. However, this has the side effect that it creates a tighter story, focusing the attention of your audience, and allowing them to get more invested into the characters you've already fleshed out.
As a general guideline, what I recommend is that you should always try to make your cast of main characters (your protagonist or protagonists, their immediate support characters, the villains, and their support staff) as tight as possible, without sacrificing anything. This is particularly true when it comes to important events, or things that happen onscreen in your book. If your lead is being framed for a crime, you could create a whole new character to come arrest them. However, if you've established they have a friend on the force, it would create greater resonance if that friend volunteers to perform the arrest in order to minimize resistance from your lead. Or if your lead has an enemy who's a cop, it heightens the drama to have them be the one who puts your protagonist in cuffs.
You shouldn't be afraid to add new characters as you need them... but keep in mind that there are characters, and then there are characters. If you just need someone to fill a role, say a few lines of dialogue, sell our protagonist a gun under the table, etc., that can be done by any of the former without much sweat. But if this is a character with a name, a face, and whose story you want your reader to know and empathize with, consider the investment you're asking of the person holding your book, and what the payoff is going to be.
Because if it feels like every character we meet is important, pretty soon it can feel like no one is important... even if you don't start killing them off every three chapters.
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