When I was younger, I read lots of books that had large casts of characters. We're talking so many characters that the author provided a list at the end of their books. I don't see as many of those any more, but I still read books with large casts, large enough that other people, or even the author, have devoted portions of websites, blogs, or other media to helping reader keep them all straight. I've also read numerous writing books that suggest keeping a file or binder or some filing system of all of the characters from a particular project. Until recently, I never thought I needed those tools. Oh how wrong I was.
Let me just say that until recently, I'd never worked on a story that had a large cast of characters. Almost all of my ideas involved casts of two or three characters and few supporting roles. The action happened in mostly isolated chunks, in places with only a few hastily sketched extras seen only from a distance. I never thought I'd have to come up with more than five, or seven, or okay maybe 15 character descriptions, personalities, backgrounds, and all that other stuff that you need for good characters (not the in depth stuff for MCs, but the general broad strokes for bit players and extras). Once more, was I ever wrong.
Until this week, I had no idea how hard it is to keep so many characters straight. Now, I'm learning fast that it is really hard. Or rather, it's hard to be original with each one. See, the book I'm working on now has cast that just doesn't stop growing. When I wrote the summaries for each scene, I had no idea that I was going to need so many character descriptions. It's crazy. Here, I'll prove it.
In the first 12 scenes, I've already had 17 characters appear (plus a group of children), 13 of which have names, and only three of which do not have some sort of physical description accompanying them So that's a total of 14 characters that have some sort of description that go with them.
Comparison time. In my other story, in the first 12 scenes, I have eight characters appear (two of which were animals) and two groups of guards/soldiers. All but one of those characters have names and all eight of them are described in some way (I'm excluding the guards cause they didn't get descriptions or names). So that's just over half the number of described characters as my current WIP. See, craziness!
Now let's add some more craziness, cause who doesn't love more insanity. In my other story, their is only really one ethnicity, though there is a kind of separate culture that has a sort of specific physical description that goes along with it. But overall, there isn't too much diversity as far as ethnicity is concerned.
In my current WIP the culture is much, much more diverse. The story is still set in a single country, but it's larger and more geographically and culturally diverse country than my other one. There are at least five distinct geographic regions, each with a distinct ethnicity. Oh yeah, and all of these different groups tend to mix in the city where the story is set, so there's a lot of diversity when it comes to physical traits. See, more craziness!
I don't want you to get the wrong idea though. I'm not complaining. Really, how could I? I mean this world is a product of my (hyperactive) imagination, so really, I did this to myself. And I'm actually really loving how much more diverse this new group of characters is. It's a lot of fun getting to know them and learning more about their world. It's just complicated.
I'm realizing that I need to use some sort of system to keep track of all of my characters and their descriptions. It's a new feeling for me.Not that I didn't keep track of my characters before. It's just that with so many more, I have to really pay attention to how I describe each one, because it's a lot easier to repeat myself with a bigger group of characters than it is with a smaller one. It's a new challenge, and one I'm learning to embrace.
As far as numbers go, I have 12 scenes typed. I don't have a word count today. Sorry. Maybe next time.
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