Writing How Many Side Characters?

[CadmarLegend]

What do you think is the correct amount of side characters a novel, which has *cough* I mean, may have, 3 different parts, each that tell of the journey for an MC turning from a kid to a man— *cough* I mean, an adult? Yeah, there were no innuendoes intended...

 

[Deleted member 45782]

As many as you can fit!

Depends on the story.
As many as you need but they have to be meaningful - like have a sense of purpose to serve for the main plot in some way or form.

 

[CadmarLegend]

As many as you can fit!

Then how do we prevent the loopholes that may be created because of them?




Kill them?

Spoiler

 

[Napelynn]

Then how do we prevent the loopholes that may be created because of them?




Kill them?

Spoiler

Killing off the character won’t solve loopholes all the time. You should kill them off anyways though.

 

[CadmarLegend]

Killing off the character won’t solve loopholes all the time. You should kill them off anyways though.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

Kill them?

Spoiler

YES.


Actual answer: they drop off the plot in a way that makes sense - reasons for them leaving, them dying, etc, etc. Can't be just a quick meteorite hit rush kind of thing to close any loopholes quickly.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Side characters or background characters? Have as many background characters as you want lovers. For side characters, pick as many husbands as you want.

 

[CadmarLegend]

Side characters or background characters? Have as many background characters as you want lovers. For side characters, pick as many husbands as you want.

 

[Valmond]

What do you think is the correct amount of side characters a novel, which has *cough* I mean, may have, 3 different parts, each that tell of the journey for an MC turning from a kid to a man— *cough* I mean, an adult? Yeah, there were no innuendoes intended...

It depends really, more or less what the story revolves around. For instance, mine contains hell of a lot of conflict and wars. An example from my trilogy. There have been quite a number of side characters. Their role truly comes into play in the true finale of the series. Where all of them comes to aid the lead in one final war. Remove those side characters, say that the main never extended a hand to them. The lead would have been fighting that war alone or close to alone. The end result would have been massively different. One of the notable changes. Is that the main would have likely commenced genocide, rather than allowing the invaders to retreat. Those side characters made the main realize that they are never alone. These characters, reflects what those moments of kindness can lead to.

This took three books to buildup correctly.

As you can probably see, the significance of side characters can play a different role depending on the type of story.

 

[DubstheDuke]

I don't write any side characters. Each character has their own time as the MC

 

[CadmarLegend]

I don't write any side characters. Each character has their own time as the MC

then who's the MC for the longest time? >0>

 

[DubstheDuke]

then who's the MC for the longest time? >0>

The mc

 

[CadmarLegend]

The mc

Which MC?

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

Depends what type of story your writing.

If its war related, try to make as many to create tension and fame/infamy to a character. Kings, nobles and even some commoners to act as background character. This brings up tension, the stakes and conflict of many ideas to which helps in your story building.

Slice of life? Depends on how this builds your MC or other characters. Not too much but not too small to bore people with the usual characters. Depends on the length of the novel.

Isekai? If its harem, limit to 3-4 girls. More girls means to bore readers with the generic setup. No harem, 2-3 side to balance their relationship or create tension. No romance, it mainly revolves around how much development you create on your character.

In adventure related note, make as many as you want, it mainly just depends on how it develops your character.

Most of all, this is all about how you plan on your novel. If it focus on your character, limit it to how much development you want. The story? At just a minimun of a small amount per length of chapter(mainly depends on how much development you make).

 

[Ruyi]

i honestly think it's hard to predict the number of side characters you'll need before you start plotting those 3 parts needed. it might be easier to think of the story divided into arcs between the MC's childhood, adolescence, and adulthood and feature a few prominent players for the respective sections.

you can have as many unnamed background characters as you want to populate the world and generate "noise," but you'll want to only focus on a few of them as your side characters to create "sound," if that makes sense.

i'm writing a mini-arc now and my side character cast consists of 3 main side characters, 2 less important ones, and 1-2 more named minor characters that have relationships with the side characters but not so much with the MC. the rest are all "mob A" or "villager B" types.

depending on how much time in the spotlight you give them 3-5 side characters might be all you have time for. the more names/side characters there are, the more the readers have to keep track of, and sometimes that's just not worth it if these people don't ever appear in the story again. if you're going to give them a whole identity and backstory, i suggest you better make sure they're worth remembering. otherwise, "the janitor" or "the shopkeeper" are good enough as stand-ins.

and if you mean side characters as, idk, side flings or whatever, i've got no advice there except to make their descriptions pretty i guess? hahaha.

 

[DubstheDuke]

Which MC?

Yes

 

[CadmarLegend]

Yes

YES........................ BUT ACTUALLY NO. Which is your MC?

 

[DubstheDuke]

YES........................ BUT ACTUALLY NO. Which is your MC?

I didn't even know who my MC was until I got to chapter 250, if that helps.

 

[MadmanRB]

Well technically you can have as many side characters as you want, but it does have the issue of having too many characters to keep track of.
I say either narrow things down or if you must have side characters when you add them in make sure their roles make sense.
Sure having lots of characters can make a work feel bigger but too big and things can collapse under its own weight.

Also by side characters do you mean supporting characters? Because if its supporting characters then you really do need to narrow it down and make sure they fit into your story.

 

[LostLibrarian]

Each (named) side character should mirror a certain part of your MC's journey and either have a direct effect on the MC or show how it might have gone different.

So "how many side characters" really depends on the story you want to tell.

You can also differentiate between side characters who stay for the entire story and those that will leave after a story arc, which gives you more room to work with.


As a rule of thumb I would not use more than 5 active named characters in any arc. You can let some characters be in the background and reintroduce later (make sure to actually reintroduce them), but at some point you won't have enough stuff to do for them and they'll just stand in the background and do nothing.

So if you roughly plan out your story and you get to the point of "I don't know what XY will do" - that's when you have too many...