Do I have too many main characters?

I'm writing a fanfic that's going to be quite long because it actually has Plot (with a capital P). The main characters are a team of four:

1. The team leader, who I've chosen as my main character (though he isn't usually)
2. Another who (in my story) is the Lancer, sort of, for the leader (so the interaction between the two is quite important)
3. The protagonist of the actual series, but not of my story
4. And one more

Essentially, my problem is not knowing what characters to focus on.

At the beginning of the story, my main character was suffering from Heroic RRoD and was thus in no state to do anything, so the other three had most of the focus and POV. Here I concentrated mainly on character no. 4, because when I was starting she seemed like the best choice (and the idea of the importance of 2 only came up later).

Now I'm planning the middle section of the story (between the beginning and the climax) and I can see a good storyline developing for 1 & 2. But I can't think of anything plot-relevant to do with the others. I realise the reason for this is that I'm simply not so interested in them, story-wise. And though I hope to come up with something, I'm worried about neglecting them and at the same time I'm worried about making the story too diffuse.

(My main guilt is that I'm sending 3 & 4 on respective Bus Trips while 1 & 2 get on with the plot.)

Would it be unacceptable to change focus from characters 3 & 4 to character 2 (and 1 of course) within the story? They all interact to some extent. Does the structure seem too confused?

I've just re-read this post and realised how confusing it is. Sorry. Welcome to my mind.

edited 23rd Feb '11 5:14:57 AM by LongLiveHumour

That's hardly to many..Ever heard of the Five-Man Band?

Too many? Excuse me whilst I scoff at thee for I have stories with 9 protagonists, 12 protagonists, and 20 protagonists. There is no upper limit. It's based entirely on how confident you are as a writer to be able to competently handle them all.

I however, do a sort of policy on having a "focus" character, i.e. a poster boy or a face, like if you were to identify the series by a single character, then that focus character would be it, but everybody else is still important.

It's sort of like how one can argue that The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya's hero is the narrator Kyon even though the "focus" is Haruhi.

edited 23rd Feb '11 5:30:20 AM by MousaThe14