writing tons and tons of characters

By the way, what's the required number of recurring characters needed for a work to qualify as Loads And Loads Of Characters? Something like twelve for a small work and twenty-four for a larger work, and even more for a Long Runner?

You should create an Unpublished Works page for the large story you keep talking about.

It's really hard to say. something like thirty would seem like Loads And Loads Of Characters in an average story. But when you got a decade long Long Runner like Harry Potter, One Piece or The Simpsons, it wouldn't seem like much anymore. But I think seventy would the point where any work would count as automatic qualification for Loads And Loads Of Characters.

Is there a way, or several ways, to develop well and complete character arcs on a cast of 20-30 characters within 70K or so words? That's what I want to know.

Oh please, I have you all beat. Not only do I have my 25+ cast, but I also include people from the characters day to day lives, people from the past and future and even fictional characters. I dont have Loads and Loads of Characters. I have a Googleplex of characters.

Heh, already did. Horrible quality.

I doubt that...

Damn dude, I don't want to read your work. Probably will be a Mind Screw to me.

edited 15th May '11 1:58:37 AM by dRoy

It makes sense in context. It does wander into Meta territory. Oh and animals too!

Wait, you said you are writing a comic, right? It should be easier for me, because in visual media I can track many more characters than I could in literature.

Yeah its a comic universe with stories that occur across multiple titles that include a vignette style series of stories dealing with the fictional and minor characters and characters who time travel within the universes past and future.

@Atom James so are ninety percent of those characters actually worth remembering?

I try to make them. Thats sort of my challenge to myself: Create a universe of characters and get readers to care about every single one.

It's not possible for everyone to like every character though is it? But with a good variety you can at least have all your readers care about someone. So how many archetypes are your drazillion characters made up of? Is it more than three?

edited 15th May '11 5:20:23 AM by PsychoFreaX

Im a fan of Hyperbole

I never really paid attention to that actually :/ I think they would be though. Lets take a look:

Dean Donlowe is Equal Parts Cynic, Mentor, Heroic and Leader.

Is that a bad thing? I kinda get the feeling your talking down to me. Totally cool with it either way. Not one of those "Love Me!" kinda posters

edited 15th May '11 5:34:30 AM by AtomJames

Well people who write Loads And Loads Of Characters especially should care about variety. Especially if they want the readers to like every one of them.

Let's just say you got a thousand characters with 400 of them being the genius stoic, 300 loudmouth Butt-Monkey and 300 uh.......cannibals. For one you may only have a limited small group of people who like those characters. Also, that small group may get sick of the same kind of character done over and over again.

Loads And Loads Of Characters might not be such a great thing if you can't come up with a variety. Think Cast of Snowflakes but with personality as well as appearance.

edited 15th May '11 5:50:21 AM by PsychoFreaX

Ahh I understand now. I apologize, I'm gonna..find some hole to bury my head in now.

I get what your saying now and yeah I THINK I may have managed to bring variety to it.

Just wondering, does your work has a lot of characters because there are so many factions?

You mean like a Cast Herd?

edited 15th May '11 6:26:07 AM by PsychoFreaX

No actually. There are the mains, the normal secondaries, the heroic secondaries, the villains (past/present/future), 23rd Century characters, 28th Century characters and the miscellaneous which include animals, cartoons, one offs etc

Probably a better way to put it

edited 15th May '11 6:31:49 AM by AtomJames

I really don't have Tons and Tons of Characters. Right now, I have 8-10. Six protagonists, in a Teeth-Clenched Teamwork Enemy Mine Uneasy Alliance and two villains. Granted, I like all of my characters, and they're complex, but I lack the capacities to make tons of them.

edited 15th May '11 7:19:25 AM by Pyroninja42

My planned work is building towards this:

• The 5 man band
• A pair of old masters
• The big bad
• The other big bad
  • His Dragon
• The fake main character that gets killed in act 1
• 3-4 Elves
• An actual dragon
• More villains (from various factions)
• Plus any side characters.

edited 15th May '11 7:53:23 AM by animemetalhead

huh, I'm thinking of adding some named redshirts to give it more life, that should boost me up to around 35, but if anything it will just make it feel more real, not going to develop then that much, since they won't be around for too long to really gain any characterization.