How many main characters should you have?

How many main characters should you have?

A good rule of thumb might be: Include as many characters as needed to tell the story and evoke the proper style and scope—and no more. For intimate novels, this number might be as small as 2-5 secondary characters, and for broader stories, this number might be 20-30.

Is 4 main characters too much?

The short answer is: no such number exists. You can include as many characters in your novel as you want to. It’s your story, and there’s no rule book you need to follow on how to write a great story. The creative process is yours to own.

Can a book have more than 1 main character?

So can you write a story with more than one main character? The short answer is: yes. You can write your novel any way you like, so long as it works in practice. Many writers, especially those writing in genres such as fantasy and sci-fi, have multiple main characters in their novels.

How many main characters are usually found in short stories?

In short stories there are usually fewer characters compared to a novel. They usually focus on one central character or protagonist.

How many characters is the average book?

In rough terms, each page of a standard-format hardcover book has about 300-350 words, and each word is five characters plus a space. So a typical book page has, say 1,500 to 1,800 characters (not counting spaces.).

How many POVS can you have in a novel?

Romance novels tend to have only a few POV characters, and rightly so. Big-canvas novels with many characters on many stages have more, and rightly so. In my own fiction, I usually have somewhere between 3 and 5 POV characters. I’ve done a novel once with 2, both of whom were told in first-person.

Can a story have 2 main characters?

Very few stories have multiple Main Characters within a single story. Usually, when there is more than one Main Character, there is more than one story going on. Stories that have multiple Main Characters work because the MC’s share exactly the same world view and they “hand off” the role back and forth.

How many characters can be in a book?

Most novels of every genre have 2-5 main characters. Romance novels almost always have 2-3 main characters, usually with two love interests and a buddy/sidekick for the male or female lead. A mystery novel usually has 2-3 main characters, perhaps even up to 5.

How many characters should a good story have?

So how many characters do you really need? In essence, there are only two characters that any story needs – the Protagonist and the Antagonist. All other characters are secondary or peripheral. They will either be relatable or connected to the protagonist or the antagonist in some way.