Does Your Book Have A Lot of Characters? How to Deal with a Large Cast

Last year, I picked up a book that was being raved about on critical review sites and by other readers. I’d read the description and thought it might be for me. Then I opened it to the first few pages, where the author started with a list of the cast of characters, and I groaned inwardly.

I love reading, and I read lots of long and/or complex books, but friends, when I saw that character list, I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake.

Because large casts can be a real headache, if not done right.

Spoiler: the book was Julia Phillips’ Disappearing Earth, which I did read…and highly recommend. My experience with the character list made me think about how Phillips choreographed this large cast so effectively, and how you can, too.

What are the advantages of a large cast? What can go wrong when you’ve got a large cast? How can you write a large cast that your readers identify with?

Books that have a large cast

When we think about books with lots of characters, certain genres spring to mind: SciFi/Fantasy especially, and also history, historical fiction, and scientific books.

We think about War and Peace; Lord of the Rings; Gone with the Wind; and Harry Potter. Classics you say—yes. And a heavy dose of fantasy lit. But contemporary books and books in other genres feature large casts of characters as well: 1776 by David McCullough; There There, by Tommy Orange; The Lion’s Gate, by Steven Pressfield; The Goldfinch, by Donna Tart; Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo; White Teeth, by Zadie Smith.

“Caper” books, mysteries, and thrillers may have large casts, featuring possible suspects, red herrings, conspirators, and law enforcement. The same with true crime and books that lean heavily on reportage. All sorts of fiction and nonfiction display large casts.

And of course, Disappearing Earth.

Smaller (casts) may be better

Large casts are sometimes necessary, especially if you’re writing a nonfiction book and the characters are real people. But they are tricky.

The more characters you have, the more complicated your story will get. You need to keep all of these people straight in your own mind, and remember the choreography of their movements. You need to know how they all relate to each other.

In scenes with lots of characters, you need to track what everyone in the scene is up to. And you need to track everyone when they’re “offstage.”

It’s a lot.

You can tell whether the cast is “too much” if readers complain the book is hard to read, the characters are hard to tell apart, or they have trouble understanding who’s important.

Tips for how to write a large cast

How can you overcome these difficulties with your large cast?

What we really want are characters that readers identify with and are interested in. This goes for any genre and for any size cast. Otherwise, why are the characters even there?

How to introduce characters

• NOT all at once. Please! None of us will keep this straight. Space them out.
• Allow details to accrue over time. Don’t give us their complete background/personal history/physical appearance sketch in one go.
• Suggest who they are through their actions, dialogue, and setting, rather than exposition only. We can learn a lot about a person by what they do, say, and how they set up their office or their home.

Use names effectively

• Fiction: make sure the names are appropriate, and don’t sound too similar. You have control over this!
• Nonfiction: do we need all their names at once? Especially if you’re talking about someone with many titles, consider spacing out this information, or attaching a noteworthy feature to the name (a useful fiction technique). Decide whether we’re going to be on a first- or last-name basis.
• EVERYONE: don’t name characters who don’t do anything! Names signal importance; we don’t need the name of the waiter, pilot, surgeon, water boy, etc unless they are integral to the story. Think movie credits: Dogwalker One, Dogwalker Two…

Group characters together

• This is easy to see in military units. You can also have a team of scientists from Johns Hopkins, the artists from a local collective, the PTA, and so on. This helps readers keep a handle on how these groups relate to each other—what’s most important for your book.
• Pick a spokescharacter for the group. It’ll be easier for us to remember Dan from the PTA and Susie from Johns Hopkins as representatives for the people they work with.

Consider a list of dramatis personae

• Yes, I know I said this almost turned me off from Disappearing Earth, BUT…sometimes it’s nice to have a cheat sheet. At least for you, while you’re writing. You can decide later to not include it in the book, if you change your mind. I sure could have used one during War and Peace…

Large cast at work

Phillips does a great job of slowly introducing us to her characters. In fact, this is the hallmark of the book, how the story grows beyond the initial bounds you might expect. Small details add up over the full course of the 264 pages.

The book is set on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East. Many of the names are unfamiliar to Western ears. But Phillips shows us characters from multiple points of view, and gives us one or two important details to remember who is who.

The characters from Disappearing Earth fall easily into groups based on location, profession, and ethnic group (interaction between Russian nationals and the indigenous people of the peninsula being important in the plot).

Bottom Line

Large casts can be a lot of fun and are necessary to some genres. They are also tricky to choreograph. Remember, you want your readers to identify with and/or care about your characters.

How well do you direct your cast?

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Not sure if the size of your cast is appropriate? You may benefit from a manuscript review.

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