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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36546
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36546
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There is no general rule. I am currently reading a book that has half a dozen named characters, sometimes close to each other or even in the same location, sometimes far away from each other with the occasional point-of-view of someone mostly unrelated. The author is doing a great job of making sure that you know who is where at which point and how the other characters and their actions are influencing the current _main character_. There are also lots of other named characters that are playing minor roles, having maybe one or two chapters of their own before they are being reduced to a side-kick role in chapters of other characters.

But sometimes it feels as if the author is forgetting about one or the other character because it's been so long that you have read something about them. It's difficult to strike a good balance of making the story arcs relevant and playing them out in parallel while also making sure that every overall important character has something to do throughout the other smaller arcs. Or at least to make it not feel like you are forgetting some of those characters.

At the same time I have also read lots of books that are from the perspective of only one or maybe two characters. It's certainly more easy to make the reader not feel like you are forgetting a character.

But this reduces the interdependencies that you can explore in smaller story arcs.

If you feel like there are too many great story arcs you could think about making a series and exploring other characters and their stories in those stories instead of packing everything into one story. This obviously depends on the amount of stuff you have or are planning to have in the end and whether you like series or not. But there is no general easy way to say how many story arcs you can have.

Original score: 10