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As a reader, I very much dislike large casts of characters, I lose patience and the ability to tell them apart quite quickly. However, a lot of it depends on how they are deployed. If your main c...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T09:24:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37705 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Chris Sunami
·
2019-12-08T09:24:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
As a reader, I very much dislike large casts of characters, I lose patience and the ability to tell them apart quite quickly. However, a lot of it depends on how they are deployed. If your main character travels a lot, for instance, he or she might naturally encounter quite a lot of different people, who, however, would only appear a few at a time, and thus be easily distinguishable. In general, the rule I would recommend is this: If they are easy to tell apart and memorable, keep them in. If they are easily confused with each other, combine them. If they are forgettable, drop them. The biggest red flag in your question for me is "trying to create a lifelike situation." Fiction can simulate and imitate life, but it is never truly lifelike, and we'd lose patience with it if it were. It's a little slice of life at best, and we rely on the writer to drop the boring stuff, and highlight the parts that are of greatest interest.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-07-17T18:45:31Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 45