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Q&A Would a research team of this size be too small or too big? [closed]

I'm working on a story that revolves around a research team in a remote setting. They would have supplies so they don't have to leave the area they have to research for about a year. So far, I am p...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Scott.Bell‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question research characters
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T09:28:04Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/37809
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Scott.Bell‭ · 2019-12-08T09:28:04Z (almost 5 years ago)
I'm working on a story that revolves around a research team in a remote setting. They would have supplies so they don't have to leave the area they have to research for about a year. So far, I am planing on the team to be composed of both scientists and people they need for support. By this, I mean someone who is in charge of security, someone who is responsible for health monitoring, and so on. The thing is, I am not sure if this would make the team too large. At the moment I am considering a group of 8, 4 being the scientists and 4 being these support people (a member of the military, a doctor, a computer tech, and a communications official). Would this be too much? Too little?

Note: The group would be isolated for the year, in a very cold setting where they would spend most of their time indoors. Food and supplies all provided so no need for survival skills.

Editing to answer some points I have in the answers:

- Would it being a science fiction setting change the amount you would suggest, @Amadeus and @Keith Morrison?

- @DPT yes I have thought of that. The idea started as something being discussed with a friend so I had been a bit hesitant to change some of the characters but I could drop or merge a few (as you mention the doctor I always felt could be merged with one of the main members of the research group)

- Considering it's a scifi setting, would rotation of the team done from a station or from maybe a cycling of people in stasis be viable?

Still trying to work this out and as I said it was originally done with someone else and now I am working on it on my own. So maybe the best idea is to scrap most of it and starting over on the character pool? So far only the main character is someone I really would not scrap and mainly change the people around him.Thanks for the advice so far!

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-07-23T19:08:13Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 0