Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Every character has a name - does this lead to too many named characters?

Simple--Metrics. Count the number of named characters and the number of acts/chapters they are in. Named characters should appear in at least two chapters, to reward the reader for learning them,...

posted 5y ago by DPT‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:04:59Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42784
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar DPT‭ · 2019-12-08T11:04:59Z (over 4 years ago)
 **Simple--Metrics.**

Count the number of named characters and the number of acts/chapters they are in. Named characters should appear in at least two chapters, to reward the reader for learning them, better yet they should appear in at least two acts.

If you have fewer than 25 named characters and each character appears in 2 chapters and 2 acts, you are fine. This may sound silly, but it is a useful start point nonetheless.

If you have... 75 named characters, and 50 of them appear in one chapter only, you have a serious problem.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-03-01T00:44:58Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 14