Thread: Characters in excess

Hello everyone. I'm currently writing a novel but I'm having a lot of difficulty to keep on mainly because the number of characters it has is tremendous.

When I inicially planned the novel the characters would just flow. Being it based in actual people (just as a resemblance) it got hard for me to cut or merge characters as each one of them is in fact someone who has past, personality and a mind of their own. Until here everything was ok. When I lastly counted the number of characters I ended up with around 30 main characters (with at least 15 more secondary characters). I started writing the novel, which focuses each chapter in a specific character, but when I reached the 5th chapter I got stuck due to the lack of interest the characters get.
Each chapter is also narrated by the character in question, sometimes alternating between other characters. I was planning a total of 45 chapters split in three parts (or three books). I don't want the reader to get bored right when I introduce the characters, where their moment of glory may be 40 chapters ahead.

I've been trying to figure something out for days and I don't know what to do.
So what I ask is: What would you do in my situation? Do you know novels I can read as examples or inspiration to manage my problem?

*PD: To be more specific, the novel goes around the aftermath of a character's death, whereas the relationship of this character with others (the said main characters) is explored in each chapter,but at the same time giving the story a continuity.

Thank you.

When you say a main character, I assume you mean that all 30 main characters are equally important to your story. Thirty seems like a lot. Readers want to have a relationship with your characters which means really getting to know them. I have a hard time imagining getting to know 30 characters with any depth. The risk might be that you are exposing your reader to 30 very shallow relationships. I have written novels with 70 or 80 characters but only five or six main characters. The rest were only there for the main characters to interact with. And my main characters were the kind of people who naturally have a lot of friends and associates. Not every character can pull off having so many friends. It sounds like each of your characters have only one chapter each which really limits the potential for that character to grow. Readers like character growth.

That's my main problem. There is in fact a MAIN character of all. This character is the one who knows every other character and is the one who leads all the others (the said 30) to interact with each other and develop the story. Other than this one, there are at least 5 more who are very important. The rest I consider main characters because the story is centered around them during at least a chapter.

While those characters are important during their chapter they may not appear often or be important in the rest of the novel. This is where I lose when I'm trying to make the characters interesting. But fact is, they are needed for certain things in the novel and I'm trying everything to avoid merging them.

Wasn't that enough I'm writing in 1st POV. Having multiple narrators is also making me unable to describe the character or the situation as seen by the reader but rather how the character sees it, which is sometimes a wrong perspective. On the other hand having multiple POVs makes me easier to switch between places and time with more easiness than being a 3rd person narrator.

Okay, let me see if I get this:

- You have a group of 30 people, whom you consider all relevant to the story,
- Another 15 which are more or less relevant,
- And a central character which is the most important of all.

I can see why you are getting stuck. It's not the number of characters, it's how you are trying to tell the story. I can't imagine juggling 30 different perspectives without breaking a sweat, and most of all, I can imagine the reader getting lost and forgetting who's who. Many of these types of stories are, in fact, told from a single perspective: the person who's most involved with everyone. This person might not be the hero, but has more connections than anyone else and has the highest chances of not missing out on things. The other option is using third person omniscient which would make things immensely easier.

You might think all of these people are crucial, and likely they are, but they are not "main characters" if their focus only lasts one chapter and then they become once again part of the secondary cast. If I were you, I'd look for the character that appears the most in your "chapters" and use him or her as the perspective. That said, you can always lower the head count.

If you could tell us what your story is about, we might be able to help more. But left in the dark like this, I think this is as much as anyone can help with what you've told us.

The story is mainly centered around a teenager who ends up killing himself. That is not known by the beginning of the book, just at the end. Each chapter, however, is focused on different characters related to him that are indirectly motivating him to commit suicide. There are some that aren't even present in 90% of the book, but somehow are important and relevant to the main character's death, thus getting their story told during a chapter.

Narrating in 3rd person omniscient would be way easier for me but on the other hand I couldn't deeply explore the feelings of a character as well as their thoughts and the different perspectives towards something each character has.