As a novel or screenplay is written, writers need to be aware of their characters.

Duh…

No, really, give it some thought.

All stories have a protagonist and an antagonist so, as a minimum, stories have two characters. A story can be written with only two characters but, usually, there are more than two.

Many more.

Usually characters are human but sometimes they are not.

A character could be an animal, like the shark in JAWS or the pig in BABE.

Some characters are make believe such as vampires and zombies, Porky Pig, or Superman.

Weather has been used as an antagonist. Two good examples are hurricanes and tornadoes.

Even inanimate objects have been used as characters. Remember the strange car in Stephen King’s CHRISTINE, or the toys in the TOY STORY franchise?

One thing I learned from publishing my novel, WINDFALL, was to be cognizant of how many characters I introduce at any given time in the story. If too many characters are introduced at one time, the reader can’t keep them straight.

Try to introduce characters one at a time. This gives the reader time to get to know them. If this is not impossible, introduce characters in small groups.

One way to help readers remember characters is to differentiate them. The writer does this by making each and every main character come alive on paper.

If your characters are important to the story, give them a name and, if possible, make the name memorable. Give them physical attributes that are impossible to ignore, and habits that stand out, or an occupation that is so unusual it will never be forgotten.

But, if a character is secondary, such as a doorman or cab driver who only appears once in the story, don’t give them a name. In fact, don’t tell us they have fire red hair and weigh as much as an elephant. We don’t want to remember secondary characters. If a reader notices the secondary characters, the reader is distracted from the main characters. Writers should make secondary characters almost invisible.

So how many characters are too many? There is no answer to that question. Some stories only need two characters. Other stories will have hundreds. Just make sure your main characters are memorable because that makes it easier for the reader to remember them.