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pbrayAt Boskone last weekend I was on a panel where we discussed minor characters, and how to make them memorable.
I was reminded of the panel when I was reading a book earlier this week, as the protagonist encounters yet another former acquaintance with whom he no longer associates due to his recent disgrace. And I realized that I couldn't tell this person from the other similar characters that had already been introduced. The character didn't have a unique voice, and the few personal details used to describe him share too much in common with other characters. The next time he shows up, I'm going to have a hard time remembering which one he is.
I can't figure out if the problem is that so many of the minor characters all have the same stock feel, or if there are actually too many minor characters to keep track of. Sometimes less is more--a handful of richly drawn minor characters would serve the story far better than a constantly proliferating cast of cardboard cut-outs. As it is, I reached the stage where I needed a scorecard to keep track of who is who, so I've set it aside and moved on to something else.
I was reminded of the panel when I was reading a book earlier this week, as the protagonist encounters yet another former acquaintance with whom he no longer associates due to his recent disgrace. And I realized that I couldn't tell this person from the other similar characters that had already been introduced. The character didn't have a unique voice, and the few personal details used to describe him share too much in common with other characters. The next time he shows up, I'm going to have a hard time remembering which one he is.
I can't figure out if the problem is that so many of the minor characters all have the same stock feel, or if there are actually too many minor characters to keep track of. Sometimes less is more--a handful of richly drawn minor characters would serve the story far better than a constantly proliferating cast of cardboard cut-outs. As it is, I reached the stage where I needed a scorecard to keep track of who is who, so I've set it aside and moved on to something else.
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Date: 2008-02-23 02:42 am (UTC)Indeed. Otherwise books would be (a) very boring and (b) 20,000 pages long.
DH read a book recently that drove him crazy -- the plot was so flimsy and implausible that he kept phoning me up to tell me about the latest absurdity and mock the author. "Nu? So read something else, already," I'd say. "But it might get better," DH would reply; "and besides, it's hilarious."
Different people have different triggers for quitting a book. One of mine is garlands of indistinguishable characters (another, obviously, is bad writing, or writing that annoys me for some reason), but no doubt there are other readers out there who are less interested in the characters than in some other aspect of the book, and they read right past that problem just as I might read right past a big plot hole because I'm so involved with the people in the book ...