by Sarah Sally Hamer @SarahSallyHamer
I often get asked in my classes how many characters a book should have. Answering that is usually easy—as many as you need—but I always try to follow up with a question for the writer. How long is the story? Because that can be a huge factor. Not only that but, as Ronald B. Tobias suggests, each character should “relate and depend” on the others. We can’t separate characterization from plot or action or incidents. Keeping all this straight is where triangles “step in and save the day.”
