The worst mistake you can make as a novelist

Everyone told me not to do it and I didn’t listen.

It was a piece of advice that every book I read on writing gave me, but I didn’t really believe it.

Don’t start with a novel; start with short stories. Don’t start with a series; start with a stand alone book. Don’t start with a huge cast of characters; start with a handful.

And — for the love of God — if you do have a bunch of characters, limit yourself to one main character.

If you’ve read my first book, Light Keeper Chronicle, you probably know how this relates to me. I’ll dive into that more, but first I need to get into some complete and utter speculation.

The Problem with “A Game of Thrones”

I would bet any amount of money that we haven’t seen another Song of Ice & Fire book since 2011 because of the sheer number of character George R.R. Martin has created in that world.

As much as Martin is famous for killing characters, in the pursuit of creating a living, breathing world, he ends up introducing more and more characters (however ancillary) that he needs to keep track of as the story goes along. At a certain point, it’s simply untenable, especially when it comes to having to come up with a worthy conclusion for them.

It’s why any given show will have staple cast members across its seasons. Is it realistic that all these friends in New York would hang out this consistently with the exact same set of people? Realistic or not, it’s easier to write (and also manage and market.)

My Mistake

The mistake I made was that the very first book I published had a large cast with multiple main characters and was billed as the first book in the series. So now, as I work on the second book in the series, I’m handling all the baggage that comes with that decision.

(Obviously not as much as any given A Song of Ice and Fire book, but I’m a very green writer next to George R.R. Martin.)

In that endeavor, I recently got through a scene that required me to introduce somewhere between four and seven new characters (depending on how you count) and some of the stakes of this particular novel.

So I’m here to re-enforce the lessons I didn’t listen to way back when I first started writing.

I really can’t recommend enough that, if you’re writing something, you do everything in your power to avoid introducing more than two or three characters in a scene. (Four really does feel like the absolute upper limit.)

Let me point to another famous author, fantasy’s favorite grandfather—J.R.R. Tolkien.

What “The Hobbit” tries to fix

In The Hobbit book, the gag with the dwarves is how indistinguishable the thirteen of them are with really only two standing out for any reason. They all have rhyming names, stumble into the scene all at once, and — through most of the novel — tend to act as a unit.

In the film adaptation, screenwriters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson took on the unenviable task of making all of the dwarves distinct. For the record, I think they do an admirable job (especially considering those movies are not bloated in ways that end up giving the dwarves more screen time). That said, it’s also clear that six or seven dwarves probably would have served the plot just as well as thirteen.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
(c) 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.

On top of that — even though I do think the screenwriters gave it a decent attempt to try to distinguish the dwarves — audiences would still be hard pressed to identify how and if any of them impact the plot other than Thorin.

I would argue that Bofur, Balin, and Dwalin do little things to influence the plot. Kili (and probably Fili) technically influence the plot. And … yeah, past that I think there are (generously) maybe four dwarves I enjoy: Ori, Dori, Biffur, Bombur. But that still leaves three dwarves who don’t influence the plot and/or who I feel indifferently about.

Where does that leave me?

When I first started writing Light Keeper Chronicle (my young adult fantasy series) I was in 4th or 5th grade and steeped in fantasy books, shows, and movies.

I wanted to write long books with lots of characters, because that’s what I enjoyed most. I also had the time to spend making up and writing the people and places that intrigued me and I didn’t have to consider the reader.

Because of the time I had to write and plan back then, my premise for Light Keeper Chronicle requires seven main characters. I also had imagined detailed internal lives for all these characters with parents and siblings and friends and enemies. (This is all before they get to the fantasy world with confusing proper nouns.)

I pretty much always new introducing seven main characters in book one would be to big a lift, so I only have four in book one with the intent to introducing the other three in book two.

I’ve spent 10 years (on and off) trying to make good progress in book two exactly because I have too many characters and no longer want this to be a 250,000 word novel. (If you want to see how much this book has changed already, you can check out three fairly distinct versions of the first chapter that I’ve gone through.)

I am very close to getting past the scenes in Light Keeper Chronicle book 2 where I need to make these introductions and get the main plot really rolling. (All of which should be done by about the 15,000 word mark.) From there, I’m hoping to start moving through plot points at pace and get the first full, finished draft of the second book by the end of the this year. (Ideally coming in around the 80-90k word count, slightly longer than the first book.)

I say all first and foremost as an update: Despite me going back and forth about what project to focus on next, Light Keeper book 2 is not dead. Secondly, I say this to genuinely warn anyone planning to write books like this. Please, learn from my mistakes, go smaller. I’m begging you, for your sake.

Of course, I ignored those very same warnings more than a decade ago when I started writing these books. So, if you are like me (bad at taking good advice) I hope your defiance leads you to many great rewards.

Whatever you are writing, though, I wish you the best of luck on your journey!

*****

The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The Wilderlands ebook is available on Kindle, on Nook, on Kobo, and on Apple.

Light Keeper Chronicle: The Unspoken Prophecy is available for physical purchase from Schuler Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. The Unspoken Prophecy ebook is available on Kindle, on Nook, on Kobo, and on Apple.