October Novel Prep Challenge

Have we figured out the profiles by now?
Character Profiles  

Also, I have some minor character advice. I was away at a writer critique group (with learning sessions) all weekend- and I'm even more fired up to do this thing than before. Good things are coming.

Question 1: Do you have too many minor characters? It's easy to get carried away here. We have a run-in with someone in chapter 1, and someone else in chapter 3, and suddenly we have so many loose end characters used once that it leads to a lot of extra things. Reuse those characters or decide if you really need Stranger #3 to encounter your protagonist. A novel is not real life and there are reasons truth is stranger than fiction.

Question 2: Are you trying to focus on too many characters? I know it's a novel, in some cases a series, but giving up so much of the narrative in too many spots can confuse the reader or worse - turn them away from an otherwise great book. You need to lean into the flaws of your main character(s), keep the emotional connection to your reader, and have all the crazy plot happenings going on. This is one reason so many novels have one main character, and they stick with it for the book. You can have a great ensemble cast, but be sure you're focused on which ones are main versus which ones are minor.

Question 3: Do you need to know as much about a major character as a minor one? This is one I struggle with. If a character is so minor that I don't need to know very much - why is this character in my book at all? The current project I'm working on has a core crew to a spaceship and immediately adds two (or three) other crew for a total of 6 characters. These characters are all as real to me as my protagonist, and my two villains are also coming through pretty well. In the series, the most the crew will have together is eight. One protagonist, though, and the rest all have important parts to play as they go through the series. Part of me wanted to kill them all in the end to be done at book 3, but I can't, because someone popped up to remind me I had spin-off plans for two of them.

Your answers to these questions are going to be different. It's looking at each of these minor characters to see which one can possibly be combined or strengthened to make your book better.
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