You may have covered this in a previous chapter that I missed, and I apologize! But how many suspects would be sufficient for a mystery? For my traditional whodunnits (with thriller elements), I have multiple suspects, five who are obvious suspects, along with a few more characters that avid mystery readers might see as suspicious, simply because they exist in the world of the novel. (You know, the too-good-to-be-true, fly under the radar types. When I read, I wonder about those characters, even if nothing really points to them. And yes, those characters need to be in the novel because they'd be there in real life. For example, the child victim's guardian, the nosy/gossipy neighbor, ectera.) Since my protagonist is a journalist, I also have to add her boss and colleague, who both influence the plot, and the lead detective. When all these are totalled up, I have about forty characters.
But all my beta readers have said that it was a lot of names to keep straight. I agree. I did my best to give them different personalities, among other things, but I can still imagine readers could potentially be confused. I can't do much to delete any of the characters in this novel, and the beta readers agreed that it didn't diminish their enjoyment of the book.
But I'm working on a sequel, and I'd like to figure out in the first draft phase if there's a good way to tell if I have too many suspects.
Sorry for the long question. I'm a long-winded person! Thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us. I'm a pantser but I've still found your planning tools and insights helpful.
Hi, Meredith! I think there's no really good answer to the "how any suspects?" question--at least not one that applies to every book. A thriller that puts a lot of the focus on one false suspect might get by with just a couple of additional suspects. Agatha Christie will sometimes go up to a dozen. It varies a lot, but I think 3-5 is a good starting point for a first novel.
The situation you outlined--having characters who aren't explicit suspects is a common thing, and in my mind, a good one. We generally wind up with a handful of people who need to be there--witnesses, relatives, suspects' lawyers, etc.--and it's often good for the Villain to come from this "cloud" of non-suspect characters.
I haven't considered the question, before, of what's a good limit on character count. My instinct says I'd cap it around twenty, tops--but I'd want to do a little research before I totally committed to that. Some ways to reduce might be:
1) combine two existing characters into one, so that the boss and colleague are now a single boss. No idea if this works based on your existing plot, but it's the sort of thing that can help you bring down the count.
2) If a character needs to be there but is in no way truly important, have him show up without a name. You can stick a dozen references to "the butler" or "the porter" into a novel, and as long as no one ever calls him by name, the reader knows that she doesn't have to pay him any mind. He's just there to make the basic plot work.
Thanks, Jane! I appreciate the help. The boss/coworker combo wouldn’t work (colleague is a love interest & boss is more a mentor) but I understand the idea here. I’ll look for ways to use this particular idea in the future. Thanks for answering my question!
You may have covered this in a previous chapter that I missed, and I apologize! But how many suspects would be sufficient for a mystery? For my traditional whodunnits (with thriller elements), I have multiple suspects, five who are obvious suspects, along with a few more characters that avid mystery readers might see as suspicious, simply because they exist in the world of the novel. (You know, the too-good-to-be-true, fly under the radar types. When I read, I wonder about those characters, even if nothing really points to them. And yes, those characters need to be in the novel because they'd be there in real life. For example, the child victim's guardian, the nosy/gossipy neighbor, ectera.) Since my protagonist is a journalist, I also have to add her boss and colleague, who both influence the plot, and the lead detective. When all these are totalled up, I have about forty characters.
But all my beta readers have said that it was a lot of names to keep straight. I agree. I did my best to give them different personalities, among other things, but I can still imagine readers could potentially be confused. I can't do much to delete any of the characters in this novel, and the beta readers agreed that it didn't diminish their enjoyment of the book.
But I'm working on a sequel, and I'd like to figure out in the first draft phase if there's a good way to tell if I have too many suspects.
Sorry for the long question. I'm a long-winded person! Thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us. I'm a pantser but I've still found your planning tools and insights helpful.
Hi, Meredith! I think there's no really good answer to the "how any suspects?" question--at least not one that applies to every book. A thriller that puts a lot of the focus on one false suspect might get by with just a couple of additional suspects. Agatha Christie will sometimes go up to a dozen. It varies a lot, but I think 3-5 is a good starting point for a first novel.
The situation you outlined--having characters who aren't explicit suspects is a common thing, and in my mind, a good one. We generally wind up with a handful of people who need to be there--witnesses, relatives, suspects' lawyers, etc.--and it's often good for the Villain to come from this "cloud" of non-suspect characters.
I haven't considered the question, before, of what's a good limit on character count. My instinct says I'd cap it around twenty, tops--but I'd want to do a little research before I totally committed to that. Some ways to reduce might be:
1) combine two existing characters into one, so that the boss and colleague are now a single boss. No idea if this works based on your existing plot, but it's the sort of thing that can help you bring down the count.
2) If a character needs to be there but is in no way truly important, have him show up without a name. You can stick a dozen references to "the butler" or "the porter" into a novel, and as long as no one ever calls him by name, the reader knows that she doesn't have to pay him any mind. He's just there to make the basic plot work.
Hope this is helpful!
Thanks, Jane! I appreciate the help. The boss/coworker combo wouldn’t work (colleague is a love interest & boss is more a mentor) but I understand the idea here. I’ll look for ways to use this particular idea in the future. Thanks for answering my question!