***LARGE GROUPS OF CHARACTERS***
“The Way-Back Machine is all warmed up, Mr. Peabody!”
Good boy, Sherman. Now let’s go back to the late 1990’s in Chehalis, Washington,
where I was a pre-teen playing Dungeons & Dragons with a large group of my
brother’s friends. Pay close attention to the “large group” part of that last
sentence. It didn’t matter if I was a level one human fighter with a true
neutral attitude. It didn’t matter if my character was destined to become a
badass somewhere down the line. That prophecy never came to fruition in this
particular role-play. You want to know what my character did? You want to know
what his big contribution to the experience was? Smashing a whiskey barrel over
somebody’s head. That’s it. End of story. The rest of the role-playing session
was a whole lot of jack shit. Whenever the DM asked me what I wanted to do
next, I’d just languidly say, “Go with them.”
From that day forward, I only agreed to D&D sessions
with small groups of people or strictly one-on-one with the DM. When too many
characters invade one story, there’s not enough room for them to get their shit
in. They get shoved to the background in favor of others. There’s no room for
development. Or in my case, all I got to do was smash a wooden barrel over somebody’s
head…and not a goddamn thing more. Whenever I write novels, I always make sure
to keep my protagonists down to a manageable number like two or three. That
way, everybody gets a chance at character development in the relatively small
space that constitutes the word count benchmark for novellas. Bigger
adventuring parties are designed for works that are longer. Me? I don’t have
the mental endurance to write something long enough to include an army of
three-dimensional characters.
This heavy burden of characters is something often seen in
professional wrestling as well, not just with books and movies. It’s one of the
reasons why the WWE Divas Revolution was so poorly received in 2015. Nine women
had to share X minutes of TV time, which means nobody got developed, nobody had
any real motivations, nobody had personality, and there was no real end game to
it all. To put it bluntly, it was a cluster fuck that resulted in the Wrestling
Observer Newsletter giving it a Worst Feud of the Year award. It also placed
second in that year’s list of Most Disgusting Promotional Tactics and third in
the list of Worst Gimmicks. There’s only so much TV time to go around, which
means smaller groups take priority if there’s ever a chance at character
development.
Of course, not all characters have to be three-dimensional.
Some characters were designed to be extras and that’s okay. But if you’re going
to make a character an extra, be prepared for the lack of emotional investment
that comes with it. A mass slaughter of innocent civilians doesn’t hold nearly
as much weight in a Marvel or DC movie as the death of a character the audience
actually cares about. The more you care, the more it will hurt. Why do you
think people in real life get choked up about family members dying, but won’t
blink an eye at an elderly celebrity passing the pearly gates? Celebrities are
nice, but they’re not as connected to us as our truly loved ones. The same
logic applies with stories where there’s a large number of protagonists.
Having said these things, I can still think of a few
examples where it’s okay to care about big groups of people. In “The Savior’s
Champion” by Jenna Moreci, there are twenty combatants in the Sovereign’s
Tournament. You know they will eventually die per the rules of the game, but
when they do, it’ll hurt worse than a Kaleo knee to the ribcage. Then again,
that novel is at least five hundred pages long, so Ms. Moreci has given herself
a lot of space to work with. Same thing with the old SNES videogame Final
Fantasy VI. It takes weeks to beat, which means a large group of playable
characters can thrive in that environment. You’ll care about Sabin Figaro.
You’ll give more than two shits about Mog. You’ll give lots of flying fucks
about Cyan Garamonde. Please do play that game if you’re into the classics.
What about Lord of the Rings? Well, each movie in the trilogy is three
butt-numbing hours long. You think that’s more than enough time to develop a
big ass group of characters? Fuck yeah it is!
But if it’s really dependent on the length of the story,
then why don’t I just write longer stories? Why can’t Beautiful Monster be
100,000 words instead of 45,000? Because a story’s completion has nothing to do
with how long it is. Yes, it’s a shorter novella, but it’s a complete story. Even
in its early draft phase, it has a beginning, middle, and end. The two main
protagonists, Windham Xavier and Tarja Rikkinen, are only two people, which
means they get lots of time to develop and grow as characters. Everybody else
can claim the spotlight for themselves because my main character roster isn’t
that big. But why not make my story longer and include more characters? Does it
really need more characters? Can the few that I have not carry the story on
their own? Besides, like I mentioned before, I don’t have the mental endurance
to write longer stories. I’d be nice if I had it, but superpowers aren’t really
a thing yet, so I’ll have to stick to the short stuff.
So the moral of the story is, if you want people to care
about your large group of characters, make sure your medium is long enough for
their individual developments. It can be done, but not by me, because I don’t
feel the need to stretch myself beyond my means. The same will apply to any
Dungeons & Dragons campaigns I run in the future: the smaller the group,
the smaller the headaches. Everybody will get their shit in. They’ll mean more
to my fictional world than smashing a whiskey barrel over somebody’s head. This
isn’t a WWE battle royal with a bloated roster full of tainted characters. This
is creative writing. Although, if Vince McMahon (who gets the last word on
WWE’s creative processes) wrote a novel of any kind, I’d want to read it just
because I can’t avert my eyes from a train wreck. I’m Garrison Kelly! Happy
Thanksgiving! Eat lots of turkey! I know I will!
***DOMESTIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
(Circa 2013)
JAMES: Hey Garrison, why are you being pissy?
GARRISON: I’m not!
JAMES: You’re being pissy.
GARRISON: I’M NOT!
JAMES: Yes, you are, you’re being very pissy.
GARRISON: I’m not!
JAMES: Come on, Garrison, be happy, get excited.
GARRISON: About what?
JAMES: I don’t know. Life.
GARRISON: Can I be excited about that cardboard box over
there?
JAMES: Sure, why not?
***POST-SCRIPT***
True story: I told my Face Book followers that I was going
to the Regal Cinemas today to watch A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I
backed out at the last minute, because the entire day I was feeling grumpier
than usual. I snapped at everything and expended a lot of physical energy
screaming at little shit. But that’s okay, because it’ll still play Saturday
night when all of the Thanksgiving and Black Friday hoo-ha has died down.
