“It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged…”
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged’ — that the more point-of-view characters and settings a book contains, the bigger, and longer, it will be.”
~ Helen Lowe 😀
“Enough said,” she thinks, and digs a little deeper, getting to grips with the denouement of WALL #4 and The Wall Of Night series.
Only to reflect that this is both meant to be a blog centered on authorial reflection (as well as anything else, really) and the opening salvo for the week. So, OK, then…
This truth was first made concrete for me when I began reading George RR Martin’s eagerly awaited A Feast For Crows, Book #4 in the A Song of Ice and Fire series (better known as Game of Thrones) and not only found myself in Dorne, a locale not previously featured in ASOIAF Books #1 – #3, but engaging with a completely new set of characters.
“Uh-oh,” thought I, “I know this is meant to be a six-book series, but given this development, I’m not sure that’s going to happen…”
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One reason why is that every new locale needs to be established, or reestablished, in worldbuilding terms, and however concise and/or precise that process, it still requires some word and page time.
Another—and possibly more important—reason is that every new point-of-view character must have an arc, some degree of backstory, and interact with other characters, building relationships or burning them down, as well as affecting and being affected by events (i.e. that “must have an arc” again.)
Suffice it to say that armed with this revelation, when I commenced writing WALL #4, I knew I had to work hard to constrain both the introduction of new characters, especially point-of-view characters, and also locales.
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I’ve largely been successful in this endeavour, although it’s not proven possible to rule out new characters completely, but given how long it’s all taken me, the WALL cast was quite clearly already more than large enough.
“Enough said,” she thinks, and digs a little deeper, getting to grips with the denouement of WALL #4 and The Wall Of Night series. 😉
Soon… (all digits pretzelled)
I keep explaining this to dewy-eyed and hopeful fantasy workshop participants! There’s always at least one who has a plan to out-GRRM GRRM with the number of protagonists. People… every protag has an arc. Ten protags means ten arcs. Even a good antagonist has an arc. Seriously, the amount of work involved…
I concur “a good antagonist has an arc” — especially since Thanir’s has given me so much grief over the past year or so!
Not infrequently, I reflect on the time it took me to write Thornspell vs the WALL series, and although it’s not the only factor (earthquakes, anyone?) I do think one point-of-view character (Thornspell) versus ca. sixteen (at the end of Daughter of Blood) plays its part. All of which leads me to comprehend a less obvious reason than “tragedy” for why Shakespeare killed so many at one fell swoop in so many of his plays… 😉
(This is not my plan for The Chaos Gate, I hasten to add!)
I cannot IMAGINE what 16 story arcs would be like! I have trouble keeping track of one POV character…
😀