Is six main characters too many?

23. Tuesday 27 January 2026

I eventually got into the swing of things today, but I don’t feel like I worked well. I got myself a bit mixed up because I realised I had some timescale errors within the chapters I wrote on Friday. I’m now on chapter 28 of version 2, which is chapter 26 of this version. That does mean that I’m only two chapters off reaching my target for this week, but I don’t feel like I’ve done that much as a lot of today's editing was just altering copy and pastes. It's more satisfying rewriting, but I know it doesn't all need rewriting. However, I need to write one whole chapter from scratch tomorrow and it’s a chapter about a party and I am not sure how to write it.

                My novel has six main characters. If this book ever gets me an agent and a publisher, I know that they will try to cut down the characters. I am well aware that six is a lot of main characters, but what would be the point of running a crime writing course with fewer than six students? And I have ensured that each of them has a specific role. James dies. Eric is a know-it-all about crime fiction and he fancies himself as Hercule Poirot. Two have a key role in revealing James’s character. Two of them fancy each other – I could easily go on, they are all different and I couldn’t imagine getting rid of, say, two of them. The thing is, I see them as six individuals and I feel I know them really well, but would a reader get confused? I’ve read books where I’ve never quite got to grips with who’s who. The last two books I can think of where that happened, it was between two characters. I just couldn’t distinguish them.

                Although I feel further away from having someone read any of Crime Writing for Beginners than I expected to be by this stage, I am beginning to think that it would be useful to have someone (probably Narissa, my “writing buddy”) read the first few chapters and tell me what they think. I feel slightly (very) concerned that a problem will be how many characters there are. How about I stop speculating and ask someone to read the first three chapters?

In other news, and perhaps this is a reflection of excitement levels in my day, an AA mechanic came out to replace the dead battery in one of our cars, there was heavy sleet, I fed the birds three times as they seemed desperately hungry, I got my sourdough ready for the fridge stage and I ended up roasting parsnips, carrots, sweet potato, Brussels sprouts and kale to go with my beef burger, and very nice it was too. And I am officially the owner of the 1940s hand woven antelope hunting scene that I hadn’t intended to buy but which made its way home with me yesterday in error. I am thinking my new woollen wall hanging, complete with [well, I’ll take a photo of it and I expect you can guess what I’ve now decided not to comment on!], must have been meant for me to buy.

                Tomorrow, I would like to finish class 4 and write the party chapter I never wrote.