Today I'm trying something different. Instead of sharing tidbits of stories I'm working on, I'm going to try writing about...writing. This is more or less just an experiment, and if enough people like it to warrant doing more, I'll try it.
Now for the main event: Stories with multiple main characters. Considering the popularity of Game of Thrones and the fact that I'm writing my next story this way, I felt it relevant to discuss. They're quite a departure from literature in that you're dealing with multiple characters that need to be in the limelight, as opposed to many other stories where the majority of the focus is on one character, with some attention on some other characters if the situation calls for it. Juggling the spotlight between multiple people can be hard, as you've got to give them an equal amount of relevance and character growth of one main character...but there's now three or four.
Let's take what I'm writing now for example. My current project involves three parties. Lucy, the young lady who's recently taken up pickpocketing and mugging to put bread on her table and tea in her cup. I've got Inspector Cliffe and Constable Evans, The first a veteran cop who's getting frustrated at his recent lack of caught culprits and the other a withdrawn fresh hand with surprising diligence. And then Cyril, a wealthy heir who uses his resources to combat the main antagonist, and is the one who drags the others into the main conflict. Over the course of the story, everyone has to play an equal part, and I have to flesh out their characters equally well. And while these sorts of novels tend to be a big longer, you're still going to need to be efficient if you want to give each character a reasonable amount of depth. Thankfully for me and anyone else wanting to write something like this, there are some ways to deal with this.
For character fleshing out and development, there are many ways to show multiple characters' personalities at once. What a person is like is displayed rather well when faced with something, generally a choice but can be any situation. Whether you risk yourself to save another or use them as a distraction so you can run free, for example. Of course, multiple characters can experience the same situation, which is especially useful if you want to show contrast between the characters involved. This is one of the reasons I believe the two officers will be easiest to develop; Since they're partners in crimefighting, their differences will come apparent as they deal with scenarios in different ways. You can even make the choice or scenario involve other main characters, which means that you'll be showcasing their personalities by how they interact with each other. This is where most of Cyril's personality will shine through; he usually works alone against the main evil, so the others getting roped into the conflict is something he'll have to get used to. Obviously, though, this only works if the characters are able to interact. If your characters are at completely different corners of the world, then you're better off describing them separately.
Regardless of whether or not your characters end up meeting each other, there's still something that they all must play a part in, otherwise you're better off writing stories for them individually. My mindset for dealing with this is to think of the main characters as subplots that all, in their own way, move the large-scale plot forward. A good example of this idea is The Dolls of New Albion, one of my favorite audio plays. While the story follows four generations of the McAllister family, yet the plot is actually about the large cultural changes they sparked in New Albion. Annabelle from the first act discovers a process that brings people back to life in mechanical dolls, her son Edgar found it and turned it into a business, which then spawns a cult that his son is largely involved in, and so on and so forth. Each character is distinctive, each with their own motivations and desires, but it's New Albion itself that develops the over time. I'm not saying that the goal in all of these types of stories is worldbuilding, you can do anything so long as you do it well, but worldbuilding is a strong point of stories with multiple protagonists, especially when they're in different places so you can demonstrate the different cultures and relationships between peoples of your fictional world. The point is that your story should develop your characters equally, be just as important, and have all of them working to advance the same plot.
So that's it from me! Tell me what you thought of this in the comments, I'd really like to know if churning out these instead of my short story snippets is worth it, since I'm probably not going to share much more on Cirrendale due to wanting to try and publish it.
