Writing about large groups of people.

C

cgsmith

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So I am writing another terrible novel and have just gotten to the part where I am going to be writing about a group of 10 people, or 15 I think I may have shaved 5 off because I'm a chicken. And to a lesser extent a more experienced group of 25.

So basically there is a group of park rangers come electrical technicians who are charged with maintaining an electrical network in the wilds of a post apocalypse world. And they have a class of 10 or 15 young people to train to be the next generation. It's supposed to be the happy middle of the story where the MC really finds his home.

I just have no idea how to handle it. :/

Any input would be greatly valued. Thanks you.
 
Yeah, seems like a hell of a lot of characters to juggle, even for a firmly entrenched supporting cast (like a group of friends).
 
cgsmith said:
I just have no idea how to handle it. :/
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You don't take the objective view of having to describe everyone and what they are doing, but instead have a Point of View (POV) character, and make them only notice whatever is important to them.

The Harry Potter books are a good example of this - at no point does JK Rowling stop the narrative to name everyone who joined Gryffindor at the same time as Harry.
 
Like everyone else said, plus...

I think you need to pick out the small number of representative characters in the groups that drive/control the story you are trying to tell. I am going to make the assumption that you have worked somewhere as part of a team, and there you will see a range of characteristics. There are lots of posh management-consultant designs for the ideal team, but in reality I found you get everything from the charismatic leader to the total pain in the arse who just happens to be the one who is the expert in some part of the job. (I put my hand up here to often being that total pain in the arse.)

It then depends what your story is about. You need to understand how your group(s) work, who does what and how they interact - how the leader/ambitious deputy/newbie etc does their job whilst coping with the leader/ambitious deputy/newbie/pain-in-the-arse etc. Once you have that figured out, it ought to show you which characters are the 'stars' in your story, and the POVs to employ. Or design the characters to fit your story - depends on how you go about getting to know your characters.
 
Curse you Mr Turner! I step away from the screen and someone makes the Harry Potter comparison before I can.

Its a good one. There's a big teaching cast and an even bigger student cast. And, okay, its over 7 books not part of one, but the same principles apply. And that is (as others have already said) you focus on your character(s) and what they see in the group, rather than the group itself. We don't need to see all of the group. Just what the character sees.

Is there anything in particular bothering you about this?
 
The Big Peat said:
Curse you Mr Turner! I step away from the screen and someone makes the Harry Potter comparison before I can.

Its a good one. There's a big teaching cast and an even bigger student cast. And, okay, its over 7 books not part of one, but the same principles apply. And that is (as others have already said) you focus on your character(s) and what they see in the group, rather than the group itself. We don't need to see all of the group. Just what the character sees.

Is there anything in particular bothering you about this?
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I was going to make a Harry Potter comparison as well xD

I am just wondering how all the different people are going to act, my brain kind of wants to give each one a story line - even though my MC might only catch a glimpse of whats going on.

I guess I could split them into groups of friends, that seems to happen naturally in real life anyways. That way I can group action together and keep it simple. Hopefully it's just the usually apprehension of writing a new scene in an unfamiliar place (I quite often shut down for a day, or just have a bit of a panic, when I bring characters into a space they haven't been in before. It's like it's not properly invented until it's on the paper and it could be a number of things while still in my head. Idk, should have planned slightly more.

Thanks.
 
cgsmith said:
I was going to make a Harry Potter comparison as well xD

I am just wondering how all the different people are going to act, my brain kind of wants to give each one a story line - even though my MC might only catch a glimpse of whats going on.

I guess I could split them into groups of friends, that seems to happen naturally in real life anyways. That way I can group action together and keep it simple. Hopefully it's just the usually apprehension of writing a new scene in an unfamiliar place (I quite often shut down for a day, or just have a bit of a panic, when I bring characters into a space they haven't been in before. It's like it's not properly invented until it's on the paper and it could be a number of things while still in my head. Idk, should have planned slightly more.

Thanks.
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I think the best case scenario for that is you put in a lot of work for not much result on the page. The worst case scenario is you put in a lot of work and end up losing focus and producing a weaker book. I'm not saying don't do it but think hard about doing so.

Splitting them into groups so you have the arc of the Troublemakers, the Jocks, the Nerds etc.etc. sounds a lot more sensible but even then I think you have to ask yourself - are you telling the Group's story, or the Main Character's story?
 
I find that naming and shaping too many characters in a group is clunky as a writer and also as a reader. We can only keep track of so many interactions at a single time. No one needs the name and the complex view of each character.
 
The story rolls along (well, we hope it does), so, in addition to what others have said, what you need to decide is who is crucial at which part of the story. So say you have a techie scene - is it from the point of view of the expert thinking "hhm, three burnt out junctions, that's odd" or from the point of view of the boss saying "best techie, go fix". I'd prefer the former, both as reader and writer. So it could take you some very detailed plotting and planning - in the scenes with big groups, you need to work out what happens, who is there and who is the most interesting person to be telling that point of the story - BUT you have to keep it down to just a few people. As you get further into a book, then you can briefly move into the head of a minor character, who has been established from the PoV of other characters. As in you could start with boss man point of view, thinking really tough job, glad I've got super-tech, not sure about newbie, wasn't my idea to hire. Then later on you could have difficult tech stuff from PoV of super-tech, and the goodness me are they really doing that from PoV newbie to emphasise how difficult what they are doing is.
 
Montero said:
The story rolls along (well, we hope it does), so, in addition to what others have said, what you need to decide is who is crucial at which part of the story. So say you have a techie scene - is it from the point of view of the expert thinking "hhm, three burnt out junctions, that's odd" or from the point of view of the boss saying "best techie, go fix". I'd prefer the former, both as reader and writer. So it could take you some very detailed plotting and planning - in the scenes with big groups, you need to work out what happens, who is there and who is the most interesting person to be telling that point of the story - BUT you have to keep it down to just a few people. As you get further into a book, then you can briefly move into the head of a minor character, who has been established from the PoV of other characters. As in you could start with boss man point of view, thinking really tough job, glad I've got super-tech, not sure about newbie, wasn't my idea to hire. Then later on you could have difficult tech stuff from PoV of super-tech, and the goodness me are they really doing that from PoV newbie to emphasise how difficult what they are doing is.
Click to expand...

Thanks. This sort of approach is what I'm thinking about, though the PoV choice is made for me because there is only one PoV in the book.

It's going well so far too :) I had a scene where everybody was being introduced to the field equipment that they will be using and my MC is basically a pro at it because he has lived in the wild for a long time (which is why he was put in the class in the first place - to be an experienced inside man to look after the kids when the rules demand that they are left alone.) The scene focuses on him falling into the natural routine of him sorting and arranging his equipment and packing his rucksack. He only notices the others once he is done and the teacher uses him as an example of how to do it. It sets up a few things too. Won't save the book tho, that's doomed.

Thanks again.
 
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