…there’s a pile of terrific advice out there for writers if yeez take the trouble to look for it… equally, however, I’m afraid there’s a mountain of stuff masquerading as the be-all-and-end-all of scribblers’ must-do’s… each to his or her own opinion, of course, but one especially irritating bit of guru-ism for this ol’ Jurassic is the one that tries to tell you ‘zactly how many principal characters to limit yerselves to in yer masterpieces… smells of formula-writing, if yeez ask me… a lo-o-o-o-ng time ago, some of yeez may know I spent part of my WURKIN career in Hong Kong in the Far East… as a young Boozy British Bachelor Banker, part of the lifestyle included endless business cocktail gatherings, the equivalent back then of SOSYAL NETWURKIN…
…it provided a young financier’s useful budgeting offset in free drinks and dinners if yeez planned them carefully enuff, and sum’times people actually did some business via them as well… more routinely, I’m afraid, it constituted an eternal carousel of seeing yer same pals, mixed in with spouses and visiting overseas ‘firemen’ from other companies, pushing the cocktail circuit in an effort to get their corporate names into currency… one constantly boring feature was the inane, repetitive questions from new faces… ‘how long have yeez been out here?’ or ‘do yeez have much trouble finding a maid?’ mixed in with ‘which company are yeez with?’ and ‘get yer people to call my people and we’ll do lunch’ sort of nonsense… occasionally, to brighten things up, I’d ask sumb’dy, ‘are yeez emb’dy in particular, yerself?’… it caused no end of consternation for some as they scoured their brains for an appropriate answer… most of the time, nob’dy cared what the answer was going to be… in the same vein, as an Author, the only ROOL of thumb I use is the answer to a similar question, ‘are yer characters emb’dy in particular?’… if the response is ‘yes’, then give them a name and a proper place in yer tomes… and it doesn’t matter a cocktail swizzle-stick how many of them yeez have… no need to thank me… yeez are welcome!… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…
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Being too strict in limiting characters makes a story sound false to me unless the author wirties the story for fewer characters. Nothing about a story should sound so false it cheats the reader. In reality we don’t limit our family members, friends, and acquaintances according to a plan. At least I don’t know of anyone who has. 🙂
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..agreed . so long as they are each clearly identifiable , it matters not one jot! 🙂 cheers,m’Lady, Suzanne
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I know exactly what you mean with these social networking cocktail gatherings 😉 And I love that you broke the rules there. And I love that you break the rules with your writing. I don’t mind how many characters are in a story as long as I can remember them 🙂
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… I just LUV it when people say to me, ‘you can’t do THAT!’ oh yeah? stand back and watch!:):):)
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Seumas…you are just entirely too funny and always make me laugh!! Happy Easter!
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..cheers, Patrick…. and a Happy Easter to you and yours, also, that man:)
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How many? How many? As many as it goddam takes, boyo! That’s how fetchin’ many!
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…betcha! 🙂
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