Are five main characters too much for one short story?

Question

I'm writing about a group of runaway kids who hang out on the streets getting  into mischievous adventures but I worry that 5 kids for a short short story of maybe 3,500 to 5,000 words is a bit much, as I don't want to drown out the characterization.  Plus they deal with police, bullies and things like that.  Are there ways to keep the main characters without short-changing it?

Rita · Answer

A good rule of thumb might be: Include as many characters as needed to tell the story and evoke the proper style and scope—and no more. For intimate novels, this number might be as small as 2-5 secondary characters, and for broader stories, this number might be 20-30

Mujtaba · Answer

Depends upon the story.

keldrick · Answer

You answered your own question. Your the creator go with your gut.

Silas · Answer

Escreva, depois voce ve se terá que adaptar ou não, tirando personagens ou contando em 2 historias, ou aumentando o tamanho da historia. Esta respondido em portugues porque foi perguntado na categoria: Empresas locais>Brasil>Porto Alegre. Translated by Google: Write, then you have to adapt or not, taking characters or telling in 2 stories, or increasing the size of the story. This answered in Portuguese because it was asked in the category: Local Busisnes> Brazil> Porto Alegre.

The Lord Humungus. · Answer

In a five thousand word story, four of those kids are going to be two dimensional cut-outs.

You're talking seven to ten pages, how are they able to have adventure"s" in that amount of space?  Most children's chapter books use that in one chapter.

janhoi · Answer

Not necessarily. I think Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in their short stories used about 5 characters or more.

Anonymous · Answer

right amount

Are five main characters too much for one short story?

7 Answers