# Too Many People



## luckyscars (May 29, 2013)

This is one thing I really suck at and dread having to write. I am just fine with handling scenes between two -at a push, three- characters. But then there's the inevitable bar-room scene or other public place where up to five or six people are involved actively with what's going on. Suddenly everything turns a little chaotic...

This is especially the case when most or all of the characters are newly introduced. Let's assume that it is at the first third of the novel and there are six men drinking and gambling in a bar. One is the protagonist who the audience knows, another is the antagonist who the audience barely knows, the other four are all unencountered supporting characters who have names and a small background role in the plot but are not all important and some don't reoccur after the scene

Instantly I find a reoccuring dilemma: Is it better to take the time to introduce each one via name and description and risk losing pace with the action, or just drop in all these folks with little or no introduction beyond a name and see what happens?


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## Rustgold (May 29, 2013)

Walking into the bar, Joe saw Alan, Betty, Chris, and Derrick all laughing at Egor's joke.  Probably that dumb Swede joke again.  Why does he repeat it at every gambling session?


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## Ariel (May 29, 2013)

Just drop in the action.  Small introductions are fine.  It's ok if you have more information than your readers.


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## shadowwalker (May 29, 2013)

A quick and dirty intro is fine to start with - try to include something about each one that will help the reader remember them or connect to the name. They'll get to know the characters gradually through the rest of the story (if they don't, the characters weren't that important anyway).


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## Gamer_2k4 (May 29, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> This is one thing I really suck at and dread having to write. I am just fine with handling scenes between two -at a push, three- characters. But then there's the inevitable bar-room scene or other public place where up to five or six people are involved actively with what's going on. Suddenly everything turns a little chaotic...



Why is it inevitable? I wrote a 200,000 word draft with no more than two characters introduced at once.


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## mblank (May 29, 2013)

Think about whether all of the characters are necessary to the scene and at what point.  You can always introduce them as they are needed.  Making sure to construct unique perspectives and mannerisms is helpful to avoid confusion, too.

I don't like to stop and create a description every time I introduce a character.  It pulls the reader out of the story.  It seems to make for a smoother story if you work the descriptions into the action.

Best of luck with your writing!


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## wancow (May 30, 2013)

I have similar situations, especially since on on of my main characters has nine siblings. (Dad was randy and Mom loved being pregnant).

Juggling the scenes, when you have a total of twelve people in a room and it not only appears to be chaotic, it IS chaotic, that can really slow my writing down as I have to carefully navigate the scene.  Of course, I want the reader to NOT forget there are a lot of people in the room, but I don't want to get bogged down reminding them who's there.  I kinda look to Jane Austen for guidance on this.  She seemed to do okay with it, but the truth is, her solutions don't seem satisfactory to me.  She leaves a lot of people in the room be silent doing nothing while the main action is going on... as if they freeze in place and don't speak or move till the main character noticed them again....

Anyway, hope someone can give better solutions...


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## wancow (May 30, 2013)

Oh, one thing I'd love to figure out: a literary way to do what they did in Twin Peaks (TV series), with very comedic action going on in the background... if anyone can show an example of that, I'd be very grateful!


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## luckyscars (May 31, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> Why is it inevitable? I wrote a 200,000 word draft with no more than two characters introduced at once.



And I once wrote a five hundred page book with no words.///

Call me crazy, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say most writers do end up writing scenes with more than two people in at some point in their lives.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jun 1, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> Call me crazy, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say most writers do end up writing scenes with more than two people in at some point in their lives.



I certainly have scenes with multiple characters; sometimes a half dozen or more are going at once.  However I only INTRODUCE them one or two at a time.


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## iMagine Creativity (Jun 1, 2013)

i believe that a small introduction is fine, even if you are just expressing that the characters are known by the main character.


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## luckyscars (Jun 1, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> I certainly have scenes with multiple characters; sometimes a half dozen or more are going at once.  However I only INTRODUCE them one or two at a time.



Okay, so... how do you typically go about introducing them?


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## Skodt (Jun 1, 2013)

Do it in small increments. If six men are sitting at a bar do it like this:

Jimmy walked into the bar. He had been coming here for years now. His eyes quickly scanned the regulars; their eyes drooping already from intoxication. He moved in between two rather small individuals. Pete always sat on his left. Pete had a bad liver, but insisted alcohol was all he lived for. His sunken eyes and yellow skin reminded Jimmy that life wouldn't be long. To his right sat Debra she used to have a sparkle in her now dull eyes; her lifeless face sunk into the bottle of suds in front of her.

"Whats the word Jimmy boy?"

The bartender Samuel had worked at this bar since he was eighteen years old. He was the only colored man in town. Had himself the biggest bar and even the colored haters drank his wares. 

"Whiskey and coke, Sammy."

The bartender nodded. Jimmy scanned the rest of the bar. It was still pretty early in the night, but he noticed Kevin and Josh playing pool. He wasn't sure if they were real brothers, or just really close friends. Sometimes when Jimmy's eyes were filled with fuzz he thought they almost looked alike. 

-------
Now you have introduced a handful of characters, but now you can let the story do the rest for you. Later you can bring them in and the reader can be reminded who they are by the quirk you put to them. It makes it easy for the reader to follow and remember the names of people.


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## Rustgold (Jun 1, 2013)

But is the scene actually worth an extra 2-300 words?


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## Morkonan (Jun 2, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> ...Instantly I find a reoccuring dilemma: Is  it better to take the time to introduce each one via name and  description and risk losing pace with the action, or just drop in all  these folks with little or no introduction beyond a name and see what  happens?



How many of these characters are meaningful?  Character Overload is a problem in some sorts of stories. In "Epics",  it's completely expected. But, in a stand-alone standard-length novel,  too many characters can cause a lot of confusion. I'll use Stephen  King's "Needful Things" as an example. (One of the few King novels I  really liked, probably because he blew his own town up...)

Stephenking.com  - Needful Things - Character List

/gulp

Well, now,  that's a bunch of characters. I don't remember all of them being  included specifically in Needful Things, but, certainly, there were a  great many characters in that book. How many of them had personalized  introductions? Probably all of them.... But, how did he introduce them?  Certainly, he never had six of them interacting at the same time for  their first appearance and then wrote a short biopic for each one in the  same scene... (At least, I don't think so.)

What I remember most  about character introductions in that book is that the wide cast of  characters were introduced singularly or in pairs and each key character  had a short development phase followed by episodic installments. In  some cases, these supporting characters interacted directly with each  other. In many cases, they did not. However, even with all the  characters in the story, I was only partially confused and that's saying  a great deal! I love King's characters. I think he's the greatest  character creator on the planet. But, I don't think even King would  undertake the task of writing backstory bits for every brawler in a  bar-fight.

IMO - NEVER kill the pacing. I don't care what it is,  when you kill your pacing you're putting hobbles on your reader.  Sacrifice the introductions, forget their names, push the action until  you have a moment that you've set up to introduce the character. If  you've got a guy jumping out of a fox-hole and charging a machine-gun  nest, you're not going to stop the action in order to provide a full  introduction for each of his squad-mates charging along with him.

Now, let's look at specifics:



> This is especially the case when most or all of the characters are newly  introduced. Let's assume that it is at the first third of the novel and  there are six men drinking and gambling in a bar. One is the  protagonist who the audience knows, another is the antagonist who the  audience barely knows, the other four are all unencountered supporting  characters who have names and a small background role in the plot but  are not all important and some don't reoccur after the scene



1) Walk-on characters do not get names.

The "_guy who buys a paper and leaves the newspaper stand as the protagonist walks up to it_"  does not get a name. He doesn't get a history. He has no bio and nobody  cares about him. He will go on to die a grisly death or become Emperor  of China - Nobody cares. Poor  Tiffany  Kurtz, she was a Jawa in Star Wars and didn't get mentioned in the  credits. Why? NOBODY CARES!  (She's probably a nice person, though,  and likely played a good Jawa.)

2) Characters that "Do Something" and have some sort of limited focus on them don't have to have a name.

The _"guy who got shot in the face with a bazooka in scene three"_ does not get a name. Or, if he does, it's only in passing and *only*  if it adds to the value of the story. For instance "Poor Jed. He made  it through the Africa Campaign, through Italy and ended up buying it in  the back of a French shoe store because he didn't check behind the  door." OK, the dead guy with his head all assploaded across the back of  that store has a name and it's "Jed." Why is he named? Why is there a  short bio? It's not because anyone cares about Jed. It's because the  author is trying to build a sort of fatalistic futility and helplessness  here, not because anyone cares about Jed. "Jed" is being mentioned  because it's useful for the author to personalize the otherwise  anonymous character.

3) The Reader only cares about what you tell the Reader to care about.

The "_people in the crowd at the football game_" do not get names. If  you name all those characters in that bar scene, the Reader's attention  is going to be drawn to each of them. Is that what you want? The Reader  has absolutely no interest in any nifty setting-craft you've done or  any history of delightfully convoluted interactions you've come up with  unless these bear on the story. If you name someone, the Reader is going  have expectations. If you don't fulfill those expectations... then  what? What sort of story would it be if everyone was named, had a  history and all of it was plastered in front of the Reader to digest  while only a tenth of it had anything to do with the story being told?  If you tell the Reader to care about some character by naming them and  giving them an intro, you better do it because they're an integral part  of the story and not just window dressing. Otherwise, the Reader isn't  going to pay attention to the characters you really want them to care  about! If they do that, it's because you've taught them to. Anything you  write has to add value to the story. If it doesn't, it's not worth  writing.

So, what to do?

The Protagonist and Antogonist,  of course, have some sort of name and are developed in some sort of way.  But, let's say all those other guys are just goons and flunkies for the  Antogonist. Do they need names? No. However, it may be useful to name a  couple of them. Why? Well, it's not because anyone cares about them,  it's because you might be using them to illustrate a point, later. So,  one of the henchmen is named "Tiny" and he's really very.. tiny. Ironic,  huh? This is a bit of levity being introduced. It's not because Tiny is  an important character, it's because it suits you to introduce a bit of  irony - Most henchmen named Tiny are big, beefy guys. You're setting up  an appropriately snarky comment for your Protagonist to use in this  scene, not entering into formal character development with Tiny. "Tiny"  may as well be a broken clock on the wall or a piece of lint. The point  isn't that he's a human being with a history, feelings, and physical  appearance. The point is that you're naming him because it suits you to  name him, not because he's really a "character." You'll also name  another one "Bob." Bob is a character that will re-occur later in your  story, so you'll introduce him, here, and give a slight description of  him, possibly with some backstory, and then leave him alone until your  Protagonist encounters him later. The rest of the goonsquad don't get  names because.. Why? Nobody cares, they're just window-dressing to make  your Antagonist seem more powerful and imposing.

So, now you only have *ONE*  first introduction to a character in this scene. (Maybe two, if you use both Bob and Tiny, later.) Your Protagonist has  already been introduced, your reader is familiar with the Antagonist  and, now, your reader gets to see the Antagonist in an imposing light,  surrounded by their goons, and gets a bit of comedic relief (and also a  bit of character development with your Protagonist) by being introduced  to Tiny. (You might asspload Tiny's face all over the back of a  shoe-store, later in the book. But nobody really cares about Tiny,  anyway. However, they'll care a bit more about the scene in which this  takes place and about any possible lesson or message being implied or  symbolized by Tiny's death. Why? Because he has a name, not because he  is a "character.")


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## Lewdog (Jun 2, 2013)

If some of the characters are unimportant you could always say something like, "Mike and the rest of the gang were already at the bar when I got there."  Even if there are more than just one important character, you can use a collective noun at first then introduce each character as needed, and through dialogue.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jun 3, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> Okay, so... how do you typically go about introducing them?



I generally use the format, "there were a bunch of people there, but one stood out for this reason."  And then, surprise, that person who stood out becomes an important character.



> Another voice came from behind Markus. "Did you say you were evacuated from Switzerland?"
> Markus turned around to see the speaker: a small blond girl, even smaller than Julie. "I did," he replied.
> The girl must have been expecting him to say more, because there was a slight delay before she spoke again. "Well, um...my name’s Carina. Carina Engel. It’s nice to meet you," she finished with a smile.





> A slim but shapely girl stepped forward. Her dark red hair contrasted with her blue clothing, and she had an air of both confidence and leadership about her. "Elise Becker, leader of Unit B," she introduced herself formally. "Welcome to the HDF elite training center."





> Officer Peters led two thirds of the recruits to another room, and the existing squads began to break up into their own groups. Most of the remaining recruits began to get partners one by one, but as pairs formed, a few stayed where they were, looking uncertainly around. Lacking a partner herself, Julie walked over to one of them with a cheery smile on her face. "Hi there, I’m Julie. Nice to meet you!"
> The newcomer looked at her suddenly, as though her greeting had come as a surprise.  "Uh...hi. My name’s Salvatore, but everyone just calls me Tore."





> Markus found that everyone there seemed to pick up the techniques quickly; much more so than he had experienced in the past.  Two recruits in particular stood out: the aggressive one from before, Lothar Richter, and a colder, quieter one named Damien Petit. Richter showed an instinctive feel for swordsmanship, while Petit was focused and precise even without using the moves Markus was teaching.


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## escorial (Jun 3, 2013)

total comfortable with luckycars words..tried to read Lord of the rings after watchin film..well lost,people,places...much prefer simplicity.


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## Terry D (Jun 3, 2013)

I don't try to write characters into scenes, I write the scene and insert the characters as required. For instance, in my latest book I have a scene with five FBI agents discussing a case. The case, and the information about it is what's important in the scene, so I just have each character contribute their own bit in turn. Here's a small excerpt from that scene:

“You should get out of here, Larry,” he said. “Audry will kill me for keeping you this late on a Saturday.” He turned back to the small room where Larry Lovington, Pauli Valenski, Danni Crowbert, and Mickey Behringer were all sitting around a polished wooden table. “You too, Danni... Mickey. Go get a life.” There were ceramic mugs half filled with coffee on the table, standing like little guard towers over a field of folders, photos, and reports. “We can pick this up again tomorrow.”

Everyone in the room knew that there weren't going to be any days off until they caught Jolly Roger, or until the trail went too cold to follow.

“What about me,” Valenski said with his typical gruesome smile. “Don’t I get a life?”

“Everybody knows that you BAU types don’t have real lives,” Lovington said as he stood up and took his jacket off the back of his chair. “They just keep you in a freezer somewhere under Quantico and thaw you out when they need you.”

“I’m not even sure they thaw them out.” Danni Crowbert was the youngest agent in the room. She looked like the marathon runner she was; lean and angular with ash blonde hair cut into a style short enough to be easy to tend on the run, but still feminine. She wasn’t in the CARD unit, but Kreider had worked with her on a couple of cases and had been impressed with her no-bs attitude and her ability to work with victims. “I can hang in if you need me.”


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## Tettsuo (Jun 3, 2013)

Don't forget that you can also describe a character by what they do or presenting how they think with dialogue and action.

_Brad approached us from behind the bar, beer in hand, with a grin that extended far across his face. "What's up guys, didn't know ya'll be here," he said, his cheek bugling on one side. Chewing bubblegum like a cow, he inflated and popped a big pink glob before smiling at Emily. "You look good today Em," he said, ogling her breast bugled out of the top of her tight sweater.

With a sigh, Emily jabs the remaining bit of her cigarette into her hand. She doesn't wince as the white butt goes out with a sizzle. "Piss off clown," she growled, flicking the black ash from her hand into his beer._

You don't need to give details for each character as separate descriptions.  You can tell more about the characters with their actions.  It's just as effective when the reader use their own imagination to fill in some of the character visuals.


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## JosephB (Jun 4, 2013)

What's "inevitable" about a scene introducing multiple characters? I'm pretty sure there are all kinds of novels and stories that don't have them.


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## JosephB (Jun 4, 2013)

luckyscars said:


> ...I'm going to take a wild guess and say most writers do end up writing  scenes with more than two people in at some point in their lives.
> 
> Yawn. Here we go again....



And I bet you'd be guessing correctly. But you said 5 or 6 in the OP. I can imagine it might be a problem if you were introducing them all in the same scene -- but that can often be avoided. Even in a single scene you can pace things so that there's breathing room between introductions and a chance to establish each character. There are as many ways to do it as there are places, situations and different kinds of characters. There's no formula. I just wrote a scene with 5 characters, but 3 of them were established -- so no big. A big yawn back atcha, pardner.


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## Gargh (Jun 5, 2013)

There's some really good advice on here, most notably Morkonan's. I tend to only introduce characters where pertinent, otherwise they just get a bit-part name like 'guy in bar' 'blonde friend' etc. As with all editing, if what you're saying doesn't add to the story (either narratively or artistically) then axe it. This works for characters too and I'm sure you have better material to spend your time on than people who just grace the scenery. Interesting thread though - thanks for bringing up the question!


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## Terry D (Jun 5, 2013)

*Let's get this thread back on the topic and not on the personalities. It obviously has value to some members, so let's let it run its course without turning it into a snipe-fest. Thanks.*


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## JosephB (Jun 5, 2013)

OK, back on topic – so here’s the long version:

The last story I posted in the workshop takes place at a wedding. There is the main character; there are two other significant characters. There is a very important character who is introduced in back story -- but she’s present in the scene and eventually delivers some dialog. There are people mentioned that only appear in back story. There’s another character in a pivotal scene -- she’s not named -- but she has a revealing discussion with the MC.  There are a total of 8 people who deliver dialog -- and more that are mentioned and described.

None of it is confusing and the characters are memorable -- because the characters are introduced “as needed” and non-essential people aren’t named -- which seems to be the big thrust of what people are saying here. As I said, how that’s handled varies a great deal depending on a number of factors. Examples given in a vacuum rarely apply in a meaningful way to other scenes or stories -- because there are too many variables.

Working out the appropriate pacing and level of detail is an intuitive process that simply involves getting inside the head of the reader and figuring out how much can be retained over the course of the scene. Can you say more about it? Sure you can -- but that’s pretty much what it boils down to.

So no – there is no such thing as “too many people” -- unless you write it that way.


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## Pluralized (Jun 5, 2013)

JosephB - Beautifully illustrated. Thank you for making that whole concept easier to understand.


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## JosephB (Jun 5, 2013)

The last paragraph and line cover my point -- and I pretty much already said that. That’s the part that has to do with figuring it out for yourself. You write the scene then you rewrite it until it works -- or you drop back and punt and figure out another way to do it.  If that fails, post the scene and get the opinions of other writers. It’s the write first, ask questions later approach -- and it works for a lot of people. Very often you discover that there was no cause for concern. That’s most often been the case when I’ve posted things looking for feedback on a particular issue. Of course, that's just the way I prefer to do it -- and while I might mention it occasionally, directly or implicitly -- it's like all advice -- people are free to take it or leave it.

 Otherwise, I just fluffed up what I said earlier and added a largely irrelevant example. But that’s what seems to work around here.


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## Kyle R (Jun 6, 2013)

Some interesting discussion here. Good advice given, too.

With fictional situations like this, I trust in my protagonist to guide my narration. What the protagonist notices, the reader notices. Who the protagonist meets, the reader meets. 

The main character is the camera lens through which the storyworld is seen. As he notices new characters, he may wonder about them, and the narrative focus will move in that direction. Or perhaps he merely gives them a passing glance. So, I suppose you could say, instead of deciding how I'm going to introduce the characters, I let the scene develop organically, with my lead character's perspective guiding the way.

If it's a detached third-person POV (where no single character is the main focus) I prefer to choose a viewpoint character for the scene, and then continue with the same process as above. Another scene may have a different viewpoint character, perhaps, but in each scene a certain character guides the narrative. The camera tags along, sees the world through their perspective, and so does the reader, et cetera.

(That's just how I approach it.)

When all else fails, you can always try writing the scene in different ways, and then comparing them, side by side, to see which approach satisfies you the most. :encouragement:


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## JosephB (Jun 6, 2013)

^ A person can actually take in and processes a whole lot at once and it can be fairly fragmented. So you still have to guide the protagonist and decide what he "notices" -- who he sees and what he’s thinking. I don't know how organic that is or how much trust is involved. It’s often about adjusting pacing -- and thinking through how much a reader will retain. If you mean that tends to happen organically I would agree -- I usually don’t have to think about it all that much -- although I have had to in a couple of more tricky situations.


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## Jeko (Jun 6, 2013)

The way I deal with a bunch of characters at once is treat some of them as devices. The focus should be on a few of the people present, with the rest acting as support.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jun 6, 2013)

Cadence said:


> The way I deal with a bunch of characters at once is treat some of them as devices. The focus should be on a few of the people present, with the rest acting as support.



Shouldn't all characters be treated as devices? If I do something to a character, it's for the good of the story, not the good of the character.


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## Strangedays410 (Jun 6, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> I generally use the format, "there were a bunch of people there, but one stood out for this reason." And then, surprise, that person who stood out becomes an important character.



I tend to go that route too. I'm Miles, by the way...a new guy. It's definitely a challenge, getting multiple characters and events to behave properly in a bar or at a party. The following is a bar scene from my book, _American Guitar Player_. Only one of the characters, Paul, was known to the reader prior to this scene. The reader already knows the bar is packed though.

“What’s happening, ladies?” Paul asked a dark group piled into a booth near the door—gorgeous vampires in fifties hairdos.
“Hey Paul!” 
The bartender noticed him, and paused in an upward nod. “What are you drinking, bro?” Paul asked. 
“Jim Beam,” I reported.
“Great minds,” he said, holding up three fingers. The bartender finished his nod. 
A small mob edged through the crowd…looking a bit like Chris’ entourage from that morning. “Paul!” a cat called..
“Stacks!” The bartender handed Paul two drinks. He handed one to me, and downed the other as the bartender handed him the third.
“What’s going on, bro,” Stacks grinned, man-hugging him.
“Same old thing, man.” Paul greeted the others, and then… “Stacks, this is Miles Thomas—new cat from the studio.” 
“Good to meet you, man!” the rocker greeted, frisking me down.
Stacks introduced me to the others—one of whom, Jerry, would barely shake my hand—and then Paul and me to some of the girls still trickling in among them. The tall one, Stephanie, was _clearly _having a tough night. Paul set in on her friends.
“So, how do you like working for Max?” Stacks asked.
“Digging it so far. Just started today,” I replied, trying not to stare at his grinning groupies—or notice Jerry sizing me up.
“Nice, bro. Good gig.” _Chantel_ seemed keenly interested.
Stacks put his arm around her naked waist. “Paul, this is the one I was telling you about…Chantel James…from high school.” 
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Paul remembered. “Good to meet you.”
“You too,” she grinned, leaning in to be heard. “Jimmy’s told me all about you.” From the stage, the band signaled to Paul, and he nodded. “We’ll talk later,” she added. 
“Cool,” Paul said, and turned to Stacks. “So, you guys hanging out a while?” …and downed his drink. I did the same. 
“Yeah, we’ll be here,” Stacks, assured. “Just stopping by that party real quick. You wanna come?”
Paul held up two fingers to the bartend, who nodded. “No man. Cooling out for a bit.”
“God bless you, brother,” Stacks chuckled, edging by.

To keep the scene as clear and trim as possible, and not ruin the flow, I only gave vague physical descriptions...enough for the reader to form an image based on his or her own psychology, and on my prior descriptions of the _types _of folks being discussed. I also only re-mentioned names (or used tags) when absolutely necessary--to reduce clutter. When possible, I let the reader use context clues to figure out who is saying/doing what, and to whom--_again_, to reduce clutter. Only characters who will at some point have a function in the plot were given names. 

Also, I think it's good to keep scenes like that brief, rather than making the reader's brain work too hard in any sustained fashion. If it _needs _to go on for a while, I'll have a character take a smoke break or something; any lingering in a setting like that would have to be for a good reason. For what it's worth, that's how I handle party/bar scenes.


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## Jeko (Jun 7, 2013)

> Should all characters be treated as devices? If I do something to a character, it's for the good of the story, not the good of the character.



I see some people as mere devices, and some as more than devices. Eg. In Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, George, Lennie, Slim, Curley, Curley's Wife etc. are all more than devices for me. People like the Boss, Whit, Carlson etc. are closer to being just devices.

I guess it depends how you see stories. I love to get inside characters and see what's going on. I can only do that with certain people in a story; for the rest, there's not as much to see.


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