Can I have too many or too few characters?

Can I have too many or too few characters?

Russell Celyn Jones (Published writer. Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MA Programme at Birkbeck College (University of London).) gives expert video advice on: How do I build a character?; Do some characters write themselves?; How can I make a character believable? and more...

You can have as many characters as you like in fiction. Sometimes you need at least two but it´s not essential. I can´t think of many good examples of fiction in which there is only one. You tend to need two because you need a conflict. What you do need to do is make sure that each character that you have introduced is fully developed, even the minor ones. Probably Dickens is a very good example of a writer who is very democratic to all the characters that he creates, and he creates many.