Stories like this can be unwieldy – seven main characters is a lot to ask of the reader – but they work because each of the characters fills their own niche. Here, each member of the perfect cast of characters is jostled up against the others, and everyone gets some dedicated scenes to explore what they bring to the table. One of the purest expressions of this cast is the type of story where approximately seven protagonists meet up to defeat a shared enemy. This doesn’t have to be direct – you don’t have to write every character as the neighborhood gossip – but if characters are really thought-through, there should be something to work with. This requires not only that each character is interesting in their own right, but that they have something to say about every other character. One of the hallmarks of a perfect cast is the ability to put any two individuals in a situation and still interest the reader. So, without further ado… The perfect cast
Then, I’ll take a deeper look, suggesting ways to use the ‘perfect cast’ even in stories where you wouldn’t expect them to fit. First, I’ll lay them bare, examining exactly what they mean and how you can use them. In this article, I’ll be looking at some of these archetypes. Types of characters who, again and again, combine in interesting ways that spawn interesting scenes and engaging prose. That said, there are certain patterns we can observe as working well in fiction. Red Riding Hood is one of the most enduring stories in the world, and there’s still a regrettable dearth of narratives where one character’s sole intent is to eat the other. Is there such a thing as a perfect cast of characters? A pure, alchemical recipe of personalities that promises the most engaging narrative a reader could ask for? No, of course not – it’s the events of the story that dictate what it needs from its cast, and what works well for one tale will bomb in another.