So I've been writing and in one story I had a group of four characters.  It was just a story for me, but I was struggling with how to give each person equal representation, how to keep one character from getting shoved to the side.  I wanted characters to debate ideas and discuss things while giving each one their own "voice" and not overshading one of the four too much.

But I was having a hard time doing it, so I took a break for a couple hours and read a couple books.  It seems to me that the solution is to not worry about it.  To sort of shine a spotlight on a couple characters and maybe later shine a spotlight elsewhere, etc.  The spotlight swings back and forth and only illuminates two characters at a time.  Only rarely do 3-4 people speak up at once.

So, then I decided to look at a famous conversation with lots of characters and the only one I could think of was the Council of Elrond in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

I opened up a window and started keeping track of who was speaking and this was my rough stream of consciousness for that...

First Elrond and Frodo chat, mostly Elrond.  Then Elrond and Boromir and OMG, my eyes are bleeding -- when will Elrond shut up?  I'm just going to write names.  You can see though that the "two people in the spotlight" thing will happen pretty often.  Also Elrond and Gandalf (especially) talk a lot.

Elrond
Aragorn
Boromir
Elrond
Frodo
Aragorn
Gandalf
Stuff happens
Elrond
Boromir
Aragorn
Boromir
Aragorn
Bilbo tells a poem and ends with "so shut it, apples"  (not really, the real text is)
Aragorn talks and talks for five paragraphs (Later edit: In hindsight this isn't that long to talk.)
Boromir
Elrond
Bilbo
Elrond
Bilbo literally tells his whole freaking life story, he basically tells The Hobbit, although thankfully it's just summarized as something the listeners hear and we don't have to hear it again
Frodo tells his life story, yes, all of it.  Thankfully it's summarized for us readers.  Everyone there, though, heard it all.
Bilbo
Frodo
Galdor of the Havens (whoever this is)
Elrond
Gandalf tells a seriously long story
Elrond says "It's ok, it wasn't your fault."
Gandalf keeps on talking for a while.
Aragorn tells a long story.
'Some in the North, maybe,' Boromir broke in. <-- because he wants to finally say something
Gandalf tells another long story
Aragorn jumps in for a long paragraph
Gandalf again for a while
Elrond says one sentence
Gandalf again and again and again
"All sat silent for a while, until at length Boromir spoke."
Aragorn
Legolas
Aragorn
Legolas
Gloin
Gandalf
"Glóin rose and bowed, and Legolas continued." (with a long story)
Gandalf tells a long story about him talking with Radagast
... and him talking to Saruman for an even longer story.
Frodo says 15 words.
"Gandalf paused astonished and looked at him."
Frodo says 29 words.
Gandalffffffff...
   Gandalf keeps going and tells a story in which he talks with Gwaihir
Aragorn
Boromir
Aragorn
Boromir
Gandalf talks for a while
   Gandalf tells a story about how he talked to Frodo, including all of Frodo's lines and mannerisms while Frodo sits there in the Council and listens to Gandalf talk
"There was silence. At last Elrond spoke again."
Gandalf
Somebody named Erestor who's been there the whole time I guess.
Gandalf
Erestor
Gandalf
Erestor
Gandalf
Glorfindel
Galdor
Elrond
Glorfindel
Elrond
Glorfindel
Gandalf
Galdor
Boromir
Galdor
Erestor
Elrond
Frodo talks for a little while
Elrond
Gandalf
Boromir
Aragorn
Boromir
Elrond
Gloin
Gandalf
Gloin
Elrond
Gloin
Elrond
Glorfindel
Erestor
Gandalf
Elrond
Bilbo
Nobody says anything but we get a bit of action, "Boromir looked in surprise at Bilbo, but the laughter died on his lips when he saw that all the others regarded the old hobbit with grave respect. Only Glóin smiled, but his smile came from old memories."
Gandalf
Bilbo
Gandalf
Bilbo
"No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke."
Frodo
Elrond for a couple paragraphs
Sam
Elrond
Sam

So apparently the wholeDidn't happen in the book.  Kind of disappointing.

I honestly did not remember just how much exposition was given in that Council.  Still, though, it holds up the "two in the spotlight, mostly" principle.

So, am I completely off base here?  Are there other stories that I could/should be reading who do a better job of having multiple characters sitting around having a discussion and somehow keeping everyone actively involved somehow?
This message was last edited by the user at 21:25, Sat 06 Feb 2016.

Eddings - the Belgariad.

Books 3 and 4 specifically bring 3-5 characters at once into the "spotlight" but, usually has just two as "the big spotlight".  As in - the others will input into a scene/conversation, but they are usually serving the purpose of only two at a time.

I think most authors...and even playwrights and screenwriters...very rarely have large conversation groups where everyone speaks roughly equally, for the simple fact that the more voices you have speaking, the harder it is to keep them distinct.  Characters start to sound alike, and it muddles the story flow.  It CAN be done, of course...it's just much more difficult than having two characters converse, then swap one out, then swap the other, etc in a serries of short, interconnected conversations.

Think about the last time you actually had a conversation at a party.

When a story is being told, or a story about reminiscing, at any one time there is usually only 2 people actually talking. If you had 3 or more people "talking at the same time" you get voices drowning out. In literary sense you do have others speaking and reacting, but they are usually written as a "The sounds of agreement come from the peanut gallery"

Those "3rd party" sounds can be anything from simply humms to full blown sentances. However from a literary standpoint there is little use to have the tertiary and beyond "sidekicks" having all said a single word or line in agreement.

The only time they would get their own line would be to voice or reinforce a literary plot point, and then the "one liner" goes away.

Being a writer myself, I've run into this a few times and, as you suggest very early, it's just best to not worry about it. I tend to let my characters run the show so, when one of them wants to talk, I let them. Sometimes this means there are interesting combinations, like two people talking forever until a listening third party interrupts, sometimes it means that the five different people in a scene are all trying to argue with one another, and sometimes it works well for cooperative storytelling. Whatever it happens to be, it's okay. So long as the dialogue is good, meaningful, and drives the story along, you're doing something good with it, and the characters will find their place along the way.

Of course, if you're a writer who does things another way (you know, people who plan out their plotlines, or want to have a point to a conversation decided before writing it, one of those types of writers who are generally more talented than I am), then all I can suggest it to just make certain you eventually have the people you want to talk say something. Not in every conversation, but in the ones that would be most important to them. I am honestly wholly unskilled in the art of planning ahead when writing (beyond some vague destinations in the distance... which I rarely make it to). So I suppose take my advice with a grain of salt.

I hope this made sense to you, because I'm not 100% certain I even made sense to myself, but I'm in a rush and figured I'd take my own advice.

You should look at the same scene in the movie and track it in a similar way.

When I was directing amateur theater and looking for audition scenes, I only used "two-scenes" where only two characters are speaking. I found it was a waste to have several people onstage at once, as it was difficult for me to get a good sense of their skills. Also, few scenes with several people speaking have anywhere near equal weight for all of them. Only in call backs would I use larger scenes to get a sense of how multiple actors fit together.

My only advice for writing long stretches of dialogue is to be very aware of your pronouns. He's and she's are complicated enough between two same gendered characters but in a revolving conversation with larger groups you really need to take the time to re-establish who's saying what or the reader gets lost and a lost reader is a reading who is putting the book down for something else...

Ditto that. Few things throw me out of a story faster than losing track of who's speaking.

I have a friend who is a (now) retired English teacher, and she taught me about antecedents with my own fiction. (I was a lousy student in school -- I did not play well with teachers!) Now that I understand it, I see published authors failing at it on a regular basis, sometimes with hilarious results.

I had one story with four female leads, and man, did I learn to be creative in keeping which "she" and "her" I was referring to clearly defined! Having a single VP character at a time helps a lot with that. It's much harder to do with omniscient VP.