Adding Characters

There's no rule for how many characters are 'enough' for fantasy (or any other genre). You should have as many as your story needs, no more and no less.

Adding characters just to show more of the world seems like kind of a weak reason to me, though. The novel I'm currently editing has only a single MC and tells the entire story from his perspective, but I've had no trouble at all developing my world. Granted, you lose a bit of objectivity doing it this way, as the MC's opinion will color the world building explanations, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps things from getting dry.

I agree with not adding characters for the sake of it, but I do think that a story with only 4 characters (apart from the odd walk-on extra) might be a little sparse for fantasy. Do these people have no family, friends, colleagues, mentors, minions, annoying hangers on, anything? There are certainly situations where none of these would apply (for instance, the story might take place in an isolated location, or your characters might just be really antisocial) but I'd find it quite limited in terms of character and setting development I think.

As you can see though, others may feel differently. It's largely personal preference. I like characters, and exploring the relationships between them, so the more the merrier to me.

Consider taking a look at your walk ons and seeing if any of them could be combined into the same people. Perhaps there is potential for a few secondary characters in that. Look closely at the walk ons and make them real people, not just cardboard cutouts inserted for a single story purpose. Even the owner of a store has a life outside that store. You may not need anything about his life in the story, but you'll know it. This might help make the world feel more real and help you decide which characters can be combined.

A story needs the characters it needs to move it forward. Fantasy is a varied genre, and there are plenty of authors (probably most, actually) who don't write huge epics with ten povs and dozens of secondaries like GRRM.

Hard to say how many is enough, depending on the nature of the story. What is the focus of the story? Are they on a long journey together? Then the story may no involved any more detailed characters.

My own story has the plot driving protagonist and two very important secondaries who have big arcs of their own (also important to plot movement) as povs, a group of maybe 5-6 important secondaries who aren't pov characters but still get a lot of "screen" time and impinge on the povs in important ways. Then there are a larger circle of tertiary and quaternary characters.

Each of them has a purpose or role in the story, and I've actually eliminated or combined some support characters who didn't do enough in my opinion. I'm actually worried about the sequel, because there are two more people who *want* to be povs as well, and I worry if that's too much.

The important thing is having any characters who are more than just spear carriers feel like they're real people with personalities and so on, even if we only see them a few times. Showing how your pov character feels about that person is important too.

I don't think in terms of adding characters. I think in terms of adding story. If that requires a new character, so be it. But just adding a new character as a pawn on the writer's chessboard doesn't strike me as a very useful thing to do.

caw

One character is fine. Fifty characters works just as well. It's about the story you tell, and how you tell it, not about the number of characters.