: Characters time spending: Are there any good limits for time spending on characters of secondary list? Are there any good limits or rules of proportion between time (or pages) spending on characters

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If a character appears only at the beginning and in the end then you need to devote sufficient time and space to ensure that the readers remember him (or her) when he reappears but not so much that they wonder why he was not more prominent in the middle of the story.

You cannot think of this in terms of number of words because that takes no account of the impact of the events in which the character is involved. A person (apparently) killed in a devastating explosion may be "gone" by the end of page 3 but you readers will be aware of who she is when she reappears horribly scarred but recovered from her amnesia at the denouement.

On the other hand, if the character has a low-key role in the opening section you may need to put more time into describing him or building his back-story so that he is memorable when revealed as the long-lost heir.

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I'm afraid the only answer here is "as long as needed".

The story must captivate you, the writer, enough that the characters fight for their time share, appear for their specific purposes, linger in the background creating the mood, surprise us with their reappearances, break the mold, capture our hearts, capture your heart. You spend on each just enough time to have them fleshed out sufficiently, fulfill their role and then some - to let them be more than a literary tool, be a live soul too. This is not something that can be measured in pages.

If you try to apply a technical metrics like time or pages, engineer the timeshare given to each character, don't live the story with them but just construct a literary product matching given technical standards, you won't be writing a very captivating story.

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