ParanetOnline
McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: CrazyGerbilLady on April 16, 2007, 12:36:58 AM
-
I am curious to know what everyone thinks about supporting characters. Specifically, how deep should they be? Now that I've actually done some writing on my novel, my characters are appearing more clearly. I am doing a lot of revising to their "character sheets" to help me better understand them and flesh them out. I am having trouble with a supporting character's motivations and conflict. It occurs to me to wonder whether I really care. Her role is basically that of best friend to the primary character. She will be helping the protagonist and doing some mediating between primary and secondary character. She fills an important role, but the story is not really about her in the slightest. It's about my primary and secondary characters, mostly the primary.
Thoughts?
-
Secondary characters. They can surprise you. I'd say that a secondary character, especially if you've placed them in a story for a specific purpose, need only be as deep as they need to be? Does that make sense? Yes, you want to avoid deus ex machina characters who only exist to help your heroes escape, or be that uber-secretive person in the background who becomes the heir to the throne in the last chapter. But the fact is, there will always be some characters that aren't as developed or fleshed out as others. You've got to give the spotlight to those who matter, and let the others just hold their own. You don't have to have a complete life history to every single face and name in the book. Sure, some people do that for fun, but sometimes I think in order to create a minor character, you only need to include a few specific details to plant them in the reader's mind, and then let the reader conjure up the rest on their own.
And if they fill an important role, but there doesn't seem to be any sympathetic conflict going on around them...create some! Ask yourself what would make you care about this person, then put it in there. I've often been surprised how characters that I first introduced as secondary became very important and full of conflict later on as more information was revealed.
-
The story you are telling may not be about her, but the story in her head is; in other words, you have to be sure her motivastions make sense from her point of view. all else is just conveying them clearly.