The Idiot's Guide to Writing

Lesson 6: Side Characters

(Oh look, a new chapter that definitely didn't take me like an actual year to post!)

Most stories rely on character actions and dynamics to move the plot forward, usually the protagonist(s) and antagonist. But those two can only do so much on their own, even if there's multiple protagonists/antagonists. You'll usually end up with other characters, and inevitably some are going to be less important. Those are your side characters.

But rigidly defining a side character is...difficult, because the range is so broad and what makes a character less important than another is flimsy and subjective. If a side character is just anyone who's not the protagonist and antagonist, then that means that other protagonists who just aren't the biggest cheese of the overarching conflict are side characters, even if they have full-fledged arcs and internal conflicts. Like...what counts as a side character in the MCU, where technically no character is a side character? This is an enormous franchise built on crossovers, so some of them are going to be shelved in individual movies. Is Dr. Strange a side character? In the overarching plot, no! He's a big cabeza in Infinity War, has two solo movies as of 2023, and is incredibly powerful. But...what about in Spiderman: No Way Home? I mean, his presence is required for the plot to happen, but is he structurally integral? Does he have a fully-fledged character arc in that movie? Is he central to the main conflict? I'd argue no! I think he's a side character for NWH despite being in all the main promo art. There's no obvious boundary here.

Here's my definition of a side character, even if it's more of a guideline than an actual rule. As far as I'm concerned, a side character is literally anybody with a name who's not a major focus of the central conflict and themes. They can be recurring or just a one shot—as long as they aren't inherently integral for the plot's structure, they're a side character.

Side characters are extremely versatile. They can fill up the world, explore new themes contained from the main themes or show those themes in a new light, or they can show different sides to main characters that otherwise don't show up as much. And most importantly, they can do this without taking up too much screentime. Their impact isn't defined by how much screentime they have, but rather what you do with it.

So how can we develop a good side character? Well, to start, they should serve a specific narrative purpose. I usually don't love assigning roles to specific characters since they stop being characters and are devolved into plot objects, but this is an exception. It's important to make time spent on them worthwhile, otherwise your audience is wondering what the hell they're here for. You can start with what their connection is to the protagonists. Perhaps they're a mentor, or a parental figure, a friend, a neighbor, someone they meet along the way. Perhaps they just have something in common with the main characters. Whatever that connection is, it should have meaning and affect the main characters in a tangible way.

One of the best examples of this is most of the side characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The series finds characters along the course of a journey who relate to the main characters, and explore different sides to them. Hama is similar to a main character Katara in that they're both the last waterbenders of a dying tribe, and have lost everything to the evil Fire Nation. She forces Katara to consider what waterbending means to her as a martial art and how far she's willing to go in seeking retribution. Guru Pathik, another side character, is the last practitioner of Air Nomad spiritualism besides the protagonist Aang, and helps kick off Aang's internal conflict of balancing his pacifistic Air Nomad upbringing with his duty as the chosen one. These are side characters who carry a ton of weight for how little screentime they have (both Hama and Pathik appear for only one episode).

Furthermore, it's also important to make them at least a little interesting without overshadowing the main cast. This is another "depth vs. complexity" thing. A side character should be colorful and distinct from the main cast to be interesting, but no one needs to know their entire backstory about being orphaned five separate times. If a side character has too much stuff going for them, it directs too far from the main cast and may leave the audience questioning the story's priorities.

Lastly, there's another issue I want to touch on briefly that applies specifically to side characters. While I'll probably give more detail in its own chapter, there's an infamous trope called "fridging" (at least by TV Tropes), and it involves killing off a character only to cause distress to another, more important character. Fridging is the ultimate middle finger to the literary significance of its victim because the trope in itself shows us their only important trait was their relationship to another character. The fridgee's only purpose was to die. Because of how harshly it strips the fridgee's agency from the story, protagonists are never fridged. So who usually is?

...You guessed it. Side characters.

Moms, dads, uncles, aunts, girlfriends, boyfriends, best friends, mentors...the list goes on. These characters don't have enough development to even justify living! Why?! That's lame!

Fridging also applies to characters who are kidnapped and, as I eloquently describe it, "damseled" only so that another character can get up in arms about it. I specifically mention this because I have seen authors excuse their fridging by saying that said character isn't actually dead, just kidnapped...which entirely misses the point of the problem.

There are two reasons why fridging happens. One is that the author simply doesn't consider the far-reaching consequences and implications of a character death. This one isn't really inherent to side characters, though, it's just that authors don't know how to handle character deaths and that can be more easily fixed. The second reason, which is more inherent to fridging side characters, is that something Bad™ needs to happen for plot, and this was the easiest way to make that happen.

But honestly? That's not inherently a bad thing. Character deaths are valid as an inciting incident (hell, I'd be lying if I said I didn't do that myself), but that dead character must've been meaningful on their own. Make sure whatever they did in life to affect the protagonists is important—grief shouldn't be the only thing that character inspires. I'll have another chapter about either character deaths or fridging that'll go in more depth, but fundamentally, make sure you check these boxes off.

So, long story short: don't get too up your own ass about what is a side character because it's so nebulous, side characters are used to explore new sides to the themes and characters and world, don't throw them in for no reason, and fridging is bad.