Characters #3 - Secondary Characters, Anti-Hero, & Character Memories
SECONDARY CHARACTERS:
"Treat all your secondary characters like they think the book's about them." -Jocelyn Hughes
Remember, each character has a story, goals, strengths, and flaws. Just because a character isn't your main character, doesn't mean you shouldn't flesh them out and give them just as much as a personality as you do your main character.
Many times, the secondary characters get neglected because the author is so focused on the MC, but if you pay attention to the minor characters, they'll pay you back by making your story so much stronger.
1- Brainstorm. Just like you would (and hopefully did) with the main character. Fill out a character bio for the secondary characters. Now, you don't have to do this for every person who makes a single appearance in the book, but just for the main cast which has regular appearances throughout the story.
It's fun and will help you understand each character more! You can feel close to each character, and so can the reader, rather than having a cast of flat, boring people.
2 - Focus on why each character is important. How do they support your main character? How does their presence change the plot? Are there scenes that focus specifically on a secondary character? Knowing all of these things will help you decide who to keep and who to cut. Each character in your story should have a specific purpose for being in your story. It’s often easy to forget that.
I'm not saying they all have to have as much of the spotlight as the MC, but make sure they aren't just floating through the story with no purpose or direction. Sometimes their purpose can just be encouraging the protagonist or being a helpful friend.
3 - Give them at least one defining characteristic.
There's always a sidekick you'll remember, maybe because of a funny quirk, a weird way of talking, or a strange habit. People are like this in real life, too — lots of people have one or two habits that you notice the first time you meet them, that stand out in your mind even after you learn more about them. Try to remember the sidekicks and supporting characters of some of your favorite stories, and pinpoint their defining characteristics.
Samwise Gamgee (Lord of the Rings) - Humble, unknowingly brave, servant-hearted.
Murtagh (Eragon) - Good fighter, mysterious, withdrawn.
Han Solo (Star Wars) - Flirty, arrogant, know-it-all.
Make your supporting character memorable, not just some wallpaper character who is only there at the protagonists convenience.
4) Decide which supporting characters can be forgotten.
It's a sad thing to forget a character you put time into, but it's also inevitable. You only have so much energy, and your readers only have so much mental space. If you bog down your story with dozens of supporting characters with amazing personalities and pasts that your readers love, then your story may border on seeming overwritten and showy. You'll have to settle with the fact that some characters must end up as simply extras, or that they're literally going to fulfill a plot function without having any personality to speak of. It happens. You can only have so many fleshed-out characters before your reader gets overwhelmed with all the names to keep track of.
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WRITING THE ANTI-HERO
I would like to include a passage from a Tumblr blog about writing the anti-hero here. (External link on side.)
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The anti-hero has been very popular for a long time because they lack the “typical” traits of a mainstream protagonist (Think Batman). They have most likely been through some hard times and developed a cynical attitude along the way. There are many different kinds of anti-heroes, however, and not everyone will fall into the same category.
If you think about Captain America—he could be defined as the typical hero type. He has solid morals, he does what’s right, and he always wants to help. Iron Man on the other hand IS a good person; he just will often do what benefits himself and doesn’t have the same set of morals as Captain America. Obviously these characters change over time, but Iron Man might be seen as more of an anti-hero (there are much better examples of dark anti-heroes, but hopefully you get where I’m going).
Anti-heroes are more likely to give into temptations and head down a dark path. They are not evil and they don’t wish to do harm, but they might have a big ego or care less about doing the right thing. They might have violent backgrounds and conflicting motivations, but we might find ourselves rooting for them. We want to see them succeed. We want to see them get better. If you can do this as an author, you’ll be able to draw your readers in and make them care about what happens to your characters.
The anti-hero might reflect current social inequalities or political corruption. Someone ruthlessly fighting against the government usually makes for a popular anti-hero because we might understand where they’re coming from. There are MANY examples of anti-heroes and how they might play out in certain stories, so not everything will be so cut and dry.
Walter White from Breaking Bad is a great example because his story has changed over time and he has been heading down a darker and darker path. As an audience, we’re still interested in his story—no matter how bad he gets. His role reverses throughout the series and his morals are questionable.
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I hope this gives you a little idea of what an anti-hero is and how to use this character to it's best.
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CHARACTER MEMORIES
History is important and crucial in novel writing. The past really shapes your character's personality, the decisions they make, and the way they treat other people. It doesn't have to define them, depending on how well they move on, but it certainly does lead them up to the point they're at. So, like usual, I'll number a few tips to make it easier to follow.
1) Give them a past.
-This should hopefully be obvious by what I said up above, that your character's history is really important. In case you didn't catch on, though, I included it in the list.
Give them a past. Think it up beforehand. Figure out who they are, how their past has shaped them. Maybe you won't include every detail of their past in the book, but that's okay. Get to know your character a little bit. If you want to include memories, you have to have some memories to choose from.
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2) How NOT to incorporate memories into dialogue:
It can be a really tricky thing. You don't want to reveal everything at once, say for example:
"I don't know why he hates me. Oh wait, now I remember that one time a couple years ago where I ran over his dog. He told me he'd never forgive me. I must have forgotten. I guess that's why he hates me."
This is not only a conversation to avoid, but there's too much that could have been explained earlier in the story. It sounds an awful lot like you're making this up as you go, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, you can't incorporate it into the story all at once like this. We should have known that he said he'd never forgive her earlier on.
You don't want to include memories that are this crucial to the story in this manner.
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3) Make it sound natural.
Does the example in part 2 sound natural? Not really. Say it out loud if you want. It's really blunt and emotionless. If your character genuinely did forget about the incident, there would be a little more revelation time and perhaps a gasp or some train of thought before she figured it out.
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4) Memories don't necessarily mean flashbacks.
While memories can be included in flashbacks, they can also be included through conversation and narrative.
CONVERSATION:
Not conversation like the example above. Break up the history lesson with some emotion, dialogue tags, interruptions from the listener, humor, explanations, etc.
Example: "Oh he looked handsome," I recalled, wringing my shirt in my hands. "Prom seems so long ago. Has it really been that long since we were together?"
instead of: "We went to prom together. We broke up right after though. I remember he looked so great that night."
You can kind of gather from the first sentence that they went to prom together and broke up after, without directly saying it. Even if it's a little vague, those teeny tiny details often don't even matter that much.
NARRATIVE THOUGHT:
When writing memories into narrative, make sure it sounds like something a person would actually think something like that. Would you think something like: One time I met this girl named Amy and we hit it off really well and became best friends. But then she moved and it was really sad. Now I don't know what happened to her. ?
You probably don't think like that. Let's face it, your thoughts aren't normally narrating your life in the past. That sounds more like you're telling someone something, rather than talking to yourself.
What about: I really missed my great friendship with Amy. I wonder what happened after she moved, since she never took the time to contact me.
That may still be a little rough, but it's less essay sounding and more personal. It's what the narrator is actually feeling rather than her just relaying an old story.
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In the next chapter, I'll cover how to write:
~Twins
~Young characters
~The victim