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Who here loves reading a book whose every character is unique and colorful, even if they only appear for a scene or a chapter? Who wouldn’t? And since it is (hopefully) our goal to write stories and books and characters that people will love reading, why wouldn’t we want to write characters like that? I am inviting all writers to submit their opinion on what makes a minor character great, and what they like to see in minor characters, and some of the best ways to make minor characters everything they ought to be. Let’s brainstorm— it can’t hurt, and maybe we’ll actually learn something! I need everyone bold enough to post an opinion on this thread— we need lots of ideas. I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with.
(One way to do this, if you want, is pick a minor character most of us— preferably all of us, but that’s not going to happen— know well, and analyze him/her/it. Let’s see where we can go with this).Excellent topic, all the more because it is a difficult one. I’m hoping plenty of other people share their ideas, because we are going to need all of them to get to the bottom of this. Despite the vastness of the subject, I think we can recognize three general things you wan’t to do with your minor characters.
Number one, develop them as individuals such that they can be cherished for their own sake, so that even if your reader hates the rest of your book, they will love (or abhor) this one character just for his/her individuality. Number two, use your minor character to help develop the plot. Number three, use your minor character to help develop your main character(s).
I have to do more thinking on this before I can come up with any brilliant points, but I will make one suggestion under the category of goal #3. It can often be of great value to have your minor characters represent an idea, event, characteristic, etc. One excellent example of this is the Countess G. From The Count of Monte Cristo. Pardon me if I mess up the names, details, etc of this example. It has been about two years since I read the book. The Countess G. only appears twice in the book. The first time is at an opera where she is horrified of the Count of Monte Cristo’s paleness and thinks that he is a vampire. The second time is when the Count of Monte Cristo wins a horse race and has the trophy delivered to her with a note that it is from the “vampire”. The Countess G. has little importance to the plot as a whole, but she is used to bring forth the attributes of the main character. She helps show that he is highly perceptive, that he studies people intently, that he has an excellent memory, that he will go out of his way to make an impression, and that, in some ways he is actually like a vampire, not that he drinks blood, but he is a man out to get vengeance, to “drink the blood of his enemies”. He also has exquisite tastes, refined manners, and a grave mystical demeanor. By sticking to the unusual topic of vampires, the author was able to use the minor character, the Countess G. to demonstrate major attributes of his main character.
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Three very good points, Daeus.
What are some ways to give a character their own unique individuality, so that the reader will love (or abhor) 🙂 them for their own sake whether or not they like the book? A few of my favorites are as follows. 1: give them their own distinctive voice. No two people talk the same— some are very terse and to the point, some use really big words (I myself would fall into that category) some use the simplest, most basic words, some speak bluntly, some speak carefully and diplomatically, and a whole host of other different tones and styles. The way a person speaks can really represent their character very well, and it can be as simple as giving a landlord or innkeeper a favorite exclamation by which the reader will always know who is speaking automatically.
2: give them their own distinctive appearance. This one can be trickier and probably best used carefully, because we don’t want to load the reader with page-long descriptions of one character who only appears for a chapter or so. A quick, one sentence description of their face, or their form (short, tall, fat, thin) is probably best. But giving a minor character a distinctive feature (an upturned nose, maybe, or the infamous, ridiculously overused scar) will often do the trick to making them more memorable. If a main character meets a watchman standing by the gate, okay, there’s this watchman standing by the gate— so what? But if the main character meets a watchman with cold, close-set grey eyes above a hooked nose, or a watchman with a bloated red face and scraggly ginger hair, wow! We’ll be much more likely to remember that watchman, won’t we?
And… I thought I had another point, but I can’t remember it now. 🙂 Oh well.Hi Kate,
Good analysis. It can be especially hard to give your characters their own distinctive voice since you as the author tend to always think in the same way.
One thing you can do to create characters your reader can imagine and cherish, minor or major, is to exaggerate them. This may sound deceptive, but usually you will only be adding to the realism, and even if you are not, your reader will not mind. I will use three examples to illustrate this. If you want your villain to seem evil, have him betray his best friend when he knows he is innocent. If you want your hunter/explorer to seem eccentric, have him cary on a protracted and entirely ridiculous conversation with a giant frog. If you want your character to seem rich and unstoppable, have him bribe the pope to issue a release for a man who has served him, but who is not necessary for him. Granted, all these examples are taken from main characters, but the principle is transferable.
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Yes, excellent thoughts. Having your explorer carry on a protracted and entirely ridiculous conversation with a giant frog, hm? Peterkin, anyone?
A good example of an author who exaggerates well is Dickens. I know I sound like a broken record— Dickens this, Dickens that, but it’s true. Who would have remembered the preacher from Bleak House if he hadn’t gone off on that ridiculous analogy about humanity not being angelic, because they weren’t able to fly, because they didn’t have wings… or something to that effect? Or Mrs. Jellyby, if she hadn’t been so obsessed with Africa that she was ignoring her own family going to pieces beneath her very nose? Or Mr. Turveydrop Sr. if he hadn’t been such a false, stuck up, absolute fop who gave himself airs and made his son do all the work?
Exaggeration can be tricky, but it is so worth it if you can do it well.Those sound like some very enjoyable characters, but I’ve never heard of them. Which book are they from? The only book of Dickens’ I’ve read is a tale of two cities, though I wan’t to read more. Do you have any you particularly suggest?
Since you have put a question to me, I will put one to you. I would ask this, “Are there techniques you can use, principals you can follow, or any sort of rule, no matter how vague it is, that you can use to develop minor characters which have a major affect on your plot, or does it just depend too much on the general plot outline?”
I am a great fan of Peterkin by the way. I wish Ballantyne had made him a major character in all his books, that would have raised my estimation of him significantly. He is a strange author in that his plots are very simple, almost boring, but he still manages to write some rather jolly tales on the sheer attraction of his characters.
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All the characters I referenced in my last post are from Bleak House (don’t let the dreary name deter you) 🙂 and yes I would definitely recommend that you read that one. It is the only Dickens I’ve read narrated by the main character, and thus it is a little different than most Dickens, but it’s a really great story. I haven’t read as much Dickens as I would like to either, but one other of my top favorites is ‘A Christmas Carol’. You’ve probably heard of that one— I think it’s his most famous, and understandably so. It’s got a really simple plot, actually (fancy being able to say that about a Dickens) but it’s such a wonderful and heart wrenching story at the same time. Every point and theme is driven home hard and firm. Read it. You won’t regret it.
I’m not quite sure I understood your question— did you mean is there a separate formula for minor characters that are actually consequential to the plot, or is there any way to make a minor character who is consequential to said plot stand out more than just the everyday people the main character passes on the street? Maybe the misunderstanding— or lack of understanding— lies with me, in that it is growing late and my brain is beginning to rebel. Would you mind clarifying?
Oh yes! I too am a great fan of Peterkin. I would have liked to see the stories in which he starred from his point of view rather than Ralph’s (no disparagement intended to Ralph) or at least had him in his own separate story, but oh well. I’ll enjoy him as he is, and imagine the rest.Hi Kate,
What I was asking is, “How do you take a character who only appears for a short while in your book, and have him turn your story upside down (or right side up, depending on how it started)? Are there principals that apply no matter what type of story you are telling, or is that just too complicated to put down as a set of rules?”
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Wow, that might indeed be too complicated to set down rules for… but I’ll give it a try.
If I’m understanding your question correctly, you would be referring to the odd character the main character meets in the street, or some other place, and who is not really consequential to the playing out of the plot except to get it started or completely mess up the way things are going for the main character. Say our main character is looking for a treasure or something, and thinks he knows exactly where it is and how to get to it, and already has everything all planned out, lacking only a map for directions. Then let’s say he goes to the house of the one man who has an actual map, and knocks on the door. A butler answers it. Now the butler is not a major character— maybe we don’t even know his name. But when our main character asks to see the owner of the house, the butler asks him why, and it is discovered that the main character is after the treasure map. Now is the chance for the butler to turn the plot upside down— looking genuinely and stiffly sorry as only a butler can, he informs our main character that a strange man dressed in a black cape and high boots, with a large plumed hat, came not half an hour ago and bought the same map for an exorbitant price, and took it away. No one knows who he was or where he went. Now not only does our main character not get his map, he has all his previous plans thrown awry because of it, and on top of that he knows that he is not the only one interested in the treasure— and that this mysterious stranger is most likely not the most pleasant type of person, as well as extremely rich or extremely desperate. And the only reason he knows all this is because he spoke to this nameless, extremely minor butler who happened to have the information he was looking for.
After going off on that long, somewhat rambling analogy, I hope that is what you meant, and really the only thing I can think of to say right now about this type of minor character is that we need to make sure it really is a person who would have access to the information needed. If the main character had gone to the scullery boy instead of the butler, the scullery boy wouldn’t have been able to give him any meaningful information, unless he had been eavesdropping in the hallway instead of scrubbing pots in the kitchen. Does that make sense?Yes, that’s what I mean’t.
I like that point about making sure your character has resources. To turn a minor character into a major character without talking more about them, we need to make sure our character is a person of resource who can cause dramatic changes quickly. So, say I am writing a story and wan’t to ramp up the tension real fast, but don’t know how to do it, I could look to my minor characters and think what special knowledge, skills, or experience they might have that could cause major changes quickly. Alternatively, if I don’t have a minor character to start with, I could invent one who would naturally have the skills or knowledge they need to throw a curve ball into my plot. This might be a better way to approach minor characters actually. We shouldn’t think, “ok, so my main character is going to enter an inn because he is in a distant country and has nowhere else to stay. I guess there will have to be a innkeeper then. Let’s see, what could I do to have him improve the story. Boy, that’s tough, I mean he’s just an innkeeper.” Instead we should think, “Alright, my character is going to be in another country looking for buried treasure. How can I make this more interesting. Well, there needs to be an obstacle. What type of obstacle? Hmm – how about a competitor. Now, how would the competitor know about the treasure? Through the original treasure hunter of course. But he wouldn’t just be telling everyone he was searching for treasure, would he. He must give the information away without knowing it. Now, let’s see. I have this innkeeper I need to do something with. How about I have him be really nosey and prone to gossiping and find out that my main character is going to such and such unusual sites. The innkeeper will then go gossiping about it to all his friends. One of these will be an impoverished scholar who will know that those are the sights that one has to visit on one’s journey to find the secret treasure (according to some ancient text he has read on the subject). He will conclude that the man must know how to find the treasure and will stalk him to try to figure out how to find it first.”
Suddenly the innkeeper is very important. This as actually very simple. Instead of creating a random character, and then wondering what to do with him, you should figure out what your plot goal is, and then try to figure out how that character can be involved. Of course, this will only work for minor characters, but that’s what this discuss is all about anyways.
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Yes, absolutely— wonderful point about the innkeeper needing to serve the plot instead of just filling up a place in society that will have to be filled anyway for the sake of reality. Every character should be in some way essential to the plot of a story, even if it’s just to bring out some facet of a major character’s personality. Even if the minor character is just to be there and be waved at in the street, showing that the character who did the waving is friendly.
Amidst all these formulas and rules and technical stuff, I just wanted to say something really simple but really important for writing any character, minor or not. You have to know them. You have to not just be acquainted with them, but actually know them— what drives them, what their motives are, why they are like they are, why they are where they are, what they fear, what they want out of life, who or what they love. I can’t stress enough how important this is. If your characters aren’t real to you, your reader is not going to find them real enough to relate to or even really like. So I’ve an absurd, absurdly simple suggestion— talk to your characters. This is not a joke. Speak to them, argue with them, insult them, take their insults, listen to their suggestions, ask them questions about themselves, about life, about how they feel about what you make them go through. If you can’t connect mentally with your characters enough to have a conversation with them, chances are you haven’t quite got what it takes to do a killer characterization job with this particular character. Try it— I dare you. It’s half of why I write; for the wonder of meeting so many different types of people, and talking with them, and seeing the world through their eyes, and hearing their beliefs, even if I might not agree with them one hundred percent. You might feel silly at first, but in the end it will be worth it. I promise you that.
Well, normally when someone dares me to do something I take special care not to do it because it is probably one of the dumbest things on earth a fellow could do, but I think I will actually try this. Honestly, nothing even remotely close to such a procedure ever entered my mind, but I can see the value.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an interview with one of my characters.
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Excellent! Go for it!
And I generally try to avoid giving the kind of dares you referenced, since I myself would never take one. 🙂
Well, it’s getting pretty dark outside, so I’m going to have to cut that interview short. So far, I don’t think I have encountered anything new or missing in my character, but perhaps that will come later on, or with a different character. The one great benefit I have already seen is that I realized that I have not been doing a good enough job revealing the the deepest recesses of my character’s thoughts, qualities, ambitions, beliefs, etc through the plot. I know what he is like, but would a reader catch the full picture? I’ve identified some ways I can improve this.
One thing I did while having the conversation was to express my character’s speech upon my own face while looking in the mirror. I found that doing so made my character seem more real, more concrete. Hopefully this will help me to express his character better.
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