Four Failsafe Techniques to Employ When Scripting Secondary Characters

 By Grace King-Matchett

We all know how a story with poorly written secondary characters feels. They stumble along, hinder the plotline, and get in the way if your main character’s objective. And you, the frustrated writer, are smack in the middle of it, trying to figure out how to clean up the mess they leave behind.

Having weak side characters means a weak plot and narrative overall - kind of like a song without a bass line, or a lamp with a broken light bulb in it. It just doesn’t work, and it’s not appealing. Right?

But what if… somehow, you could write amazing secondary characters every time? What if they didn’t hinder the plot anymore? What if they helped it instead?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, with these techniques, I can assure you that your secondary characters will become a well-loved aspect of your novel, bringing it strength rather than weakening it!

These four methods are actually quite simple, and if you take a closer look at existing secondary characters, you’ll see that all the best of them follow these guidelines, whether or not you previously noticed.

Technique #1: Remember That They’re Not The Main Character

A common mistake that many writers make, especially beginners, is over-developing their secondary characters. Secondary characters should be just that - secondary.

You don’t need to reveal too much about them, especially not at the beginning of a story; doing this will confuse your reader, because you’re not making it clear who your main protagonist is.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a story that has four characters in it. Their names are Jessie, Manny, Sara, and Cooper, but Manny and Sara are your main characters. Jessie and Cooper are there to be supportive, to connect with Manny and Sara.

They are there to help the story flow along, so would it make sense to zero in on what Jessie and Cooper are doing for an entire three pages? No. If you do that, you are going to be left with many befuddled readers, because now it’s unclear who the story is meant to focus on and follow!

The exception to this rule is, if in the story, your main character(s) have been physically separated from your secondary characters and aren’t traveling all together. The reader will feel as if the secondary characters aren’t being given enough attention. In that instance, you have parallel stories to tell.

A great example of this is in Lord of the Rings, when Tolkien is following what Frodo and Sam are doing, and then following Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli together, and then Merry and Pippin, and then going back to Frodo and Sam.

Because the characters aren’t physically all together, only in this instance does it make sense to cover what the individual groups and secondary characters are doing.

 Over-developing your secondary characters is just as terrible as under-developing them. If you over-develop your secondaries, the reader will be frustrated, wanting to focus on the main character(s) more.

However, if you under-develop them, the reader will wonder why the secondaries aren’t supporting your main character(s) well enough, and that flaw will stick out like a sore thumb. It’s a very delicate balance, and I will further discuss how to find that balance in my next points.

When developing your secondary characters, just remember that they are meant to support, not be, the main character(s).

Technique #2: Let The Details Unfold

This technique will help your characters to retain development throughout the story. Explaining a ton of things about your secondary character right away creates confusion, and it defeats the purpose of your story.

We should learn about secondary characters as the story progresses. We, as writers, want our reader to desire to learn more about them. An excellent way to explain things about a secondary character would be to intersperse details throughout the story, here and there.

Think about a chocolate-chip cookie: with the right amount of chocolate chips, they accent the cookie’s taste and make it better overall. But if you’re overzealous and use too many chocolate chips, it overwhelms the taste of the cookie, and it doesn’t really taste like a cookie anymore. Would you like some cookie with those chocolate chips, anyone?

The same is true for writing. If you put just enough detail about your secondaries into it, it should help make your story better and develop your characters correctly.

But if you put too much detail about your side characters in there, the story is overcrowded with things that probably would have made more sense and had better timing to explain later on!

A perfect example of using these details is in Artemis Fowl. Colfer progressively explains the history that the Butler family has had, and their relationship to the Fowl family, often doing this after these said characters (Butler and Artemis) are done talking.

Colfer also does this when Commander Root is introduced, and his history with Holly Short. But he doesn’t explain everything that happened between the two immediately. As a reader, you don’t learn about Holly’s mess-ups until a little later on, which keeps the reader intrigued.

When writing, your readers will want to know more about your secondary characters, but let them know gradually, throughout the story. A break in dialogue is a perfect time to explain something about a character, specifically the one that has just finished talking. That way, there is context so you can explain something about that character. 

For example, in my own writing, you can see how I’ve done this.

“It made me remember stuff, almost. It’s hard to describe, but it made me want to think about stuff from the past that I haven’t thought about in a long time.” Marge said quietly, and Bren detected an undertone of sadness in her voice. Could it be that she, too, had a painful past?

After Marge was finished talking, I suggested the idea about Marge’s past since there was context. And it makes you want to learn more about her, right?

Let’s go back to our earlier example of our four characters, Jessie, Manny, Sara and Cooper. Say Jessie and Sara were having a conversation about birds.Would it make sense to explain something about Manny after they were done talking? No, it wouldn’t, unless they were talking about Manny.

You have to have context to explain something about a character, and don’t explain it all right away, because that will interrupt the flow of your story. Even if you were writing about Sara after she was done talking, don’t put a big chunk of information there. It feels like a wall to your reader that they have to climb over.

So remember that. Let details unfold as the story progresses, like beautiful flowers blooming in springtime.

Technique #3: Give Them One Major Event

This technique is about avoiding under-development of your characters.

Let’s say you were reading a story, and you really liked this one character in it - let’s call her Caitlyn - and she was a side character. Let’s say the main character was Mary, but you didn’t like her as much.

As you’re reading the story, you notice that Caitlyn, although you love her, is poorly developed. She never gets anything to do, and rather is there only for dialogue. She doesn’t really contribute to the story, maybe a few dialogue scenes with Mary where they figure something out together.

Then she kind of drops off the face of the earth and isn’t really in the story anymore.

Ouch.

But you can avoid this happening to your own secondary characters!

Another mistake that writers make is focusing too much on their main/favorite character(s).

They forget that people have different opinions, and zero in on developing their own favorite characters, basically leaving the rest just standing in the bleachers while two or three are playing this epic game and doing everything in the story.

Remember that when you’re writing, someone else might have a different favourite character than you do. So, try to develop them, too. But, you’re wondering, how do I develop them correctly if there are all these risks of over- or under-developing them?

The greatest way to do that, I have found, is by giving them one major event.

One major event is a tactic I’ve developed, and I find that it makes my secondary characters much more relevant to the story.

You give a secondary character one really big thing to do or something that happens to them in the story, and maybe also two or three critical scenes or pieces of dialogue. This is a guaranteed way of keeping them relevant to the story, also lowering the risk of focusing too much on a main or favorite character.

If something happens to a secondary character or they do something key to the story, your story will be more developed.

If you do that, now your secondary character has been developed and has something to do, and it takes pressure off of your main character (because don’t they already have a million things to do?).

Some examples of one major event you could give to a side character:

Another example would be, from Star Wars, Ahsoka Tano. Her contrast with Anakin is that she’s a young Padawan, often disobeying when he tells her to fight alone. They are of different race, and she must serve Anakin. Ahsoka’s connection to Anakin is that she fights by his side. When her master goes to investigate something, she is there with him, whether he asked for it or not.

When you take a closer look at popular, well-written secondary characters, you will see that literally all of them follow this rule, of contrast and connection. This technique of contrast and connection is very important, and if you don’t follow it, your own characters will suffer.

You might tussle with scripting your secondary characters now. But with these techniques, of remembering their position in the story, letting details unfold, giving them one major event, and contrasting and connecting with the main character, you can properly develop your secondary characters and make them a relevant, much-loved part of your story.

I know that these four techniques will make your secondary characters into memorable people that will stay with the reader long after they’ve closed your book.

Who are your favorite memorable side characters from books or movies? 

Now that you have discovered the secrets of great secondary characters, go out and write! 

- Grace