Minor Characters with Depth--Interesting or Distracting?

peevy · Aug 14, 2007

I recently read somewhere that a minor character should seem like he's the main character--of a different story.

Is it better to let a minor character be bit one-noted or to flesh him out?
I ask because I'm doing revisions and taking a second look at a lot of my minor characters.

I'm not talking about the character who pops up to drive the trolley or pass out mail and then disappears for the rest of the book. I'm talking about a character that shows up every once in a while and whose actions definitely affect the main character.

Such a character can be flat and cartoonish but still memorable and fun. For example, a lot of people say that the adults in the first Harry Potter book are one-dimensional. Snape is foul and villainous and hates Harry, but he's also very memorable.

Or a minor character can have some conflict, some depth. Take Snape in Deathly Hallows [SPOILER ALERT>>]--he wasn't just the Harry-hater anymore. He was torn between his love for Harry's mom and his hatred for Harry's dad, and also between his darker nature and his heroic duty. This is all great but probably would have been too much for the first book. [<<End of SPOILER]

So the question is--which type of minor character is better? Would it be too distracting to make all your minor characters conflicted and complex? Would it make a story unsatisfying if all your minor characters were flat?

Shady Lane · Aug 14, 2007

By all means flesh them out in your mind. If your minor-character fifteen year old girl drops her ice cream cone and and cries, you should know if she's really upset because, uh...her mother died right after dropping an ice cream cone. You should know it. But if her only function in the story is to be the crazy girl who starts sobbing outside the ice cream parlor, thus emphasizing your MC's feelings of hopelessness and isolation...you might not need to include that backstory.

nahmean?

KTC · Aug 14, 2007

I want all the minor characters to spark something in me. So I think it's important that they are brilliant like shooting stars appearing in all their glory for the second they are on the stage.

peevy · Aug 14, 2007

Shady Lane said:
But if her only function in the story is to be the crazy girl who starts sobbing outside the ice cream parlor, thus emphasizing your MC's feelings of hopelessness and isolation...you might not need to include that backstory.

nahmean?

I know what you're saying. I just think it might be different if we're talking about a character who has a slightly bigger role. Like, an important character but not a main character.

peevy · Aug 14, 2007

KTC said:
...appearing in all their glory for the second they are on the stage.

That reminds me of what actors with small parts say. They've got to do something big and bright to make their moment stand out.

Shady Lane · Aug 14, 2007

peevy said:
That reminds me of what actors with small parts say. They've got to do something big and bright to make their moment stand out.

Ha, that's a good way to get fired if you're just supposed to be in the background.

But, yeah, if they're important enough to be doing things that affect your MC, they've gotta be real. It's just all about how much you expose.

JLCwrites · Aug 14, 2007

They give Oscars to supporting actors.
I say, give your secondary characters the life they deserve. There's an important reason why they are on your pages.
$.02

reenkam · Aug 14, 2007

I think there are three types of minor characters:

1) The characters that aren't main characters, but are absolutely needed in the story because they affect the main character(s) so much. These should definitely have some kind of backstory that you know about, but you don't have to write about all of that. They would be mc's of their own novels.

2) Then there are the characters which are reoccurring and important, but aren't necessarily crucial. Of course, you can't just delete them, but they're not huge in the big scheme of things. I think it's good to have some motivation for these characters, but I don't think they really need to be fleshed out.

3) Then there are the characters that are walk on, without much real importance. That would be like if you talk about a mc's parents who might drive the mc to school a few times, but serve no other purpose. They're just kind of there. I don't think you need to think about these too much. They, of course, have their own stories, but I don't think you need to know all about them.

So if it's a minor of type one, definitely know something about them in your head/in your notes. If it's a minor of type two, give them some motivation for the action they're making. No need to mention it ever, though. Minor of type three, just throw them in where needed and forget about them until you need them again.

All my opinion, of course.

Jimmer · Aug 15, 2007

I think it helps immensely if every one of your secondary characters is developed in your head enough that you could, if you wanted, write the same book from their point of view. In other words, even though they may be secondary, they should have ample motivation for doing what they do and saying what they say. You should know them well enough to understand where they're coming from in every situation. If you do, some of that detail is likely to leak into your writing and add depth to your "minor" characters.

Far too often secondary characters are left one dimensional and self serving. I think it's far better to write each as though their view is as important as the main character's. It might not be to you or to your readers but it should be to them.

Think of all the secondary characters in Harry Potter. Definitely a strength in that series.

Best wishes,
Jimmer

VisionScript · Aug 15, 2007

Nikki Giovanni said everything benefits. Like ripples on a pond.

I think every minor character can be a stop and smell the roses experience. I have in my wip a supporting character who is incessantly on the phone. We never see his home, but we learn a lot about him by his telephone conversations and the way he treats his callers.

A shy character rarely says anything, but we get a candid glimpse into the paranormal human condition during three different occasions of brief (wordless) incidents in his home life.

I think the writer needs to use his intuition as far as how much and what to write about each character individually. But I also think that everything should tie into the plot and what you are trying to convey in that particular story.

SinkFulloDishes · Aug 15, 2007

I figured out along the way that if I take a close look at my minor characters and think through their background, motivations, etc., when I finally do write them in, their dialogue and actions come across as more realistic. Sometimes I need to become them for a bit, much the same as I need to "become" my MC.

For example, in my first novel, there is a minor character whom my MC meets in her homeroom class on the first day of 9th grade. The minor character was coming off to me as very cliche, not because she ends up being somebody who snubs my MC, but because I hadn't gotten into her head to figure out why she acts the way she does. After I did that, it took only a few subtle alterations in her comments and actions to make her come off as a real person. So without giving the reader any background information about her, but knowing it myself, I was able to do a much better job of writing her.

I'm sure not everybody needs to do this, but I've found it works for me.

tomW · Aug 15, 2007

They are themselves...

My minor characters are very real--they may only appear in one scene, or they may recur a few times in the story. (The second kind is especially fun.) Of course there's a motivation for the character's work--whether it's a young girl's vain quest to preserve her beauty through immortality, or a basher's desire to get paid at the end of the day, or something evil wanting to steal magic. Maybe they're looking for the main character to console them or feed their vanity, or maybe they're just walking by on their own adventure, or up to their own business. They all have depth of a sort, and that's wonderful and terribly fun, but it isn't distracting so long as you don't let the story be about them. I don't need ten minutes of them thinking about or explaining their motivation--from a technical standpoint, all I care about is that their actions are believable to the reader. But if I'm writing a story, those secondary characters are real to me anyway--even if they're a foil for a main character.

I suppose what I'm grasping witlessly towards in the above prose is a claim that the character doesn't need to be distracting to be interesting.

peevy · Aug 17, 2007

I guess that leads to the next question: If an important minor character seems to be a bit flat, how do you add depth? And please don't make me "ask" them questions about their job, parents, etc. That is so tedious. I'd rather start somewhere more interesting. Any crazy ideas?

JLCwrites · Aug 17, 2007

Does the character reflect or remind you of another character in a movie or book?

One of my MCs has been grafted from a character in a popular movie. When I feel my MC growing cold, I will watch the movie again and suddenly, new ideas or perspectives pop into my mind, and I can't wait to get to the keyboard.

I'm with you on the "character interview", for me it is about as much fun as filling out a job application.

Good Luck!

Shady Lane · Aug 17, 2007

peevy said:
I guess that leads to the next question: If an important minor character seems to be a bit flat, how do you add depth? And please don't make me "ask" them questions about their job, parents, etc. That is so tedious. I'd rather start somewhere more interesting. Any crazy ideas?

Give them an INSANE quirk. Just something really weird, like...they only wear shoes on Mondays. And then make up a reason why. And then make up a backstory for that. And go from there.

I don't ask my characters questions. Frankly, I don't really understand how I would go about doing that. Um, they're not real people. I'm making this shit up as I go along, here.

peevy · Aug 17, 2007

Shady Lane said:
I don't ask my characters questions. Frankly, I don't really understand how I would go about doing that. Um, they're not real people. I'm making this shit up as I go along, here.

Ha, you're funny!

I already gave one minor character a crazy quirk. I just recently tried to decided why she had that quirk. I figured out a reason, but she still doesn't seem quite real enough to me. :\

MsJudy · Aug 18, 2007

Would it help to approach her as if she were the heroine of a story? i.e. figure out for yourself what makes her sympathetic, what she really wants, what keeps her from getting it, what action she'll take to try and get it. Characters are revealed by what they say and what they do, so if there isn't some kind of underlying conflict making her say and do things, maybe she isn't getting enough of a chance to reveal herself to you.

I don't know--I'm one of those who does sort of ask my characters. I can be very logical about crafting the plot and designing the setting, but my characters just pop into my head and I hear voices. (It's either write or be committed to the asylum, seriously....) I write down what they say, and either the words sound right or they sound wrong and I try again.

One thing I do with students is describe characters in a book by filling in these blanks: I know (character) is (adjective) because she (does something or says something that proves it). Would that help, if you identified what your character is saying or doing to prove what sort of person she is?

MsJudy · Aug 18, 2007

Thank you for raising an interesting question! I've been thinking about it all day....

One thing I think makes characters come alive is seeing them in different moods. If an angry character speaks softly, or a funny character takes something seriously, then it grabs our attention and changes our perception of that character. When Harry Potter fights with Draco Malfoy, we know it's going to lead to trouble and we cringe. But when Hermione, who never ever fights, slugs him in the mouth, the whole theater cheers. Complexity and contrast are what round out even a minor character.

Elektra · Aug 18, 2007

JudScotKev said:
Thank you for raising an interesting question! I've been thinking about it all day....

One thing I think makes characters come alive is seeing them in different moods. If an angry character speaks softly, or a funny character takes something seriously, then it grabs our attention and changes our perception of that character. When Harry Potter fights with Draco Malfoy, we know it's going to lead to trouble and we cringe. But when Hermione, who never ever fights, slugs him in the mouth, the whole theater cheers. Complexity and contrast are what round out even a minor character.

Is Hermione a minor character, though? I would think minor characters were more along the lines of Luna, and Lavendar, and Professor Sprout.

MsJudy · Aug 19, 2007

Is Hermione a minor character, though? I would think minor characters were more along the lines of Luna, and Lavendar, and Professor Sprout.

Sure, but it doesn't change my point. Sprout is one-dimensional and totally forgettable. Luna is complex and therefore not forgettable. She's very quirky, but she is also right about many things, and sees things no one else does. So she's a good example of what I'm trying to say.

peevy · Aug 19, 2007

JudScotKev said:
Complexity and contrast are what round out even a minor character.

I think contrast is a big key to giving a character depth.

~grace~ · Aug 19, 2007

peevy said:
I guess that leads to the next question: If an important minor character seems to be a bit flat, how do you add depth? And please don't make me "ask" them questions about their job, parents, etc. That is so tedious. I'd rather start somewhere more interesting. Any crazy ideas?

Go! Ask them questions! Right now!

just kidding.

Minor Characters are harder than MCs in a way, because you have to make them just as distinctive in a much shorter amount of space. The easiest way to this, as discussed, is to add quirks. I think what it really comes down to though, when giving a character depth (any character) is understanding the WHY of a character. Try to figure out why your minor characters are there (from their perspective, not necessarily yours).

MsJudy · Aug 25, 2007

The easiest way to this, as discussed, is to add quirks.

I just quit reading abook after 30 pages (I won't name it, because others seem to think well enough of it). The problem? Every character was a quirk. "Oh, she's the one who gained 110 pounds. She's the one who wears overalls and paints abstract art. He's the one who boils the towels in bleach water." The quirkiness took over and they didn't seem at all real to me. So I remembered this thread and I started wondering if trying to define a minor character with a quirk doesn't backfire and make them seem less believable. Maybe if a character seems flat, it's time to tone down the quirk and have them do something totally normal the reader can empathize with....

peevy · Aug 25, 2007

JudScotKev said:
I started wondering if trying to define a minor character with a quirk doesn't backfire and make them seem less believable. Maybe if a character seems flat, it's time to tone down the quirk and have them do something totally normal the reader can empathize with....

I know what you mean. Sometimes I just roll my eyes when I'm reading a book full of super quirky characters. It seems to obvious sometimes. That's why I'm trying to find the method behind my minor character's quirk. Quirky for the sake of quirky only works for so many characters in one book.

~grace~ · Aug 26, 2007

I said easiest, not best.

peevy said:
That's why I'm trying to find the method behind my minor character's quirk. Quirky for the sake of quirky only works for so many characters in one book.

That's the key, I think--the WHY.

There's a difference between "memorable" characters and "deep" characters (though of course they aren't mutually exclusive). Quirky and memorable--um....Tigger. ("T-I-double guh!-er!" boing, boing, boing.) Quirky and deep--Luna Lovegood. We understand a lot about Luna--or George or Fred or Neville--and they're all quirky as heck. But there's something behind their quirk adding depth.

Sometimes you just need a Tigger, though. Really it depends on the story and the character's purpose.

Minor Characters with Depth--Interesting or Distracting?

keeping my head

my name is hannah

Stand in the Place Where You Live

keeping my head

keeping my head

my name is hannah

aka cupcake

keeping my head

my name is hannah

keeping my head

Don't Call Me Sweetheart

keeping my head

the good old days

keeping my head

the good old days