Ooo! Love all the discussion.
But I don't do walk-on POVs
I agree that this is a great term!
What you need to ask yourself is why you have a character as a POV character in the first place.
This makes me wonder if you know why you picked them as POV characters. Attaching a story to them in order to justify their being POV would be ad hoc and artificial.
Do they really have no story or journey? No point in being POV characters? Why did you pick them?
I agree with this. Why have their POV at all if there is no change you are showing? Why do they have a POV? Are they peripheral characters? If so, why do we need them to recount other character's deeds if those deeds don't push up against who they are, or, alter their perception in some way?
Are they there just to show a different perspective? Why do we care (as a reader) if we get the message from the start that nothing will move them to change? Challenge them or whatnot?
I don't think it's necessary to have a long, epic arc for each one. It could be that these minor POV characters are changed more BY the main characters. No issue there, but unless you're showing me what's at stake with minor characters, they'll simply be talking heads for the author.
Also consider that you might already have change there, but it could be a more quiet change. Up to you to assess.
Yeah... I guess for one there actually is a journey, which all I'd need to do is flesh out (sees himself as a father figure to the MC, starts out thinking MC needs protection, ends up realising she's grown up and can handle things herself). But the other... I'm not sure. Both these characters are older, more experienced people, to provide perspective not seen by the young hot-heads who make up the rest of the cast
But it makes it harder to define a "journey" for already well-developed personalities.
I think a "walk-on POV character" (I, too, love the designation) can be useful to set the scene from the POV of an outsider.
This might be the reason I've got the second POV there -- this is the one I'm struggling the most with. I could replace her with another young hot-head, but the hot-head can't know some of the things the experienced character knows, which is sort of the point of her, so then I might as well leave out that POV perspective entirely. Although I think having the outsider-view of what the MC and most everyone around her think is important adds some depth and tension to the story. Another way to get that perspective across is to have one of the other POV characters "overhear" people talking, which I think is even more contrived. I suppose I could develop a storyline where an outsider befriends an insider to the point of eventually saying, "hey, back before I knew you, I thought..." although that seems to be going a bit far, and not quite worth it.
If you're writing in 3rd-limited and you have a scene where only secondary characters are present, how can you *not* have a POV for one of those characters?
I have a scene in my WIP in which a major character, Bud, calls a secondary character, Ronald, on the phone to say he's coming to kill him. The POV is that of another secondary character, Phillip, who is listening to Ronald's side of the phone conversation.
I don't believe it's lazy writing, nor do I think it's gimmicky. If I told it from Bud's POV, I'd just have him talking on the phone. But this way I get both Ronald's and Phillip's reactions to the call as well as revealing to the reader something heretofore unknown, something Bud doesn't know, which will come as a surprise to him.
Yeah, this -- I personally like it when I know things the MC doesn't, and can agonise over them heading for unexpected disaster
Most of my secondary POVs are in scenes where the MC isn't present.
According to how you've described "meaningful journey," I don't believe ANY character HAS to have one, including the MC. Some genres simply don't require it.
I suspect the person who told me this *did* mean a character-changing journey, although I suppose it could be redefined to also include obstacle-overcome, which might fit in with other genres (someone above mentioned action-hero and series).
I know that one way in which I've used secondary POVs in a poor way is to provide evidence to convince the reader of motivation for the MC they might not otherwise believe if only in the MC's head. Like, "hey, look this *other* person thinks this makes sense, so it must, right?" That's definitely lazy and hiding poor development of the MC on my part. I've done this a lot in a previous book (where the original comment about journeys came about), but in trying to apply lessons learned to my WIP, I think that's not what I'm doing here. There is, I think, one POV character (which I didn't include in the count above) that is like this -- and on reflection he would lift out quite easily if I just wrote the MC a bit better. But he has a particular profile: present for only a very short portion of the novel (a "walk-on", I believe) where his life intersects the MC's, only in scenes with the MC, and basically spends his time thinking about the MC. The rest of them (including the experienced outsider) are opposite: show up throughout the novel, are present mostly when the MC *isn't* there, and only think about the MC when her actions impact their lives.
It's possible the comment I was given as a rule is one of those know-it-before-you-break-it things in response to my egregious use of secondary POVs in one novel, and it might not transfer to my WIP. But I'd like to learn as much as I can from previous mistakes, so have been trying to apply it here. I really do like the experienced outsider POV, as there isn't a perspective like that in the rest of the novel. But is it really necessary? A lot to think on...