Introducing Minor Characters

Their speech patterns. Something about their appearance that stands out. Their obvious role in whats to come, and if you have questions, do a separate sheet from their POV answering random questions about likes, hates, their life, favorite memories, worst, etc. The deeper you can get in, the more you'll find the way.

There's some fun posts on here about how well you know your character--try playing with some of those.

Hope that helped, and welcome, Kiteya--love your avatar!

Best of luck with your writing!

Kiteya said:

I've been having some trouble introducing my minor characters, because I'm writing a series and these characters are going to come back. How do you all introduce minor characters, while still making them memorable? Thank you so much!

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I usually give them a quirk or make them relatable to one of the MCs in some way. For example, in a story I'm currently writing set in WWII, there are quite a few soldiers in the earlier chapters who come into focus and fade into the background as required. One is a kid who's obviously under the conscription age, and one of the MCs feels protective towards him. Another is a guy with bright ginger hair and a heart of gold who's teased by the other characters. Then there's the odd guy who has a unique way of stirring his coffee, the guy who can source any item or service through a series of crazy trades, and the brown-nosing lieutenant who comes down hard on the enlisted men because he wants to impress the brass.

I've had some really good feedback about those characters, and my readers are sad when I inevitably kill them off (war, meh).

DarienW said:

do a separate sheet from their POV answering random questions about likes, hates, their life, favorite memories, worst, etc.

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I don't do any of that, as it makes me feel like my characters are wooden props to be rolled out with handy bits of information as required. I like to discover my character as I write them (turns out that squeaky under-age kid wants to be a writer, the ginger fella wants four kids with his wife when he returns from war, and the brown-nosing lieutenant is in it to impress the father of the women he hopes to marry), but then, I generally keep a good plan of the characters in my head. I can see character sheets working well for writers who struggle to flesh out the minor characters and track their personality traits/interest, but for me, they're detrimental.

Their contribution to the story on their first appearance will determine whether they're remembered or not when they make their second appearance.

Why do you remember someone the second time you meet them?

I consider non POV characters in relation to the role they're fulfilling and what they need to be memorable for. I dont know if that helps you any.

Harlequin said:

I consider non POV characters in relation to the role they're fulfilling and what they need to be memorable for. I dont know if that helps you any.

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I think that's a pretty succinct way of summing up how I do it, too. If the scene calls for a character to divulge a bit of personal info, or for the reader to know something about the character, that's when I discover it. Most of the time I don't need that background info.

I didn’t develop these characters very much ahead of time, but rather have let their traits and backstories emerge as they interact with one other and with the POV character.

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This is pretty much how I do it, too. I don't know who they are until they show up; I don't know what they're like until they start talking. Sometimes their voice is compelling and they stick around. Sometimes they're not. A minor character - who turned out to be a major character - in the books I'm working on now came about simply because I had a scene where the MC was late for work and the scene needed someone to say, where are you? And there she was.

I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "introducing" a character. My characters just show up and do stuff. What they do serves to present them to the reader, in whatever degree of importance they may have.

caw

Lakey said:

I might think about what they mean to your POV character. Or, if the POV character is meeting them for the first time when your readers meet them for the first time, what makes them memorable to the POV character?

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Exactly. Write from the POV of your character.

When YOU meet a group of people, do you remember all their names? what they look like or how they're dressed? I'm terrible with all that. A few might stand out because they're attractive or if something is odd about them, but other than that - nothing. If the introduction is staged such that I'm told something about them that relates to me, then I would recall that.

If they aren't too important until later series, then just reintroduce them later on. If Minor Character 1 is at a party MC is at in book one and the two discuss their shared hatred of the job, then never see each other again until book 3, you don't want to put so much importance on the minor character 1 in that first meeting to the point the reader suspects their role is pertinent to that single plot line. Just, in book 3, have them greet each other and MC be like, "Oh, hey, I remember you from Jared's party a year ago. Yeah, who would've thought he was a spy for the Russian government? What a shame."

Because, you do want every book in a series to, in a way, stand on its own while still relating to one another. Just reintroduce the character when it matters.

To add to the idea of making them stand out by being unique it doesn't necessarily have to be a trait that they have, it could just be an iconic line of dialogue. like how can you forget the guy who won't stop talking about the health benefits of banana milkshakes and then to make it fun when you bring him back he's over bananas and is only interested in tomato juice. (Kinda a crappy example but hopefully you get the point)

Bufty said:

Their contribution to the story on their first appearance will determine whether they're remembered or not when they make their second appearance.

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Exactly. Giving them distinctive physical characteristics may be helpful, but it's their actions and their effect on the other characters that will make them memorable.

As a side note, secondary and tertiary characters will likely increase their importance in series (due to having more time to play with them). This does not mean they have to. I read, while researching, a fan of fiction does not want to see new characters unless they have more than one interaction with story or character development. A one-time character interaction was not interesting to this individual. I do not recall where I read this, as it was months ago. In a book series, these interactions will occur more than in one book. The more interaction, the more memorable.

Another AW member posted a response - I don't recall what thread - where they noted a famous author used quirkiness to get their lesser characters noticed. This is not only in novels, but in TV, movies, and so forth. Data, from The Goonies, was quirky with his homemade inventions that never seemed to work they way they were designed. How was Data introduced in the movie? He slid across a zipline and crashed through the screen door of the MC's house. This is an example you can draw upon. Sloth is another example from this movie.

Think about minor characters from movies, and how they are both memorable and how they were introduced.

Clovitide said:

If they aren't too important until later series, then just reintroduce them later on.

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I agree with this. In Harry Potter, there are numerous characters that are mentioned in passing in the early books that reappear as fleshed-out characters in later books.

I think reintroducing characters can make the world in the story feel more real, especially when it's set in quite a small, self-enclosed world/society.

If Minor Character 1 is at a party MC is at in book one and the two discuss their shared hatred of the job, then never see each other again until book 3, you don't want to put so much importance on the minor character 1 in that first meeting to the point the reader suspects their role is pertinent to that single plot line. Just, in book 3, have them greet each other and MC be like, "Oh, hey, I remember you from Jared's party a year ago. Yeah, who would've thought he was a spy for the Russian government? What a shame."

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I don't think you even need to do the "I remember you..." bit. If the reader doesn't remember, does it matter? If you're doing a good job of reintroducing the character then it won't really matter if they're a completely new character or one that was mentioned in passing earlier. I think usually readers do remember stuff like that though. I have a crap memory generally but still when I came across reintroduced Harry Potter characters I knew I'd read their name before and often remembered a tiny bit about them. You could look at what sort of details JK Rowling included when she first introduced these characters to make them memorable. Ditto any other writer who does this kind of thing very well.

One thing I'd like to add to some of these suggestions: remember that the minor characters don't know they're minor. I can't find the source of this on Google, but someone once said something to the effect of "from the gravedigger's perspective, Hamlet is about a prince who meets a gravedigger."

I wrote a short blog post on a related topic a few months back, largely as an excuse to review the tale of Old Man Henderson. Here's the meat of it: "Besides being generally awesome, though, Old Man Henderson has an important lesson for writers: characters should always bring chaos. By this, I mean that every character introduced (unless they’re so minor they would count as an extra in Hollywood) should fundamentally upset and alter your readers’ expectations about where the story is going."

In my first novel, one that I wrote in my late teens, I made the mistake of doing this with every character. The result was actually a lot of fun, but also nearly 200k words because the poor main characters couldn't even get ferry tickets without it turning into an 800-word quest that nearly ended with them leveling the ticket office out of sheer frustration. Stuff like that.

Bufty said:

Their contribution to the story on their first appearance will determine whether they're remembered or not when they make their second appearance.

Why do you remember someone the second time you meet them?

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I totally agree. They need to contribute to the story otherwise let them appear later.

Quinn_Inuit said:

One thing I'd like to add to some of these suggestions: remember that the minor characters don't know they're minor.

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I think that's a really salient point, and not just for minor characters; unless you're going with some Deadpool-style fourth-wall breaking, characters aren't aware they're characters at all. To the reader, they're there for our entertainment, but the character is trying to live his/her/their/its life in his/her/their/its universe. I write a lot of fanfiction, and I read a little, too (it used to be more, but finding quality stories is needle-in-haystack level work) and I see a lot of characters who are obvious caricatures or played up to the point that it's obvious the writer is concentrating too much on making a character than on making the story real and allowing the characters to come to life within them—regardless of the fandom.

mrsmig said:

Actually, from the gravedigger's perspective, Hamlet is about a gravedigger who meets a prince.

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Oh, right, that's how that line goes. Thank you!

The Urban Spaceman said:

I think that's a really salient point, and not just for minor characters; unless you're going with some Deadpool-style fourth-wall breaking, characters aren't aware they're characters at all. To the reader, they're there for our entertainment, but the character is trying to live his/her/their/its life in his/her/their/its universe.

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Very true. Before I begin every project, even short fiction, I try to make sure I've created a world that's moving in a self-sustaining manner without me. The I chuck in a big rock.

BethS said:

Exactly. Giving them distinctive physical characteristics may be helpful, but it's their actions and their effect on the other characters that will make them memorable.

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I agree. If a minor character talks like a posh english aristocrat and is an asshole to the people they talk to, the reader will form a (hopefully) negative opinion on that character and when they come back up later in the series your reader will be like "Oh! its that asshole!"

Of course you can do this with positives too. I guess whats important is presenting the minor character in a way that causes the reader to either form a connection with them or form a dislike of them