Writing Side Characters

November 13, 2020

Side characters require a tricky balancing act. If they’re not interesting, then the readers are going to start to wonder “Why am I reading about this character?” If they’re too interesting, readers are going to ask “Why isn’t this the main character?” I wrote last week about ensemble writing, which makes this easier, but even then, there will still be side characters. So how do you strike the balance?

Harry Potter is an example of the latter problem. As I mentioned last week, I don’t find Harry to be an interesting character, at least not when compared to the others. I found Neville and Luna far more interesting and wanted them to get more focus. Unfortunately, they’re only side characters. Instead, I’m stuck with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Despite hanging out with the main character, even Ron and Hermione don’t get nearly as much focus as he does.

Animorphs did a much better job managing the side characters. There are a few of them, but they are always in the background, and they’re never more interesting than the six main characters. We have a sense of their struggles, enough to understand them, but not so much that we need more than that. There are clear main characters, who each get about the same amount of attention as one another.

I have a lot of side characters in Girl in Red, but it’s hard to judge my own writing, because any information I want to know, I can flesh out in my head. While my beta reader enjoys the side characters, I’ve never gotten much feedback from anyone else. But writing ensemble occasionally allows me to jump into a side character’s perspective. I do this with many of the professors from time to time, which means they need to remain relevant, otherwise readers will get tired of it and skip to the next scene. Despite having focus, they are still side characters, and thus shouldn’t take up too much time.

Writing side characters is a balancing act. There are many ways to approach it. Side characters are necessary to a story, unless the main character is the only character in the story, which itself is tricky to do. Don’t put too much focus on a character unless you’re willing to go all in on them. And if while writing you find your side characters are more interesting than your main character, ask if maybe they should be the main characters. The best way to find out is to keep on writing.

#Essay #Characters #SideCharacters