Minor Characters?

[Cli-Fi]

While writing my current WIP it required major changes throughout some characters, but my main characters have remained as I envisioned for the most part. How often do minor characters surprise you as you are writing?

For Example, one of my minor characters actually became a pretty major character and before a re-write he was only in one chapter. He's also the closest I have to a human antagonist.

 

[F.J. Hansen]

This happened quite a bit in my third book. One character started out in the second book as a simple messenger for a major character. When that role expired, I just couldn't simply get rid of him, so I kept looking for other things for him to do. Throughout the third book, he continues to develop with the help of another minor character until the climax, where he joins the main characters in center stage.

 

[Juliana]

Two minors did this in my current wip. One was just so much fun to write that I expanded her role and gave her several chapters. Another went from a tiny mention to genius mastermind, and I have big plans for him in the next novel.

I'm a big planner, but I'm still constantly (and pleasantly) surprised by the things that crop up while I'm actually writing.

 

[Denise Tanaka]

Recently I was surprised by my writer's critique group. There was unanimous enthusiasm for a very minor character in my novel, to the extent that I was being urged to bump my main POV character down to second fiddle and make this person -- who only appeared for one scene -- the primary POV. No, honestly, this minor character's only function in this story was to hand my hero the treasure map. The novel is (supposed to be) all about him going sailing off into the wild blue sea where terrible and wonderful things happen. I got so befuddled that I've pulled it out of my writer's group, when we're barely halfway through, and I'm brainstorming a rewrite.

 

[J Riff]

They can appear and steal the story away, or wreck it. You can't get rid of them once they are in for a few chapters.

 

[Venusian Broon]

ah the luvvies that take part in my prose dramas are always champing at the bit to get more 'stage time'. It's as if, as soon as you've named them, then they crowd round you in your imagination screaming 'pick me for this bit, go on, go on...'

In all seriousness though I think this arises because secondary or minor characters have a more latitude to be grotesque, quirky and just different. Hence occasionally magic occurs and you have made a character that people (and you the author) really want to find out more about because they are so colourful and stand out.

This can be accentuated if you have very serious, po-faced and bland in comparison main characters or heroes. This has been one of the lessons (I have still to learn properly, I have to admit) - that your MC's need that special bit of colour and good dialogue to be good & memorable main characters, not just in their own right, but to compare against a 'competing' secondary cast!

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I never know or think of them as main/minor/major characters when I write them. I let my characters become what they need to be.

 

[Nick B]

As Anya said. Often nature must simply take its course while we stand and watch.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

My second male character, a chap called Lichio, started out as a younger brother of another character and was planned as a throwaway cheeky brat. He had other ideas. He's probably my most liked character.

 

[Hex]

I don't like him

My favourite minor character is called Koscha. She's a witch. She doesn't do anything I think she should.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

In my first novel a character started out as a small annoyance for one of the main characters. He then change to a competitor, bully and by the end of the book it is clear that in the future he may be a major threat and enemy. All I envisioned when I first created him was a type of "know-it-all" with a bad attitude.

 

[Cli-Fi]

The more I read this thread the more I realize that this happens a bunch in TV Shows and Movie Franchises as well. But more in TV Shows especially long winded 6+ season shows where they are looking for something new to do with the characters in order to shake things up.

Or apparently every week on Game of Thrones. I don't watch that, so I am not certain but what I've heard there are a lot of shake ups within the minor characters.

Also the supporting actors on any TV show are usually my favorites and am happy when they get arcs or more meat to their story.

 

[Toby Frost]

Yes, it's a classic way of keeping a show going or breathing a bit of new life into it. Also, because the lead character is usually a fairly middle-of-the-road person, wacky minor characters often get a lot of fan support, and then to please the fans get promoted. But I'm not sure that pleasing the fans and making something really good always overlap.

In the WIP, if I ever did a sequel, one of the minor characters would become a lead character. It would be quite an interesting way of seeing the story through the eyes of someone who is only a useful tough guy up to that point, like suddenly making Vasquez the hero of Aliens.

 

[Laeraneth]

I try and make sure that all my minor characters have a potential to them, even if they are 'throwaway' (they aren't) in the part of the story that they appear in.

A previously major(ish) antagonist that I had planned to be dealt with by the end of book 1, ended up more sympathetic due to his own motivations (which I only explored fully as I wrote him), and became a small assistance towards (though still primarily an antagonist) the main characters and now has a small arc of his own that (unfortunately for him) is going to end up with him being dead in order to further someone else's goals and specifically set up events for future books.

Not bad for someone who started out as "generic gang antagonist" until I wrote him

Similarly, someone else who was essentially drafted in as a replacement main antagonist as the other guy evolved into something more sympathetic, has gained a much deeper backstory, a full arc that leads through 'the bad guys', and will be a long term, though relatively minor, antagonist that will come to full fruition probably near the end of the planned 'book 2'

On the other hand, there are two characters I've purposefully seeded within the book who are intended to be very main characters later on (touching on one a bit more in book two, with both becoming a big deal in book 3), but for the moment are purposefully kept very minor.

Suffice to say, I try and make sure that even the incidental encounters have impact and relevance later on, but sometimes your characters surprise you and take over events as they develop