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Jennifer talks about secondary characters...
Unless your characters are either a) living in a bubble or
b) the most enlightened minds in the world, your characters need some sort of a
helper in order to understand how and why they’re doing something.
Our characters don’t live in a bubble. As Ana mentioned
yesterday, they have a history that affects their today and their tomorrow.
They interact with people and they react to events.
If our characters were the most enlightened minds in the
world, chances are, we wouldn’t be writing about them, since there wouldn’t be
a story there. We wouldn’t need to see the trials and tribulations they go
through in order to reach true love. They’d snap their fingers and live happily
ever after.
Therefore, they need helpers. In my books, those helpers are
family, friends and children. In the manuscript that’s out with my agent
currently, my character, Cassie, has close friends in whom she confides her
fears and her feelings. They help her work through things and sometimes even
push her toward the hero. They also meddle a little in her affairs by going
directly to the hero and warning him to be careful, telling a little about her
backstory and providing hints to the reader.
In my current WIP, Book 3 of my Women of Valor series, both
the hero and heroine have family who help the reader understand their psyche.
By seeing them react with their mother’s (especially the one mother who never
lets anyone forget ANYTHING), the reader gets to see what makes them tick. The
heroine also has a nephew, who’s seven. He helps explain things in a childlike
way and is a great tool when something has to be explained step by step, but I
don’t want to make the reader feel like an idiot.
These secondary characters are fun to write and develop and
sometimes, it’s like laying out the pieces of a treasure map. They’re the
reader’s guide to finding the X (and the O) on the journey to happily ever
after.
Who are your helpers?
I've never thought of other characters as helpers but it does make sense. I must admit, though, that I don't have many helpers in my books. Perhaps I should. You've certainly given me something to think about.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone's writing style is different. You're obviously able to convey all of that information with fewer characters, so I don't know that I'd go about changing it.
DeleteBest friends/helpers help to avoid too much internal dialogue/agonising too! My heroines' best friends have often been a means of directing the heroines' thoughts in a different direction, or pointing out something they have though of, or even providing a shoulder to cry on.
ReplyDeleteMy heroes' however don't usually unburden themselves to 'best friends' but maybe that's because men (on the whole) don't tend to discuss their feelings anyway to their mates!
My hero's friends tend to show things--the strength of my hero, the support that the heroine has, etc. My heroine's friends often give advice or tell people things. Because, as you say, men and women are very different.
DeleteThere are helper secondary characters, and challenger secondary characters. All help the story by being confidants, revealers of secrets, mentors to the hero-heroine, heralds who predict (to the main character's scoff) an impeding event. Some become extensions of the villain (if you have one. I seem to have to.)
ReplyDeleteAnd the best part----- they can become the stars of future books.
That's right, and something I'm more cognizant of each time I write a secondary character. I want to have one or two that I like so I can write about them in the future!
DeleteMy secondary characters tend to be 'one sided'. That is, either the heroine has a friend/confidant to share thoughts, feelings, etc. with, or the hero does. Rarely do I have two sets of 'other' characters for any type of deep interaction. I can only think of one of my novels that has two sets of secondary characters...one for the hero and one for the heroine.
ReplyDeleteI use those secondary characters to move the story along and get some backstory/feelings in without going on for pages and pages of internal monologue. (Boring.)
In my novellas, my secondary characters are very limited...in fact they are sometimes nonexistent.
I'd think a novella would have to limit secondary characters in order to get everything in in a shorter word count.
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