Not all characters are created equal.
You must know—and let your readers know—which characters are most important to the story (i.e. the major characters), so they’ll know which are worth following and caring about, and which will quickly disappear
(i.e. the inconsequential placeholders).
So where is the dividing line between major and minor characters? There isn’t one. The different levels shade into each other, and as you master the writing techniques appropriate to each level, you’ll be able to create and define each minor character at exactly the level of importance the story requires.
Walk-ons and Placeholders
Unless your story takes place in a hermitage or a desert island, your main characters are surrounded by many people who are utterly unimportant in the story. They are background; they are part of the milieu. Here are a few samples:
- Nora accidentally gave the cabby a $20 bill for a $5 ride and then was too shy to ask for change. Within a minute a skycap had the rest of her money.
- Pete checked at the desk for his messages. There weren’t any, but the bellman did have a package for him.
- People started honking their horns before Nora even knew there was a traffic jam.
- Apparently some suspicious neighbor had called the cops. The uniform who arrested him wasn’t interested in Pete’s explanations, and Pete soon found himself at the precinct headquarters.
Notice how many people we’ve “met” in these few sentences: a cabby, a skycap, a hotel desk clerk, a bellman, horn-honkers in a traffic jam, a suspicious neighbor, a uniformed police officer. Every single one of these people is designed to fulfill a brief role in the story and then vanish completely out of sight.
Setting the Scenery
How do you make people vanish? Any stage director knows the trick. You have a crowd of people on stage, most of them walk-ons. They have to be there because otherwise the setting wouldn’t be realistic—but you don’t want them to distract the audience’s attention. In effect, you want them to be like scenery. They really aren’t characters at all—they’re movable pieces of milieu.
The surest way for a walk-on to get himself fired from a play is to become “creative”—to start fidgeting or doing some clever bit of stage business that distracts attention from the main action of the scene. Unless, of course, this is one of those rare occasions when the walk-on’s new business is brilliantly funny—in which case, you might even pay him more and elevate the part.
You have the same options in fiction. If a character who isn’t supposed to matter starts distracting from the main thread of the story, you either cut her out entirely or you figure out why you, as a writer, were so interested in her that you’ve spent more time on her than you meant to. Then, in the latter case, revise the story to make her matter more.
Most of the time, though, you want your walk-ons to disappear. You want them to fade back and be part of the scenery, part of the milieu.
Utilizing Stereotypes
To keep walk-on characters in their place, sometimes stereotyping is exactly the tool of characterization you need.
A stereotype is a character who is a typical member of a group. He does exactly what the readers expect him to do. Therefore, they take no notice of him: He disappears into the background.
If we think that a particular stereotype is unfair to the person it supposedly explains, then we’re free to deliberately violate the stereotype. But the moment we do that, we have made the character unique, which will make him attract the readers’ attention. He will no longer simply disappear—he isn’t a walk-on anymore. He has stepped forward out of the milieu and jo
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave Sherlock Holmes a full panoply of supporting characters. There was Dr. Watson, the quintessential “sidekick,” to act as a sounding board; Scottish landlady Mrs. Hudson, to cook and clean and fuss over Holmes; Scotland Yard Inspector LeStrade, to provide a foil for Holmes’ intuitive brilliance, as well as access to official investigations; the Baker Street Irregulars, to ferret out information; and Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s politically powerful older brother, to provide financial and strategic support. Like Doyle’s, your cast of supporting characters should reflect what your protagonist needs.
Balancing Character Traits
An amateur sleuth needs a friend or relative with access to inside information—a police officer, a private investigator or a crime reporter will fit the bill. A character who’s arrogant and full of himself needs a character to keep him from taking himself too seriously, maybe an acerbic coworker or a mother. You might want to show a hardboiled police detective’s softer side by giving him kids or a pregnant wife.
The most important supporting character in many genres, though, is the sidekick. Virtually every mystery protagonist has one. Rex Stout’s obese, lazy, brilliant Nero Wolfe has Archie Goodwin—a slim, wisecracking ladies’ man. Carol O’Connell’s icy, statuesque, blonde Detective Kathy Mallory has garrulous, overweight, aging, alcoholic Detective Riker. Robert B. Parker’s literate, poetry-quoting Spenser has black, street-smart, tough-talking Hawk. Harlan Coben’s former basketball-star-turned-sports-agent, Myron Bolitar, has a rich, blond, preppy friend, Windsor Horne Lockwood, III.
See a pattern? It’s the old opposites attract. Mystery protagonists and their sidekicks are a study in contrasts. Sidekicks are the yin to the protagonists’ yang. The contrast puts the protagonists’ characteristics into relief. For instance, the thickheaded Watson makes Holmes look smarter.
The place to start in creating a sidekick is with the profile you developed of your sleuth, so think about what kind of opposites will work.
Tormenting Your hero
Every protagonist/mystery sleuth needs an adversary, too. This is not the villain, but a good-guy character who drives your sleuth nuts, pushes his buttons, torments him, puts obstacles in his path, and is generally a pain in the patoot. It might be an overprotective relative, or a know-it-all coworker. It might be a police officer or detective who “ain’t got no respect” for the protagonist. It might be a boss who’s a micromanager or a flirt.
For Sherlock Holmes, it’s Inspector LeStrade and his disdain for Holmes’ investigative techniques. In the same vein, Kathy Reichs’ forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan has a tormentor in the person of Montreal police sergeant Luc Claudel. Their sparring is an ongoing element in her books. In Monday Mourning, Brennan finds out Claudel is going to be working with her on the case. She describes him:
Though a good cop, Luc Claudel has the patience of a firecracker, the sensitivity of Vlad the Impaler, and a persistent skepticism as to the value of forensic anthropology.
Then she adds:
Snappy dresser, though.
Conflict is the spice that makes characters come alive, and an adversary can cause the protagonist all kinds of interesting problems and complicate your story by throwing up roadblocks to the investigation.
An adversary may simply be thickheaded—for example, a superior officer who remains stubbornly unconvinced and takes the protagonist off the case. Or an adversary may be deliberately obstructive. For example, a bureaucrat’s elected boss might quash an investigation that threatens political cronies, or a senior reporter may fail to pass along information because he doesn’t want a junior reporter to get the scoop.
In developing an adversary, remember it should be a character who’s positio
Is your manuscript stuck? Take a break from completing your fiction project and diagnose it. Here's how to take your manuscript into its next phase: completion. Read more
Whenever you cause readers to be curious about what comes next, you’re creating suspense in fiction writing. Here are five simple steps you can take to increase the level of suspense in your scenes. Read more
