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mbarker.livejournal.comOriginal Posting 3 June 2012
Writer's Digest, September 1996, pages 10, 12 and 13, have an article by Nancy Kress with the title, "Getting the Most from Your Co-Stars." The subtitle explains, "Secondary characters can do more than carry spears for your protagonist. They can also solve plot problems." The second half of this was in Writer's Digest, October 1996, pages 10 and 12, with the title "Cooperating Co-Stars, the Sequel." I'll go ahead and summarize both of those here.
Nancy starts out by pointing out that, "Fiction is about people, and much advice on writing fiction concerns creating those pivotal people, protagonists." However, protagonists are not the only person in your story. The secondary characters, antagonists, and spear carriers mostly don't change. There's just no room to make everybody three-dimensional, rounded and so forth. So fiction focuses on our lead character. And the secondary characters mostly are lightly sketched. That doesn't mean they aren't important. And one of the things that they can do is help with plot problems!
What kind of plot problems? Well, suppose you have finished a draft and are rereading it. Some of the problems you might run into include:
-- Whatever happened to good old George? Characters who have gone missing.
-- Why are these people doing these things? Lack of motivation.
-- How can you make this situation feel more inevitable? Lack of plausibility.
-- Premature climax. More and better foreshadowing needed.
-- This just seems thin. Lack of action, character development, tension.
-- Isn't this just a cliche? Whoops, that scene... We've seen it too many times.
How do you fix these? Well, Nancy suggests doing it with secondary characters. It's easier to change secondary characters. They're not in as many places, you probably haven't invested nearly as much in them, so it's easier to change them. But can you fix major plot difficulties without making big changes in the main characters? Sometimes.
What happened to George?
Imagine that you've finished a draft, and you really like the ending. Everything came together in a pleasing climax, and your plot is done. However, that very same plot means that one of the main characters isn't in the climactic scene -- he's in Africa! And even in the dénouement after the climax, he just doesn't fit. But readers are going to want to know what happened, right? Well, one trick is to use a secondary character. The butler, Pamela, can get a phone call, a letter, talk to another character about George, one way or another, in just a line or two, Pamela can tell us what happened to George.
But maybe Pamela didn't know George before? Well, that's the advantage of a secondary character. Setting things up so that Pamela is George's cousin, went to school with George, or whatever doesn't mean such a big change. All you need to do is go back a little bit and plant that relationship, and then Pamela can easily mention getting a text message from George.
Why would he do that?
The lack of climactic motivation is relatively common. A major character needs to make a sudden, decisive action for the climax, surprising everyone. But sometimes it surprises the writer, too. So you never set that character up before. But going back and changing that main character is a lot of work. So, try using secondary characters.
What we need to do is show the main character being decisive, being strong, somewhere earlier. So what if a secondary character has had this kind of interaction with the main character? Again, could they be relatives, business acquaintances, or maybe they both went to high school together? Now, let these secondary characters tell people and show people the other side of the major character, foreshadowing that unexpected action.
Could that happen?
Some situations seem unlikely, implausible, how did anybody get themselves stuck in that? Sometimes it's a pileup of coincidences, a premise that's just too far out there, or there's just no logic in it. You may not be able to save that. But sometimes, you can use the secondary characters to bolster unlikely situations. Give the secondary characters lives and work and actions that makes what's happening to the protagonists seem more likely. Nancy points out that the Stepford Wives, with women systematically replaced with robots, seems pretty unlikely. But the secondary characters -- a biologist, a speech expert, an industrial engineer who designs automated systems -- help to make it seem a little less unlikely.
"Secondary characters are the screwdrivers of fiction; infinitely versatile in putting things together."
Premature climax?
Sometimes, the climax just happens too fast. Maybe there are alternatives that the reader thinks might be more apt. So why this ending? Well, obviously we need to build the feeling of inevitability. We need to add more scenes earlier, foreshadowing the outcome, pointing to it as what needs to happen.
And, of course, you can do this with scenes built around the secondary characters. You don't want to alter the main plot, but you do want to add some direction, maybe to give the reader a few more reasons for this climax. "Secondary characters are born to nudge, close off and facilitate." So use secondary characters to block alternatives and push the climax in the right direction.
Anemic chapters?
Sometimes parts of a book just don't seem to have enough stuff in them. You need some more action, some character development, something to help build the tension.
"This is perhaps where interesting secondary characters are the most use of all. Like a magician's patter and handwaving, they can entertain the audience while the illusion is being prepared for unveiling." Interesting eccentrics can help add richness and fascination. Can the secondary characters have a crisis, a choice, some kind of a success?
Yawn. Another cliche?
Or suppose that the scene that's supposed to be a key part of your plot turns out to be too much of a cliche. The horseman riding out of town forever, the divorced woman lifting her chin and deciding to go on, the detective who's being framed... There are lists and lists. It's well trodden ground. But, even when the situation seems way too familiar, secondary characters can add freshness.
Nancy ends with a metaphor.
"Your main characters are the foundation of your novel; the poured concrete, the weight-bearing girders. Once such things are in place, they are difficult to move. The whole structure relies on their solidity to hold itself together."
"Secondary characters, on the other hand, are nonweight-bearing walls. Certainly they help determine the final plan of the rooms... You can move the wall, subdivide a major room, eliminate partitions -- whatever seems to yield the most pleasing arrangement as the building goes up."
Think of secondary characters as the colorful aspects, that you can change and redecorate pretty easily during revision. "When you remodel, decorate or redecorate, look first to your secondary characters. It's much easier than moving a foundation may be perfectly sound."
So you can use secondary characters to help with missing main characters, lack of motivation, unlikely situations, premature climaxes, anemic sections, and those boring cliches. Maybe it is true, that there are no small parts, only small actors. So make sure your "bit players" make the most of their parts.
Write?
Writer's Digest, September 1996, pages 10, 12 and 13, have an article by Nancy Kress with the title, "Getting the Most from Your Co-Stars." The subtitle explains, "Secondary characters can do more than carry spears for your protagonist. They can also solve plot problems." The second half of this was in Writer's Digest, October 1996, pages 10 and 12, with the title "Cooperating Co-Stars, the Sequel." I'll go ahead and summarize both of those here.
Nancy starts out by pointing out that, "Fiction is about people, and much advice on writing fiction concerns creating those pivotal people, protagonists." However, protagonists are not the only person in your story. The secondary characters, antagonists, and spear carriers mostly don't change. There's just no room to make everybody three-dimensional, rounded and so forth. So fiction focuses on our lead character. And the secondary characters mostly are lightly sketched. That doesn't mean they aren't important. And one of the things that they can do is help with plot problems!
What kind of plot problems? Well, suppose you have finished a draft and are rereading it. Some of the problems you might run into include:
-- Whatever happened to good old George? Characters who have gone missing.
-- Why are these people doing these things? Lack of motivation.
-- How can you make this situation feel more inevitable? Lack of plausibility.
-- Premature climax. More and better foreshadowing needed.
-- This just seems thin. Lack of action, character development, tension.
-- Isn't this just a cliche? Whoops, that scene... We've seen it too many times.
How do you fix these? Well, Nancy suggests doing it with secondary characters. It's easier to change secondary characters. They're not in as many places, you probably haven't invested nearly as much in them, so it's easier to change them. But can you fix major plot difficulties without making big changes in the main characters? Sometimes.
What happened to George?
Imagine that you've finished a draft, and you really like the ending. Everything came together in a pleasing climax, and your plot is done. However, that very same plot means that one of the main characters isn't in the climactic scene -- he's in Africa! And even in the dénouement after the climax, he just doesn't fit. But readers are going to want to know what happened, right? Well, one trick is to use a secondary character. The butler, Pamela, can get a phone call, a letter, talk to another character about George, one way or another, in just a line or two, Pamela can tell us what happened to George.
But maybe Pamela didn't know George before? Well, that's the advantage of a secondary character. Setting things up so that Pamela is George's cousin, went to school with George, or whatever doesn't mean such a big change. All you need to do is go back a little bit and plant that relationship, and then Pamela can easily mention getting a text message from George.
Why would he do that?
The lack of climactic motivation is relatively common. A major character needs to make a sudden, decisive action for the climax, surprising everyone. But sometimes it surprises the writer, too. So you never set that character up before. But going back and changing that main character is a lot of work. So, try using secondary characters.
What we need to do is show the main character being decisive, being strong, somewhere earlier. So what if a secondary character has had this kind of interaction with the main character? Again, could they be relatives, business acquaintances, or maybe they both went to high school together? Now, let these secondary characters tell people and show people the other side of the major character, foreshadowing that unexpected action.
Could that happen?
Some situations seem unlikely, implausible, how did anybody get themselves stuck in that? Sometimes it's a pileup of coincidences, a premise that's just too far out there, or there's just no logic in it. You may not be able to save that. But sometimes, you can use the secondary characters to bolster unlikely situations. Give the secondary characters lives and work and actions that makes what's happening to the protagonists seem more likely. Nancy points out that the Stepford Wives, with women systematically replaced with robots, seems pretty unlikely. But the secondary characters -- a biologist, a speech expert, an industrial engineer who designs automated systems -- help to make it seem a little less unlikely.
"Secondary characters are the screwdrivers of fiction; infinitely versatile in putting things together."
Premature climax?
Sometimes, the climax just happens too fast. Maybe there are alternatives that the reader thinks might be more apt. So why this ending? Well, obviously we need to build the feeling of inevitability. We need to add more scenes earlier, foreshadowing the outcome, pointing to it as what needs to happen.
And, of course, you can do this with scenes built around the secondary characters. You don't want to alter the main plot, but you do want to add some direction, maybe to give the reader a few more reasons for this climax. "Secondary characters are born to nudge, close off and facilitate." So use secondary characters to block alternatives and push the climax in the right direction.
Anemic chapters?
Sometimes parts of a book just don't seem to have enough stuff in them. You need some more action, some character development, something to help build the tension.
"This is perhaps where interesting secondary characters are the most use of all. Like a magician's patter and handwaving, they can entertain the audience while the illusion is being prepared for unveiling." Interesting eccentrics can help add richness and fascination. Can the secondary characters have a crisis, a choice, some kind of a success?
Yawn. Another cliche?
Or suppose that the scene that's supposed to be a key part of your plot turns out to be too much of a cliche. The horseman riding out of town forever, the divorced woman lifting her chin and deciding to go on, the detective who's being framed... There are lists and lists. It's well trodden ground. But, even when the situation seems way too familiar, secondary characters can add freshness.
Nancy ends with a metaphor.
"Your main characters are the foundation of your novel; the poured concrete, the weight-bearing girders. Once such things are in place, they are difficult to move. The whole structure relies on their solidity to hold itself together."
"Secondary characters, on the other hand, are nonweight-bearing walls. Certainly they help determine the final plan of the rooms... You can move the wall, subdivide a major room, eliminate partitions -- whatever seems to yield the most pleasing arrangement as the building goes up."
Think of secondary characters as the colorful aspects, that you can change and redecorate pretty easily during revision. "When you remodel, decorate or redecorate, look first to your secondary characters. It's much easier than moving a foundation may be perfectly sound."
So you can use secondary characters to help with missing main characters, lack of motivation, unlikely situations, premature climaxes, anemic sections, and those boring cliches. Maybe it is true, that there are no small parts, only small actors. So make sure your "bit players" make the most of their parts.
Write?
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