One story element that often feels mushy in the middle of our books is our cast of characters. We sometimes are so focused on getting our main character down the river, we forget about the lives of all those side characters we set up in act one.
Or we can have the opposite issue of having so much fun with all our quirky side characters, we put too much of the spotlight on them and our main character no longer feels like our main character.
Carrying on with our character-in-a-river analogy (a more detailed explanation can be found in last week’s post), your main character most likely has other people in canoes traveling alongside them. Especially if this is a quest-style novel.
Sometimes those other characters may steer their canoe to another part of the river. Maybe it’s like one of those braided rivers in Alaska. Other characters might be on their own river that sometimes intersects with your main character’s river. Maybe we sometimes get to see those other rivers through the perspective of those side characters. If so, these are your other POV characters.
How big your overall cast should be just depends on the scope of your story. An epic series is likely going to have a big cast with lots of POV characters and non-POV side character. But if your book takes place in a weekend or in a single house, your cast might be very small.
Wherever your story falls on that spectrum, here are 3 tips for handling side characters:
When in doubt, simplify.
In real life, you probably know seven Madisons, and everyone has a specific, separate role. Your teacher is just your teacher. Your volleyball coach is just your volleyball coach. You have a group of friends at ballet, a group of friends at church, a group of friends at softball, and so on. You can already tell this is too complicated for a book, can’t you?
In a story, not only does everyone need a different name, it can even be problematic for readers if their names are too similar.
We also want to combine roles when we can. One friend group, not seven. A teacher who is also the volleyball coach and Mom’s best friend rather than creating three separate characters to fill all those roles.
As fun as side and POV characters are to create, you want as few as possible to tell the story you want to tell. When deciding if someone should be a POV character or just a side character, you’ll generally want to ask:
- Do they show us a different part of the story than the main character?
- Are they a critical part of the story climax?
You maybe don’t know the answer to that second question, but POV characters should matter to the entire story, especially the climax.
Pay attention to the needs of your primary side characters and POV characters.
Every major side character and POV character needs:
Their own goal: They will feel most realistic when they have their own things they’re striving for instead of just being a barnacle on the main character’s goal.
Their own story thread: Just like your main character has a river they’re traveling, your important side characters and all POV characters need their own river that you’ve mapped out for them even though we won’t see all of it.
Their own resolution: These characters can’t just wander out of the novel around 2/3 of the way through with no resolution to their story. Or they can, but you’re going to seriously irritate some readers.
Their own unique voice: This is especially true for POV characters. We don’t want their scenes to sound like the main character scenes.
Don’t forget whose story it really is: the main character’s.
As you work to fulfill all those needs of the other characters, it can be tempting to shine the spotlight on them a bit too much. Typically, readers only care about the goals and story threads of other characters when it intersects with our main character and serves the main story.
It’s so difficult, especially in the middle of a story, to keep all focus on the core story. In the Harry Potter series, Hermione Granger is a beloved side character. She has her own goals and life she’s living, but we really only see her when her river merges with Harry’s. Even still, she feels very real to readers because of her strong personality and all hints that J. K. Rowling drops in that Hermione is busy doing her own thing when she isn’t helping Harry.
Here’s a great post from Jill’s #WeWriteBooks series on Side Characters, if you want to read more on this topic.
Any questions about writing side characters?
Who is a side character that you absolutely love and would definitely read a spin-off story of theirs?
One side-story I would love to read would be with Annabeth Chase – Percy Jackson’s girlfriend. She is the best.
I love Annabeth!
In the sequel series, Annabeth has some of her own chapters, and they’re some of my favorite parts!
The best is when she judo-flips Percy. Love that scene!!!!
Okay, I have this problem. I love my side characters way more than my MC. Actually, my main character’s little sister is my favorite. I kinda feel like that’s okay for this story, because I’m writing it more like Palacio’s Wonder, jumping around to different views of the same story. And I’m not trying to publish this one either. I’m just writing it to get a story under my belt so that when I write my book I’ll have had some experience.
I would definitely read a side story about Tawny from Out of time by Nadine Brandes!!
Yes, that worked very well for Wonder. And it works with your goal for the story too!
Yeah, I like my side characters alot too! I mean, I like my MC alot, but for some reason, I’m always finding myself playing around with this one side character of mine, who is a narcissistic king that has mirrors everywhere, including in his hilt where his sword SHOULD be, but he secretly has a deep respect for his dead father, who adopted him at a very young age (which, the king hasn’t told anyone that his father adopted him)… I can’t stop adding more and more backstory to him, he’s an interesting character!
Yep, I love playing around with my characters.
Yes! Your story sounds great, by the way.
I personally AM the younger sister, so I can relate to the younger sister more than the older. It does show me my faults pretty fast though!
Thanks! I’m the older sister in my home, so that might be part of the reason my main character is the older sibling… ? Yeah, the fault thing is definitely true!
I think I need to learn how to balance characters a little better. I’m trying to learn to edit and last week when I was working on it I was wondering if the sidekick is too strong. I always seem to have a timid MC & a best friends that *sort of* bosses her around or comes up with all the ideas.
That’s interesting. I’ve run into similar situations. I think for me it’s more about my own passive personality. I have to work hard most of the time to make my main characters active.
I was thinking the same for myself. I always shy & quiet so friends usually dominate!
That’s sort of the same thing that happens in my story. My MC is pretty outgoing but her two friends sort of dominates over her since they are both very bossy people.
It’s amazing how writing stories can reveal us to ourselves, isn’t it?
Stephanie, I completely agree! So much of myself comes out in my characters that it scares me sometimes. I’m like, “Goodness, that’s what I’m like?” or “Wait, that’s the insecurity that I’m facing”.
Writing books has definitely given me an eye into myself that I didn’t have before!
I’m the opposite! Usually my main character is the talkative, dramatic, (sometimes nerdy) type, while the “sidekick” more mentors, or teases my MC through the story.
But looking at myself in real life, I talk alot with my friends, and am pretty dramatic! (my mom sometimes comments that I could become an actress, lol.) ?
My story has a fairly large cast of characters, so I’ve had to get to know each of them. Sometimes, my family would find me talking to myself as each of my different characters to understand them.
When I was at the end of my first draft, I really struggled with allowing each of them to have their own problems, but when I re-read it, I started to realize individual goals I could give them to help move the story along.
I love the mental image of your family finding you doing that 🙂 Sounds like you’re doing a lot of work to make all the characters unique!
I do the same thing! Except when I’m doing it and I hear one of my siblings coming, I snap out of it so they don’t think I’m crazy. (At least, not TOO crazy.)
I have a group of characters I’m working with, about the same size of the cast of Rick Riordan’s “Heroes of Olympus.” I’m doing kinda like he did, and focusing on a smaller number of those characters by giving them POVs. The others serve as side characters in this book, but they will be in the spotlight later. Do I need to pick one to focus on, or is putting equal emphasis on all the POV characters okay?
Typically it works best to have a main character, but every story is different and you should do what you think is best!
I found you talking about characters having similar names very relatable. I just started writing a book a few weeks ago and just realized that three of the main characters have names that begin with the letter E. Their names are Ella, Ester, and Eddie. I feel like its alright though because other than the first letter, the names are not all that similar.
I read Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew for school, and in it, there’s a character named Gremio, and a character named Grumio. It was extremely confusing at first!
I think those names are great! Might be a tad confusing at first, but with distinct personalities readers will catch on fast.
Some of my favorite side characters are Nat in The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and Calvin, and the Mrs. W’s in A Wrinkle in Time.
The “cast” size in my story isn’t too small, but I don’t really know if you’d count it as big either… There’s a number of unnamed people, because they are minor servants, guards, and townspeople. I also have a few characters that I “simplified”. The head butler of the palace also serves as the king’s right-hand man, and the father of one of my MC’s allies.
I do love side characters!!! They’re fun to play around with!
They are SOOOOO fun.
I would love to see a book about Nat! If only Speare were still alive. 🙁 She was amazing.
Some side characters I’d like to see more of are Henry Clerval and Felix de Lacey from Frankenstein, John Silver and his wife from Treasure Island, Newt and some of the other Gladers from The Maze Runner, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series, and maybe more.
What would you do to ensure that all your characters are consistent?
It’s so fun to see the diversity of everyone’s favorite side characters!
Do you mean consistent with how you’ve created them?
Yes. Consistent according to how you’ve created them throughout the whole book/series.
I think most of that work happens in the edits. At least, it does for me. As I write the first draft, I’m learning about my characters. As I work on edits, I see places in the first draft where I didn’t understand them quite yet and can make adjustments.
Okay. Thank you!