Naomi Rey
New Member
Which brings me back to these secondary characters. How much character development do I do here? The easy answer is, less than for MCs, but that's not really much help. Moreover, there's an aspect to secondary characters not found in MCs; namely, the relationship to the MC. Why did this secondary join up with the MC? Also, secondary characters are a way to add shading or contrast to the MC. Depth. Someone to argue with or agree with or sacrifice for.
As I work on the SCs for each of my MCs, I am finding the process keeps me looking back at plot but also at theme. I don't think it's necessary, or even wise, to try to map out every place where an SC steps onto the stage, what he does while there, and so on. But likewise not to look at it at all risks having an SC who is a cardboard cutout who merely serves a plot point but is otherwise flat. The story deserves better than that.
Often said is the idea that every C must have a motive. "Write it down at the bottom corner of the page," they say. It's that important. Now, I have never gotten anything out of writing it in the margins. However, I do think that motivation is important for the SC as well as the MC.
The SC connects to your Mc, sure. But they also connect to your reader, your plot, and your overall message or theme. For example when X happens at the climax, how will that effect the MC? But also, the reader may remember that the SC(s) will also lose something or be changed by the plot. For example, your MC has a younger sister who is on the verge of getting married. Your MC's story might be a criminal thriller, but does the MC miss the wedding? That shows an aspect of your MC, putting work/crime before family. It also costs the MC something, relationship with the sister and the associated family members who also feel insulted by missing the wedding. Just an example.
How does the SC connect to the overall plot? Do we see the wedding (same event for an example) as being ruined by the bitterness of the coming zombie apocalypse? Here, the SC does not show us the connection to the MC, but the connection to the overall picture. What normalcy humanity will lose with the advent of the coming disaster.
Having a SC who is on a journey or pursuing a desire if important to the story for many reasons. Even if you only touch on that journey in a throw away line here and there, it still serves to connect human-ness to the story. At the same time, don't add a SC just to augment the MC. Use the SC to add depth to the overall work. That keeps your SC, and your story as a whole, from the flat and narrow.