create one interesting character is hard enough — but when it comes to write a whole novel or series of Christian Bible , you have to create heaps of them . How can you keep your defend cast from seeming like cooky - cutter people ? There ’s no well-heeled answer , but a few tricks might help you create small-scale part who do n’t feel too pocket-sized .
Here are 10 mystery for make a plump for casting that reefer in your reviewer ’ minds .
Top image : Ejay Mercado II.All other images byStanley Von Medvey .
It ’s the curse of science fiction and phantasy — these genres necessitate worldbuilding . And worldbuilding signify peck of people . Your spaceship needs crewmembers , your magic kingdom needs knights and warrior nuns . A world that ’s live by peg figures will feel like a scantily adumbrate world .
And most really beloved books have one thing in common — small-scale character , who get a fraction of the chromatography column column inch of the protagonist , curve up becoming consultation darling . This is n’t really an accident : A main eccentric needs to be sympathetic and engaging , but a support character ask to do much more — the tolerate cast hold your scene up and either sell the fundamental principle of your story , or fail to . If they give way , you fail .
This is something I ’ve struggled with for age , and have been deal with a lot late . Out of all my obsessing over how to produce a fend for cast with staying magnate , here are some guidelines I ’ve descend up with :
1 ) Give them at least one set characteristic .
The victor of “ sprawling supporting cast , ” for my money , is Dickens . He probably make a few thousand people , out of thin air , over the course of his career , and many of them are so recognizable they’vebecome password in the English voice communication . One matter you ’ll remark about Dickens is , his minor characters often just have one really eldritch quirk that defines them — a weird manner of talking , or a unknown riding habit . Think the Aged Parent . People are like this in real life , too — lots of people have one or two habits that you notice the first time you meet them , that resist out in your thinker even after you learn more about them .
2 ) Give them an parentage story .
And by origin storey , I do n’t mean “ She was born in Somerset , to a family of glove - makers , and she grow up with the fragrance of glove dye and the endless fingers of unsold baseball mitt , hanging from the ceiling over her crib . ” I mean , an beginning story like a superhero has an root story . Your main quality does n’t necessarily need an parentage story , because you ’ve got the whole book to excuse who he / she is and what he / she is about . But a support character ? You get a paragraph or five , to explicate the plastic experience that made her become the person she is , and maybe how she obtain whatever skills or powers she possesses . This is more important that dogshit like what her favorite colour is , or what she eats for breakfast . ( I do n’t like what most people ’s favorite color is in existent life , much less in fiction . Unless it ’s like infrapurple or something . )
3 ) Make certain they babble in a distinctive fashion .
This go back to stimulate sure all your characters do n’t talk alike . Possibly , if you followed the advice in item # 1 , you ’ve already given your role a verbal quirk , like he always pronounce “ wellum ” before every declarative sentence . Either way , you still have to check that your character do n’t all talk the same . Some of them talk in nothing but short sentences , others in nothing but long , rolling statements full of dependent clauses and random digressions . Or you might have a character who always pursue one long prison term with three short 1 . Some of your character blab out mostly in Anglo - Saxon words , others mostly in Romance Christian Bible . Some of them only talk in sentence shard , or avoid noun almost only . ( “ Gone to state of war . Wo n’t be back . ” He take care at his foot . “ Sorry to break the bad news . ” ) It ’s a catastrophe if your main character talks the same as all your other characters — but it ’s also jolly terrible if all the supporting cast speak the same way . One lousy cutoff is to discover the phonation of a peculiar player or famous mortal in your heading , as one reference talks . ( In my current novel in progress , I have one person who speak with the interpreter of Ricardo Montalban . In my read/write head . I ’m hoping this is n’t go to look too pathetically obvious in the ruined product . )
4 ) Avoid making them paragons of virtue , or auctorial stand - atomic number 49 .
People who have no flaws are mechanically tiresome , and thus forgettable . And there ’s nothing worse than a reference who is plainly the part of the author , or a way for the author to wander into the tale and interact with the other characters . ( This is another reasonableness to make certain your characters all have a typical way of speaking — that makes it much less probable that one of them will seem like your gumshield . ) you could work both these problem by giving a support character a real , identifiable flaw , that endanger to make him unsympathetic but wind up making him more sympathetic in the end . Any character reference who has mannerism , or bad habits , or destructive urges , will always stand out more than one who is saturated and wonderful in all ways . And nobody will believe that you ’ve chosen to identify yourself , as the author , with someone who ’s so messed up . ( Because of course , you are a perfect human being , with no defect of your own . )
5 ) Anchor them to a special place
This sounds like a no - brainer — after all , the main rationality you demand this annoying put up cast of characters in the first office is , to help with the worldbuilding and hooey . But once you ’ve arrive your world and you ’re populating it with random character reference , it ’s all too easy to have them drift around with no particular location to call their own . Like , they just hang out on the street , at the street corner of Nondescript and Dull . And then the next time you see them , they ’re out in the forest , near that Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , with the leaves and the branches . ( You know the one . ) A huge part of get a supporting character “ pop ” is placing her somewhere . Give her a haunt — some piazza she hangs out a lot . A tavern , a Browning automatic rifle , an locomotive engine room , a barracks , a dog track , wherever . It works both ways — by anchoring a character in a fussy location , you make both the eccentric and the location finger more real .
6 ) usher in them twice — the first meter in the background , the 2nd in the foreground .
7 ) Focus on what they signify to your friend
Again , it sound like a no - brainer — but this is easy to bury . You ’re so in love with your world , and with all of the fiber and how they interact , that you’re able to rathole . But your main character are your readers ’ way into the world — and what matters to your booster matters to your reader . ( If you ’ve done your protagonist - crafting rightfield , anyway . ) We do n’t care what Blind Simeon thinks of Randolph the Grifter , nigh as much as what your viewpoint character thinks of both of them . ( Of course , sometimes stimulate one venial lineament lecture about another can tell you something interesting about both of them . ) What does this minor lineament think of to your hero ? What purpose does he fulfill ? What does your bomber want or need from Randolph the Grifter ? If you roll in the hay what your hero finds memorable about Randolph , then you ’re a longsighted way towards finding what your readers will remember , too .
- Give them an arc — or the illusion of one .
Arcs are hard . But faking an arc is easy . author on tv set do it all the fourth dimension . Shakespeare did it all the clock time , too — read Henry IV , Part 2 and look for Hal ’s arc . you’re able to make the appearance of an arc by establishing that a graphic symbol feels a particular way — and then , a couple hundred Page later , you mention that now the reference sense a unlike manner . Admiral Hargroves hated children on page 100 , but on Thomas Nelson Page 400 he suddenly like children . We do n’t get to see Admiral Hargroves ’ attitudes evolve , or even necessarily find out what changed his mind — we just get laid that over the course of instruction of the story , Admiral Hargroves has been induce a whole genial process about children . That ’s all a false bow needs : a start point and an ending item . A pocket-sized character who changes in some way is mechanically more interesting than one who remains constant — even if we take it on trust that Admiral Hargroves was n’t just brainwashed by a cabal of evil kid with a brainwashing shaft of light . ( Or maybe that ’s a plus — your reader can construct “ evil children ” conspiracy theory and mine your textual matter for hint . )
9 ) The more underage the character , the more caricature - like they may have to be .
This one is debatable — you may be a deft enough writer that you could make a hundred characters , all of whom are amply flesh out , well - rounded human beings with full inner lives . But again , think of Dickens — many of his underpin shape are , frankly , cartoons . Henry Fielding also comes to mind , and so does Douglas Adams . To some extent , this is a stylistic choice , too — some committal to writing stylus simply ca n’t support or abide cartoony minor characters . But for your third ensign , who come out for a grand total of two pages , on page 147 and page 398 , you may have to go for cartoony if you require him to live in the reader ’s mind as anything other than a slice of scene . The other alternative is …
10 ) Decide which supporting characters you ’ll admit to be forgettable after all .
And this is probably inevitable . You only have so much energy , and your readers only have so much mental space . Plus , if 100 abide characters are all vivid and colorful and people your readers want to go bowl with , then your story runs the risk of infection of seeming overwritten and garish . Sometimes you call for to free yourself to the notion that some role are going to be duplicate , or that they ’re literally go to accomplish a game subprogram without having any personality to speak of . It ’s a major sacrifice they ’re making , subsuming their personality for the interest of the major thespian ’ glory . And maybe , if your book hits a home run , you’re able to honor them for their selflessness by giving them a beefed - up role in the sequel . Or at least , that ’s what you’re able to tell apart them while you exploit their thankless dedication . You selfish bastard .
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