Where Did All These People Come From?
No matter what you write, you’re likely to run into this situation: Two important characters are deep in discussion over how the most recent plot point impacts their next needed action when, unexpectedly, a knock sounds at their door. They look up at you, their creator, and ask, “Who is that?”
The only honest answer is, “I don’t know. Let’s go find out.” And so arrives the gift of a new character. This means deep-level writer-you has heard the need for a new, disruptive voice.
What creates these new characters? The short answer: your subconscious. The self-generating new players mean that the story has found it’s self-awareness. Your subconscious now knows what it wants the story to become. Don’t try to fight your subconscious on these matters. If you do, your characters, the story itself, will go on strike, refusing to do anything.
All your main characters, all your secondary characters arrive secreted inside the protagonist like a an ornate set of Russian dolls.
The process of writing secondary characters is complicated. In The Anatomy of Story, John Truby defines a character as “a need and a weakness.” Your story is the journey leading to one final confrontation and learning if the need can be realized given the main character’s weaknesses. Does the hero pull their strength together or totally lose their grip or sacrifice their need for the sake of another? When readers speak of wanting to experience change, this is the change they want, win or lose. They want to learn what the character learns—not in the writer’s words, but in the choices the character makes and why.
That overarching narrative momentum toward change resides in your protagonist. Call her “the main character” or call him “the hero,” the job is always the same: working to either surmount or find a way around their weaknesses in order to fulfill their needs.
The purpose of other main and secondary characters—such as the antagonist (more on this one in the next blog); the best friend; the boss; the love interest; etc.—allows you to create scenes in which you can show—and tell—through dramatization, how your protagonist’s efforts are playing out and if they are working in the face of adversity. Preferably no, they’re not, not for a long time. The ending must be earned.
Why a best friend is like this or a boss is like that, comes from within your protagonist. All your main characters, all your secondary characters arrive secreted inside the protagonist like a an ornate set of Russian dolls. Once you have a clear picture of your protagonist’s needs and weaknesses, the puzzle they are starts unlocking and the characters you require to help or impede that specific protagonist begin to enter. They are personifications of the protagonist’s desires and challenges. You don’t create them as much as wait for them to show up.
Do you use them all? Not unless you are Tolstoy. You use the ones that support and forward the story you are telling. This process, in reverse, is how we combine several characters into one person. You’re steering this bus, and Aunt Edna may be a very interesting character, but she lives many miles away from where you are headed. Save her for the next book. Or combine her with someone else who stands directly in the path of your bus.
The artistry in working with imaginary people comes from understanding these other characters have needs and weaknesses of their own. Their needs and weaknesses collide, clash, confront one another—always in service of the protagonist’s story. They advance the protagonist’s journey—even by throwing in a detour to the resolution of the main character’s wants, needs, and limitations. Secondaries can learn, grow, and change in their own right. That makes them multi-dimensional. The more complex they are, the better, the more they become people.
Successful main and secondary characters move the story forward even when they do nothing but disrupt your protagonist’s (and your) plans. These disruptions are how we continually tighten the tension in the story. These characters are how we constantly raise the stakes and keep the reader’s curiosity alive. Through multi-level interactions, we produce the reality of conflict people deal with everyday. To quote Sartre’s play No Exit: “Hell is other people.”
But so is Heaven.
Writing Exercise
If you have a WIP, new or older, identify your protagonist. Whose story is it? Take some time to describe what you know to be this character’s needs and weaknesses. See if you can match up your secondary characters with what they add or subtract from your protagonist’s story. Bonus Points: Write a scene with your protagonist and a character who is new to you but you see fitting in your story. What does this new character add to our understanding of the protagonist’s journey into change?
Photo by Mario Purisic on Unsplash