Fall in LOVE With Your Side Characters - Tips for Writing an Unforgettable Cast of Characters
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2023
- Are you struggling to make your side characters three-dimensional, relatable, and compelling? What if you could give them internal conflict that deepens their character and enriches the plot, even if they don't have a POV? In this episode Abbie and I share tips and tricks for writing side characters with internal conflict. We discuss how internal conflict can drive a story forward and make side characters more layered, and offer practical advice for creating meaningful internal conflict. Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting out, this episode will help you take your side characters to the next level and make your story unforgettable.
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Favorite, most lovable side character of ALL TIME (& yes, it can be one of your own!)... GO! ✨
Pippin in Lord of the Rings
My favourite side characters are: Donkey from Shrek, Dimitri from Anastasia, Weston from 100 days of sunlight, Ron Weasley, Hermione from Harry Potter, Westley from The Princess Bride and last but not least, my own character Elizabeth Carpenter from my first novel (that I'm currently editing), called Soaring with The Wind. The main character is a horse, named Diamond Heart🐴, who is sold from owner to owner and is abused a lot in different equestrian sports, until a kind horse trainer rescues her, but can't train her, because she doesn't trust humans anymore and everybody thinks she is dangerous and suggests she should be put down if there's no progress at all with the training within a month. So the trainer's daughter, Elizabeth tries to train the horse in secret, despite her parents telling her to stay away from the horse. This way Diamond Heart has to learn to trust again and Elizabeth has to learn to read the horse's body language, in order to help her and understand her. 🙂
Dresden Files . . . Lt. Murphy.
Hallow Series . . . Jenks
Roman Holiday . . . The three sisters.
In general, I've noticed a good side character is someone who adds to the story and you generally invest emotionally with.
Not, as strongly as the main characters, but they're more than just someone who the main charactors "interacts" with for the sake of plot. You feel as if they are three-dimensional and have their own life.
Not, just a cookie-cutter generic best friend who agrees with the main character and provides no personal insight or opinions.
tom bombadil!
Bean in Ender's Game is one of my favorites!
Character tips to show internal conflict for side characters even though they don’t have a point of view: Use a character’s behavior to show aspects of their internal conflict. Establish from the beginning what is normal for them and then when they are struggling with something or if something is off, show this through their behavior. For example if they are a funny character, they stop telling jokes or stop appearing to comedy events with friends. That character may say something heavy and unusual for them to make another wonder: woah what’s going on in their head right now? Create what is normal for a specific character with whatever unique traits that when one sees the differences in behavior that your main character will be observing, they will be noticing something is different and so will the reader.
This parameter setting for the character in question could even be the main character referencing or reflecting in a line or two to how their behavior is usually like in the past, like a short flashback, contrasting their unusual behavior in the present. If it’s a character the protagonist just met and doesn’t know their parameters or “normal behavior” yet, maybe it could be a mutual friend of theirs or another person who knows them to say “hey this person is acting weird or abnormally.” Nuances in their conversation can be simple ways to show their internal conflict. Maybe saying something as if they’re talking to someone else but inadvertently they are telling a piece of their own story by talking about another person could be another good way to show where their head is at. It’s a form of projection to show what they’re actually thinking, and they may not even know consciously what they’re doing. They may not explicitly say, “hey I feel this way about x y z…” but they might be projecting that belief onto a story they are telling about another person. REMEMBER: A misbelief is behavior that’s happening below the surface and misbehavior is what’s happening on the surface. It’s like when something is swimming beneath the surface of water and all you can see is the ripples but you don’t know what’s under the surface. All your main character can see are the ripples, which illustrate and point to what’s underneath the surface.
Looking at the personality of the character (like MBTI and enneagram) how would they express fear, frustration, disappointment, happiness, sadness, whatever emotion that they’re feeling, how would they express it, what would be their go-to form of venting it? Some may be aggressive and angry, some may withdraw and pull back, others may not want to talk about it, bottle up their anger, burying resentment and it comes out in self-loathing…etc. A mark of good writing is when each character feels well developed that they become a little bit predictable and the reader can gauge how they’d respond or react to things. Sometimes you may write a line that a character says and then you stop and be like “hmm, they would never say that” and then you’d delete it. That’s actually a great sign that you’re really tapped into what that character would say. When you know what does and doesn’t “sound” like a character, you are on the right path. Amateur writing is when every character reacts the same way, sound the same, or they all have really explosive reactions, when in reality everyone is different. Your character shouldn’t be very unpredictable as in switching personalities across pages but they should have defined absolutes to their personality; they have certain things they always do and they have certain things they never do. How they react to emotions can be another way to show their internal conflict when you’re not in their head because you’re seeing how they behave (maybe they’re bottling up their anger or hiding their sadness or heartbreak about something).
Most people don’t always fully process all of their emotions so don’t have a character that always just flat out say how they’re feeling like a certified psychologist. Most people don’t even know why they are doing the things they do. They may have just went through a breakup and their outlet is aggressively helping others and doing things for other people to keep their mind off their struggle. And other characters may go “why are you acting this way” or “something’s off.” Nobody is able to self-analyze very quickly what they are feeling. Maybe the main character has better insight into the side character’s conflict than the side character into their own conflict because as an outsider observer we can see more of the big picture. Maybe the goals of the side character can cross paths with the protagonist’s. Maybe what the side character is going after is the same as what the protagonist is going after and now there’s an even greater depth to their internal conflict.
Step into a side character’s conflict as if its someone that you know. Create this person in your head and their personality and how they would express themselves and if you can reference that person and think of them like a person like “ok what would they do” or “how would they react to a certain confrontation with a person” then they become more real. Think of them in terms of a real life person that you know. It could be the protagonist’s best friend and you could reference a best friend in real life. You should make a profile in your mind like “this is their temperament and their personality and this is how they’d react whether they’d lash out or withdraw or not know what to do,” reference that in your mind. How does the side character’s subplots intersect and interweave with the main character’s plot? It could be that the subplot is updated every few chapters instead of every chapter. What the side character is going through is the subplot. That person’s over there doing that thing and this person’s over here doing this thing and their actions and interactions create the story. Story is not about what happens but it’s about why what’s happening is mattering to the characters. How is what’s happening to the side characters mattering to the main character? How are those two points of conflict meeting. It’s not just something happening to the side character but that thing that’s happening to them now matters to the protagonist because it’s coming into their life and creating new sources of conflict.
This is great, and you made it fun and logical!
I love this thank you
Could you break this up into paragraphs?
Hi Kate, I was wondering how you advertise your books without much social media. As a kid I always wrote silly little stories that would end up with like three chapters then left to rot. Now that I'm older, I'm much more serious. And I think with a lot of work my story could be possibly self published. I'm a teen and I'm willing to get social media to advertise my writing and help others(it's never too early to start) I just hesitant with social media. The only social media I have is TH-cam (I don't post) and a reptile Instagram page witch I share with my friends. I'm in my first draft of my story but I'm really serious and loving it. Any advice is helpful, thank you for all you do and best wishes to our writing community ❤❤❤❤❤.
YAYYYYYYYY! Thank you, both~ This came at the perfect time.
How about flipping the script? Have the POV character change and they can't see/be aware of that change directly, but can see how the side character is responding to that change?
Oo that's a cool idea! I needed this, bc I often don't have a lot of patience for developing side characters, being so focused on the protagonist, antagonist, and protagonist's interesting person (or not, lol) and just writing what happens with them. There may be stories that don't require side characters, right? I guess the mc can bounce off of them, or grow in how she responds to their jealous hostility. I can see how it would enrich the story to include some effort at understanding whatever is going on in the antagonists' heads, not just how the mc is suffering and thinking as they mysteriously throw random obstacles at the mc they consider to be in their way.
Finally 😭😭 I'm working on my side character for my novel😭😍❤️🥰 thnk u
congrats on your progress, friend!! 🙌
@@KAEmmons Thank You Abbie and Kate for sharing your knowledge with us😭🥰
One of the biggest things I learn as I get older is people aren't very rational. Some people are super predictable and some people are so incredibly frustrating because of hypocrisy or inconsistency or mental health. Having a range of characters that vary are really good juxtapositions and shows how certain groups flock together over time. A very undisciplined free-spirit is probably going to slowly have conflict with a militantly trained group no matter how good friends they are and those things can add great tension without having to contribute a larger effort into the story.
My favorite side characters are Albert and Nellie from Little House on the Prairie, Mitch Henessey from The Long Kiss Goodnight, Basically all of the contestants especially Ms Crawly 🤣😂from Sing.
Insightful! Thank you Kate and Abbie 🎉
I'm so excited for this one!!😄
Your videos are wonderful, I love your meditations so I looked through your other videos and I really enjoy your channel.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for showing these exemplars for making side characters relatable, and compelling. Till now I did not pay too much attention to the emotional innards of the side people but thanks to you ( Sisters/best friends) i genuinely have a new and enhanced perspective of building side characters, As always you'll rock, 🎸👍🙏
13:31 there’s this game Worst Case Scenario. You learn a lot about people playing it. It would be a fun exercise to have your characters play it (in a sequence that obviously isn’t in the story) just to help figure out how each of them think.
Hi Kate and Abbie! You guys are the best! Wondering if you guys have any advice (or if anyone could recommend some good resource material) on knowing if you've got a good, well rounded plot? Perhaps it's my imposter syndrome, but I struggle a lot with wondering if my story idea is good enough, satisfying enough, and well rounded. I struggle to know from the beginning of plotting if I'm creating a story that's complex enough to hit all those story beats plus have B-plots, and whether or not those beats feel satisfyingly "hit" to readers when I reach them in my writing. Thanks!
Edit: to clarify; I often don't have problems plotting out my story idea and making sure I have a good juicy scene guide that moves through the three acts before I start writing. My problem is, how do I know it's good enough that readers will actually care about the story I'm telling? When it reaches the pinch point, climax, etc will they feel like I've hit those points well enough or did everything come to easy for the characters? 😄
Try telling your plot out loud to a few people who care about that kind of story.
You should be able to quickly tell if your premise and basic outline intrigue and excite them or not.
But while I am more a plot person than a character writer, I think this is primarily an issue where characterization is Key.
Readers might not care about the best plot in the world if they don't care about your characters.
It's not so much what is happening, it is how your characters feel about it that keeps your readers involved and emotionally connected.
How about a main character who is overly trying to divert these people in the right direction and they over do it and it's way to much. Like a flaw of the main character where they get to involved and their trying to hard to guide them in the right direction in the wrong way and in a more pushy and forceful way.
and it's not working and causing conflict with who they are trying to help. They're solving the problems for them and trying to make them do it and not accepting their friends freedom to choose and their character development is they eventually respect them enough to let them make their own choices and finally respecting their boundaries. And letting go of their overbearing nature.
Hey - great thing you got going own there. I’ve listened to you for quite some time now (mostly the podcast version) and i thought it would be great if you could sometimes Also read bits of scenes that show case you discussions.
Interesting discussion. My own wounds and flaws make it hard to empathise with my characters. Thinking "Pull yourself together" doesn't help me at all. Sigh.
Yesssssss
R2D2...Jamie from the RRX and....Abbie from the Kate and Abbie show. Lol!
Basically speaking this episode talks mainly about character development specifics on personality, backstory, and the norms which come from society at large. Am I right about this?
Randy from Scream...Doc from Young Guns...the sister from Last of the Mohicans...
*JRX. Joe Rogan..
Has anyone else had a jump-scare moment at 26:22? 🪳 😮