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Developing Supporting Characters
So, I’m starting my second novel and developing the supporting characters. I’m also about to take my third Linnea Sinclair month-long class, which will be on secondary characters. So excited! I highly recommend signing up now for it. It’s only $30.00. She is an AMAZING teacher (and writer). So, I will have a lot more insights into this at the end of this month (but you have to take her class for those). But for now, here’s where I’m starting from.
Only dolls would volunteer to be photographed for a “supporting characters” picture–which leads to some other advice I’ve heard: everyone thinks they’re the MC. Use Supporting Characters to Create Conflict and Add Dimension
The best analysis I’ve seen so far on developing your supporting characters is Billy Mernit’s analysis of the TOOTSIE characters in his book, Writing the Romantic Comedy. And if you are writing a romantic comedy or love watching romantic comedies, I HIGHLY recommend reading his book. He has an amazing pictorial representation of the characters.
“[T]he supporting characters are all in some way reflections of Michael [Michael is the name of the character who becomes Tootsie] and thus force him to confront his issues.”
Writing the Romantic Comedy, by Billy Mernit (2000) at p. 76.So, as an example, in my current WIP, if my protagonist is going to be emotionally reserved, then another character has to be very emotional. Supporting characters should conflict and bring out different traits in the MC. Here’s an initial circle representation, based on Mernit’s picture for Tootsie.
Good luck reading my handwriting! Even I can’t read it sometimes 🙂 But you should get the idea. (To be honest, I keep going back and forth on whether she will be emotionally reserved. Emotional might be more fun.) In my first not-yet-published novel, Partner Pursuit, Audrey is a workaholic, while Jake, the love interest, is trying to live life to the fullest.
Add a Friend
Unless the person is a lonely introvert, then I suggest adding a friend. I always wonder about characters who don’t seem to have any friends. Also, this gives your protagonist someone to confide in. And then the buddy can give advice. As Billy Mernit says, “Buddies move the story forward.” (at p. 68). For example, in OVERBOARD (2018), it is Eva Longoria, the best friend, who suggests to Anna Faris that she should pretend she is his wife and he can work to pay off what he owes her.
Assign “Tags” to Supporting Characters
If you have a lot of supporting characters, and I’m reading late at night, tired, I might get lost and confuse them unless you give them a “tag” or dominant impression so that I remember who this character is. Here’s what writing guru Dwight Swain advises:
“A tag is a label. You hang tags on story people so that your reader can tell one character from another. An impression, dominant or otherwise, is created by the tags a character bears.”
Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight V. Swain, at p. 226.This is something I also need to improve in my writing.
Let’s Talk
Who are some of your favorite supporting characters? Why? What advice do you give about supporting characters?
And let’s talk about the topic on everyone’s minds: I am trying to stock up for the coronavirus, but it’s practically impossible. The food seems to be eaten as soon as it comes in. It’s like the opposite of doing laundry–I empty the hamper and do the laundry and yet, it’s full again of dirty clothes. Here, I load up the refrigerator and the cabinets, and yet they’re empty. The only thing I can safely say is that we seem to have enough toilet paper. Hurray for that.
Wishing everyone a great weekend. Keep washing your hands.
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Three Lessons from The Writing Life
In the Algonkian novel writing course, which I highly recommend, we had to write book reports and list lessons from each craft book we read, so here are my three lessons from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard:
- Keep a Journal
- Put your Good Stuff in Now
- Writing is Hard.
I found compelling her advice to put your good stuff in now. And look how she writes it!
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
The Writing Life by Annie DillardBut I will note that if my good stuff doesn’t work in my current manuscript and I have to cut that scene, then I am saving it with the hope that maybe it will fit another manuscript better. And hoping that it doesn’t turn to ashes.
Kind of similar to giving a cat a bath The book also helped me as a writer because it showed me how intense writing can be. I read this in the beginning of the Algonkian novel writing course and then returned it to the library, but what I recall most vividly is her description of flying in the plane with the stunt pilot (and her description of her writing room without any comforts). Her writing is brilliant, but she was also a bit intimidating about the writing process. I actually really enjoy writing.
Why Three Lessons from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard?
I like limiting it to three lessons because I find that more manageable, although of course, so many lessons and tips can be learned from each craft book. I also think that different lessons will occur upon re-reading a craft book.
So, as I read writing craft books, I hope to continue this practice of identifying three lessons learned.
Thoughts on the Algonkian Novel Writing Course
As far as the Algonkian novel writing course, I highly highly recommend it, although it is only if you are highly self-motivated to complete it by yourself because it is intense, but there’s no feedback until the end. I learned so much, though, and found the lessons invaluable. Also, for me, it was great that I could complete it at my own pace.
Questions?
Have you read The Writing Life? What were your three lessons? What are your thoughts on keeping a journal? If you are a writer, do you sometimes save your good stuff or do you try to use it all in the current WIP?
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Join Me on My Writing Journey
I’m embarking on my writing journey and I hope you’ll join me! I first started writing a romantic comedy many years ago; I saw such a bad one that I thought, I can write a better one than this.
Starting My Writing Journey
I started taking online writing classes (I’m a mom and I was working as a lawyer), so online was my best option. I enrolled in The Writer’s Academy Constructing a Novel, and it was so much fun. I loved writing, and I enjoyed talking about writing with other writers in the course. My writing tutor in The Writer’s Academy wrote that my scene was “sparky” and I was on Cloud Nine. An acquaintance saw me that day and said I was glowing as if I was in love.
Indeed I had found a new love: writing. Writing a really good scene makes me so happy. But I didn’t have the courage to leave my job (and source of income yet). So I tried writing part-time, but eventually I realized that I just couldn’t do it part-time. (Unfortunately, I’m someone who needs sleep too.) So I quit my job. And here I am.
Learning Writing Craft
I love attending writer’s conferences and taking writing craft courses. I can’t believe that I get to choose from course selections of “Sensual Love Scenes without Stuffing the Turkey” from Alison May and Liam Livings at the RNA Leeds Conference or “Character Torture” by Linnea Sinclair. (I highly recommend taking any courses offered by those authors.) Compare that to “Recent Developments in Securities Fraud Cases,” “GDPR Enforcement,” and “Cyber-Security and Privacy” (course selections at my lawyers’ conferences). You can see there’s a huge difference.
Which pile would you prefer to read? Not that I don’t miss practicing law at times.
Rejections and Encouragement
Because similar to my dating life when I was single, there have been quite a few rejections. But I am still plugging away, trying to improve my craft and making friends with other writers. I eventually found a great guy to marry after many dating disasters, so there’s hope! And I placed Third in the Los Angeles Orange Rose Contest for Women’s Fiction with Romance as a Central Element! They wrote that “You will be published.” (By whom? It’s like a tarot card reader who just hints at good news: “You will meet the man of your dreams. You will come into a fortune.”)
Woohoo! Join me!
So, join me on my journey! Have you changed careers? (Are you a recovering lawyer?) What do you like to read? Do you write? How did you begin your writer’s journey?