Let’s face it—many side characters are boring, two-dimensional, and frankly, annoying. They are often written simply as tools to help nudge a story along or burn time. Worst of all, the good ones are often killed by writers just when the readers were starting to care.
Think of your side characters as your story’s supporting cast. Their actions and reactions help highlight your protagonist’s personality, motivations, and character arc.
Here’s something to remember: You (my dear blog post reader) are a side character in someone’s life. Yet you would agree, I’m sure, that you are still very important and interesting and have a life of your own apart from other people. This is key.
And also remember—think of the “side characters” in your own life who matter a lot to you. Teachers, parents, friends, pets. Even think of the familiar faces like your friendly (or unfriendly) baristas, checkout clerks, or even that one weird guy who plays noisy music across the street (true story).
So, here are ten tips to follow as you are creating side characters.
1. Develop a character profile for each side character.
Yes, spend almost as much time on them as on the protagonists. Know their backstory, their traumas, their hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Give them their own life apart from where their story intersects with the protagonist. And please, give them happy endings, if at all possible.
2. Get inspiration from real life.
Draw from the people around you and use details from these real people to develop your side characters. You can draw from influencers or celebrities, family members, customer service agents, and all kinds of people from your own life. This technique will help ground your characters in reality.
3. Make side characters cool.
In their own unique way, side characters should have their own clout apart from the main character. For bonus points, tie their cool ability into the story. For example, voice imitation skills can come in handy to impersonate another character, or niche knowledge about gemstones can come in handy to identify a stolen artifact.
4. Give side characters mystery.
Hide some elements of their backstory or motivations at the beginning of the story and reveal them slowly. For example, readers will be shocked to find out later that the person they assumed was comic relief actually is the villain’s brother.
5. Base their personality on something unique.
For example, sometimes you can base two characters on colors—red versus green. What is Red’s personality versus Green’s? Hyper and quick-tempered versus calm and zen. Sometimes you can base personalities on inanimate objects—like teapots, clocks, and candelabras, a la Beauty and the Beast.
6. Give them character arcs.
Side characters need to grow and change, just like the main character. They need to fail and succeed. Readers get to see them at their best and worst. This helps readers care about them as well.
7. Give side characters limited but tantalizing screen time.
Readers usually want to hurry back to the protagonist’s POV. Therefore, keep your side character’s time short but juicy. Maybe you can sneakily hint that the side character is plotting against the main character or hiding some other dark secret.
8. Assume side characters could have their own book.
Even if the side characters seem to serve only a short, simple purpose in the story, such as being a mentor, develop them enough and give them enough personality to have their own spin off series. Comic book series almost always do this.
9. Showcase side characters’ connection to the main character.
Do they develop a friendship? Inspire each other? Grudgingly admire each other? Enemies to lovers is inspiring for a reason. It is an amazing process of beginning to understand another person. The same is true of side characters. Show their relationship with the main character and how it changes throughout the story. Do they go from distrust to charging into battle together? Is their close friendship challenged by prejudices, such as finding out that one of them is an enemy group (fairies versus humans; werewolves versus vampires, etc.)?
10. Like your side characters.
Yes, you the author need to give as much detailed attention to them as to the main character. Make them interesting, unique, weird, funny, cool, intimidating, gorgeous, or whatever you want. Just make sure you like them at the end of the day. Don’t let them outshine the main character. However, remember that many side characters become just as beloved by readers as the main character.
And there you have it—ten tips to develop strong side characters. But I want to hear from you, my dreamers and writers—what are your favorite side characters, and what makes them so good? Comment below!
Sending love,
Anastasia xoxo