Supporting characters have a way of stealing scenes (and sometimes entire stories) from your main protagonist, but despite that possibility, writers should breath life into their background characters. In a post on Writer Unboxed, Kathryn Craft suggests ways your sidekicks can support your hero while having character arcs of their own.
“Our cast of major secondary characters should be there to pressure your protagonist into their arc of change,” Craft writes. “Yet the anxiety-ridden friend, the nosy neighbor, the judgmental mother, and the love interest should be more than props intended to trip up your protagonist. If you haven’t developed these characters with backstories and goals of their own, how will you know how they’ll act?”
Secondary characters need agency if they want to maintain a relationship with the protagonist, who is experiencing change through your novel. “They’ll have to renegotiate their role, and their feelings about that will be based on influences from their own story,” Craft explains. “If they can’t accommodate the main character’s change, the loss should come at a high cost.”
Your supporting characters should star in their own stories, even if you don’t act them out fully on the page. Craft suggests journaling through their POV. Consider their history, but also what drew them to your protagonist. As your hero experiences crises and change, you’ll have more insight into the choices facing your secondary characters, as well as their actions and reactions.
