Tips for Writers by Redone
FeatureSummary:

We have all seen those stories that get no comments and those stories that regularly get a handful of comments per chapter. This series will focus on providing tips on how to be one of the latter, not the former!

reading

Newest Segment: Developing Minor and Supporting Characters


Categories: Admin Only Characters: None
General Warnings: None
Trigger Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 34 Completed: No Word count: 26875 Read: 105265 Published: Jan 19, 2015 Updated: Sep 11, 2017
Points to Ponder in Developing Any Character by Redone

 

Having gone over the OG/lead female and Michael and done an overview of supporting characters, I'll now present some questions for writers to ponder in creating their cast of characters. As I've said, each character should have a purpose, whether it be to challenge the OG/Michael or to add realism to a scene.


With those warnings in mind, I present first, a question to ask each supporting character:

 

What is your relationship to the main character(s)?


What is your favorite thing about each main character?

 

How are you similar to the main character(s)?

 

How are you different from them?

 

These questions should give you a basic understanding of each supporting character. Note that in some circumstances, the character may be ambivalent because he is just a skateboarder passing buy or another person in the grocery store.

 


 

Now that the basics are out of the way, I'll list some very vague, but purposeful character roles. Keep in mind that one character may have more than one role and that not all roles need to be filled.

 

Character Roles (Fill in the blank)

 

_______1________ overcomes a challenge.

_______2________ gives up.

_______3________ supports 1 in overcoming the challenge.

_______4________ gets in the way/discourages 1.

_______5________ prompts a character/main character to consider a decision/action.

_______6________ encourages the character to reconsider that decision/action.

_______7________ is overly controlled or always on top of things.

_______8________ always seems to be overrun by life.

_______9________ is driven by temptation and/or emotions

_______10_______ is driven by logic and/or his/her conscience

_______11_______ has faith in the main character(s)

_______12_______ doubts the main character(s)

_______13_______ is optimistic

_______14_______ is pessimistic

 

Now, each of these can play out differently depending on the personality of the character you have filling the role(s). For instance, a character who is introverted, might be overly controlled in his/her own behaviors, whereas an extroverted character might attempt to exert control over others.

End Notes:

 

I apologize for the gap. Between other things on the site and the insanity that is my life off the site, I've been pressed for time. That being said, I'm eager to hear your responses to this segment. Do you feel as though your characters address these categories, or is there one you may omit? Is there a category that I omitted?

I'm also in need of ideas from you guys:

 

What would you like me to address that I haven't already?

 

peace

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