How to Improve Your Secondary Characters: 6 Fresh Ideas
Secondary characters make your stories stronger. You can have a fully developed protagonist, a vivid world, and a great series of plot twists, but it will all fall flat if your secondary characters are starkly underdeveloped.
There are a few ways you can improve those characters, even if you've already completed your story or novel.
Figure Out Their Life Story
turn your protagonist into a supporting character, map out your secondary character's life as if they're your next protagonist
Give Them Unique Characteristics
what are their hobbies? what is their physicality when they're nervous? are they obsessed with something? do they have a quirk, like talking in their sleep? Even if these details don't all make it into your story, just a few will make that character feel more real to you and your readers.
Assign Each Character a Purpose
Your secondary character will support the protagonist, but why else are they there? The best characters often fit into a particular story because they represent a secondary theme. Their purpose is to deepen your story or carry a theme as a B Plot to your main plot.
Make Your Character Unpredictable
People are never just one thing. Your characters shouldn't be either. The supportive best friend to the protagonist is boring if they don't do anything but make jokes and offer a word of advice occasionally. What happens to your plot if they purposefully make a bad decision? What if they can't fix a terrible mistake?
No one is perfect, just like no one is ever one thing. If your secondary characters never have flaws, they'll be unrealistic and take the reader out of the experience. Maybe they have a temper, they can't keep a secret, or they have a bad habit like self destructing serious relationships.
If you're writing long-form content like a series of short stories set in the same world or a novel, will your secondary character return? Deciding this will guide how you invest your time and energy into developing each character. Sometimes it's okay to forget characters. It's very likely that you don't remember every person who ever appeared in The Hunger Games books, but you do remember the ones who had the most influence on Katniss or the plot.
I know I have to remind myself to spend time with my secondary characters just like I spend with my protagonists. They make or break a novel or short story, so trying these ideas or any others that inspire you will be a worthy investment of your time.
