#useless characters

[toonstarterz]

I honestly don't mind "useless" characters.

Being useless in-universe doesn't equate to being useless for the narrative. Sometimes you need a complete disaster to explore specific themes or drive the story in a particular direction.

That's what makes a good supporting character.

[fantasy-muffin-author]

Tips to Making sure your Characters aren’t Useless/Helpless-Authoring Advice😫

Obviously, if your book is a character driven story then not all of your characters are helpless. But there may be one or two characters that seem to always need help, or don’t give anything to the plot. 

The clear answer is to get rid of them entirely but if you really love this character I may have a few tips to get this bum to the top.

Give them Brains:

Giving your weak character smarts is an easy way to make them more valuable. 

This may seem cliche, but it works. How many characters can you think of are physically unable to do anything athletic but have the brains to match muscle? I can name of five right now. 

Powers:

I’m looking at you fantasy and science fiction writers. Giving a character a power as simple as night vision can drastically change their helpfulness.

Most stories start out with a person getting powers and they are usually the main character but side character in the middle of the series can also get a power boost. Think about it.

Give them Brawn:

If they can’t use their brains to support, then muscle is the next thing. Fights, life and death situations, general uses for strength occur in books all the time. It may be useful to have a big strong guy or girl to give their service.

Personality:

Personality might not make them more useful but it makes it a lot more fun to read. Readers who are in love with a character will defend them to their death. If your character can not participate in a fight, the reader may not like it but they won’t be wondering why they are in the book in the first place.

Kindness:

A helpless jerk who does nothing to forward the plot. WOW. Sounds like a character I would want to read about...NOT.

Kindness can go a long way. Not only making a person more likable but can lead to situations that can actually assist the plot or subplots.

If the Author is at Fault:

If you are the reason why your character seems useless...then that's a problem. Maybe it's your writing that needs work, or you didn’t labour enough on your creation of your character.

Sit down and think. Ask yourself if you really need this character. Will my book be the same without them? Are they absolutely necessary? Can I give their small part to another character?

Perhaps the best way to make it work is to combine characters. Do you really like one characters personality but really need another character for their role? Then smash them together. Shape the story to the best edited and useless character free book it could be.

That all I got! Thank you for reading, and have a FANTASTIC day! Have fun authoring!😉

[theneverlandpiratewitch]

I’m a motherfuckin’ ✨Star Boy✨

[heywriters]

Okay so my story is in under major reconstruction. I’ve completely changed it. In the original, there were a lot of characters that were important to the story. Now in the new version, they aren’t important at all and are basically useless and only there for family matters. Should I just... delete the characters from existence? Or leave them on standby? Thank you

Family is very important in my story so that’s why I’m having a hard time deciding on what to do. Thanks!

“Family is important” can be conveyed with just two characters, you do not need a big family to prove that. If the characters are not adding to the story, my advice is always to remove them. One or seven less characters for readers to get confused! If it’s important that the family be big, then namedrop the characters, but never actually introduce them (we all have family we “know” but don’t know).

Hope this late reply helps!

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[theneverlandpiratewitch]

An incubus who happens to be a sexual education teacher!!

[theneverlandpiratewitch]

Wicket might wear sweaters from now on. ♡

[theneverlandpiratewitch]

Some redesigns of older characters! My pretty women ♡♡

[theneverlandpiratewitch]

Who are the new 'babies' and Sarah?

Well, I was calling Ellen on discord and chatting about the snake that attacked me and I kept screaming about all the butterflies around me

So, we created two characters; Stephen and Sebastian

Stephen is mine

He is a gay Bush Viper snake.. man- Who is a lawyer, loves flowers, and can salsa dance. He wears mostly rose gold

Ellen owns Sebastian and hes a butterfly , and they're married :D

Sarah is their adopted daughter who is a spider and we love her

Pretty cute shit