Developing Your Cast of Characters

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

We tend to talk a lot about our main character – their goals, their flaws, their struggles, and above all, their arc of change – the way they grow and develop as a result of what happens in the plot.  

But unless they live alone on a desert island, they will be surrounded by other people. One of the most crucial things we need to do in a novel is to figure out our supporting cast. These can include: 

• Important relationships from their past – parents, siblings, and other family members 

• Teachers 

• Friends 

• Enemies 

• Ex-lovers...  

These people may or may not make an actual appearance in the current story, but we are all to some extent a product of our formative relationships. They form our fundamental attitudes about people, and influence how we relate to others.

Think about any significant relationships your main character has had, and how they influence the current story situation, and the character’s relationships in the story. You may want to write a few scenes from the character’s past, focusing on pivotal moments in their understanding of how relationships work. 

Who are the main supporting characters? What are their roles in the story? What are their goals? The strongest ones have their own goals. Sometimes they support the main character’s goals, sometimes they work against them. It’s all too easy to make them puppets in service of the plot. When you deeply understand their role in relationship to the protagonist, you can find ways to develop the main supporting characters’ own arcs of change in the story.  

Remember too, that there may be major supporting characters who are antagonists as well as those who are friends or supporters of the protagonist. Some may be more complex than just “henchmen.” They may waver in their support of The Big Bad, or they may have their own backstory that influences their behavior. 

What about multiple point of view characters, or ensemble stories?  

In those cases, it’s even more important to know your supporting cast well. With multiple points of view, each POV character needs to be fully fleshed out.  

What is their background? Their hopes? Fears? Flaws?  

Remember that you need to answer these in the context of the story. You don’t need to know everything – but you do need to know how these relate to the overall story goal. Even if there is one story goal (solving the mystery, attaining the prize) each POV character will also have their own goal within the story.  

The fact is, human beings vie with each other all the time, in all kinds of ways. Even with friends and family members, we may have rivalries and jealousies. Or a POV character may want better relationships with the other characters – or one in particular. These relationships may become important subplots. If everyone gets along perfectly all the time, it may kill an important source of tension in the story. These relationships can be romantic, sneakily antagonistic... but they must be present in some form.  

In ensemble stories, there may be one (or more) main characters, but not everyone in the ensemble will have the same level of presence. A classic example is in The Lord of the Rings, where Frodo, as the Ringbearer, is clearly a main character, as is Aragorn, the would-be king. Other characters have supporting roles. Sam is a main supporter, and Gollum/Smeagol is one of those complicated antagonists I mentioned. Boromir is a complicated supporter. Other characters have their places in the ensemble – they have skills useful to complete the quest – but they are not as fully fledged as the main characters.  

Of course, there may be many minor characters in your novel that only appear for a scene (or less) and don’t have major goals of their own. Even, in some rare cases, there are minor POV characters, who show up for a specific purpose than cannot be filled by any of the other POV characters. Use these sparingly, as they can be confusing for readers. Generally, if we see the story through a character’s point of view, we expect them to have a significant arc in the story.    

Many times we don’t know exactly how to make the most of our supporting cast until we hit the revision stage. Once we read through the whole story, we can see: 

• Places where two or more characters can be combined for greater effect 

• Characters that need to be cut 

• Characters that need to be augmented 

• Characters that need to be added 

• Places where a character’s arc or relationship to another character needs to be beefed up 

• And so on... 

In other words, don’t panic at the first draft stage if your characters aren’t fully developed – or if you have too many or too few. The first draft is usually where you come up with your supporting cast as the story develops. Your focus is on the main character and their arc, which is as it should be.  

In revision, you can give more attention to the supporting characters. Developed well, they can make your whole story richer, deeper, and more meaningful.  

Next time, I’ll talk about Supporting Archetypes. Understanding these will help you develop supporting characters that really resonate with readers. 

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