Supporting/secondary characters

I have already devoted a few blog posts to main characters (hereafter known as MCs), more specifically to romance heroes and heroines. But what about supporting or secondary characters? It is my firm belief that supporting characters (hereafter known as SCs) are necessary to any novel plot. Even if SCs aren’t physically present throughout the story due to peculiar circumstances―in Midnight Rainbow, by Linda Howard, the MCs are stranded in the Costa Rican rain forest―they must exist as figures, as relationships that give the MCs’ worlds depth and realness.

But how do you avoid the two opposite extremes of shallow, purely instrumental SCs, and overdeveloped SCs who end up upstaging your MC? I will attempt to answer this by defining MCs and SCs according to points of view, rather than an “objective” relation to the plot or its various twists and turns. My reflection on the topic is based on my experience as a young reader and audience. Up until when I was well into my teens, I remember being almost systematically drawn to SCs more than MCs. The MC was usually supposed to be the bravest, the best-looking, the smartest, the most successful. Yet my preference always went to some SC, who often acted as the jolly, eccentric, faithful friend.

I am not trying to say that, by embodying a certain traditional hero posture, the MC was dull and fake, while the SC was a more original type. The “jolly, eccentric, faithful friend” is just as much a traditional character as the “hero”, and I am really talking about a vast sample of stories (books and movies alike), some of which are considered classics, and aren’t “dull and fake” by any means. My analysis is more closely linked to my own personality: I was drawn to the “friend” SC, just like in real life, I am drawn to other people and feel very strongly about my friends. The identification factor at play where the MC is concerned would, to a certain extent, stop me from loving her/him in a simple, open way.

By “identification factor”, I do not mean I would naturally identify to the MC as such, but to the way s/he is diplayed. I have mentioned that the MC usually has the qualities that justify her/his central role in the storyline. S/he usually is the one with the exceptional abilities and the exceptional destiny. However, the MC is also the character we get to see from the inside: under the outside, shining appearance, skills and position often lie doubts, insecurity, guilt, anger, jealousy…

In Arthur, High King of Britain, by Michael Morpurgo―which I will probably mention time and again, as it was a long-time favourite―Arthur is the secret, orphaned heir, and he reconquers his lands through his own courage in battle. Yet this takes about one chapter in the whole book. The rest of it, besides introducing us to a number of captivating SCs, shows Arthur: being selfish, weak, cheating on his wife, lying, being jealous, spiteful, and bringing about his own ruin. I won’t deny that Morpurgo’s Arthur has a really compelling and complex quality about him. But can you blame the little girl I was for preferring a simpler, happier, less tragic kind of character than this MC?

Illustration by Michael Foreman

Yet, when you think about it, which of Arthur’s SCs/knights isn’t tragic in his own right? Gawain probably isn’t too bad, considering―and guess what, he used to be my favourite. But don’t tell me Tristan, Percival or Lancelot… The main difference, then, really is one of POV. In Morpurgo’s novel, Arthur is 1st person narrator. The reader is in his thoughts, his heart when Lancelot confesses his betrayal―and believe me, his thoughts are not all nice and pretty. He may be Guinevere’s lawful husband, therefore luckier, happier and more successful on the outside; on the inside, he’s very human and very mad. Lancelot, on the other hand, may be in one hell of a fix; from Arthur’s POV, he is his best friend, as well as the man his wife prefers.

In other words, it always feels better/safer from the outside. I am used to thinking my friends are so cool and awesome and I’m so lucky to have them; it’s a shock when I learn that they feel the same about me, because I know myself too well to believe I’m cool and awesome. I have to bear with myself when I’m awful and annoying, kind of like we have to bear with the MC when they’re doing some really stupid mistake. The SCs, by comparison, are the guys who always seem to have things under control, when in fact, we never really go deep enough to find out. For the same reason, they actually tend to fit a (stereo)type more often than the MC, just the way we like to categorize our friends (the crazy one, the quiet one, the joker, the grouch…), while being utterly unable to define our own selves.

Christopher Pike’s YA novels perfectly fit that description. In his Final Friends trilogy, he even uses the characters’ stereotypical personas to muddle up hints and motives. The two MCs, on the other hand, are less easily definable because we see too much of their thoughts. As they become more like realistic persons than concepts, they also fade into a sort of neutral, boring zone. Russ, the seventeen-year-old alcoholic cross-country runner who chops down the varsity tree, or Bubba, the womanizing self-made millionaire computer hacker who wears a sombrero at his high school graduation party, are both as much fun as they are unlikely. But in reality, how unlikely? A great deal of their appeal consists in the mystery that surrounds them, and the distance that separates them from the POV.

I think that the trick for creating SCs who aren’t challenging to your MCs, while still being interesting in their own right and adding depth to your story, is to keep your POV centered on your MCs, and develop the SCs’ image rather than their full-fledged reality. I would also argue that in many romance novels, the hero maintains a position half-way between an MC and a SC. While he is entitled to his own point of view and a significant amount of attention throughout the story, his image such as perceived by the heroine remains prevalent. The identification factor is stronger on the heroine’s side, while the hero takes on the role of “perfect best friend” (such as Lancelot in Arthur, High King of Britain) and “mysterious oddball” (such as Russ or Bubba in Final Friends) all at the same time.

Do you think supporting characters are important in a plot? Whether you write or just read, have you come up with do’s and don’t's concerning SCs? As a reader, do you generally like an SC more than the MC? Do you feel like romance heroes are treated like SCs by their authors?