1. LexStorm

    LexStorm Member

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    Writing Throwaway Villains/Characters that appear for a short while

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by LexStorm, Aug 3, 2020.

    I feel like I put a lot more thought into characters that literally only show up for a few pages, or side antagonists that only appear for one arc than I should. It makes me want to have them appear more in the story except if I did that they wouldn't have much of a purpose anymore. For anyone reading this, how do you go about writing characters that have a minor role in your story? Do you spend as much time on them as you would on your main protagonists/antagonists?
     
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  2. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    I had a few characters with backstories and everything that ive cut out all together.
    In one case, i lessened one characters role because a larger role like what i had written out for her had no real importance to the main character or the plot.

    Another "villain" character was mentioned a few times in the beginning but then never mentioned again. So i end up cutting him. He becomes a nameless character in a memory. A "hey, remember when you got held at gunpoint? See, people are bad. Lesson learned" kind of character.
     
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  3. Rzero

    Rzero Reluctant voice of his generation Contributor

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    Plenty of authors do this. Many go so far beyond outlining the story that they have intricate backstories for even the smallest characters. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, unless it keeps you from the actual writing. So as long as it's not a procrastination tactic, knowing everything you can about the world you're writing can only make the story better. Dialogue especially can benefit greatly from knowing all your characters inside out.
     
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  4. Lazaares

    Lazaares Contributor Contributor

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    It's not a bad decision, no. In fact, it's something my favourite video game writer, Brian Mitsoda, has been praised for. Throwaway characters - redshirts - are generally taken as bad writing. There's too little emotional connection or investment to care about them.
     
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  5. Dogberry's Watch

    Dogberry's Watch Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    I had a few throwaway characters in the first few drafts of my series, but then in rewrites they became more important. I'm going to echo what others have said and agree it's good to know as much as you can about your characters, major or minor, but not all of it has to end up in the story.

    One character from the beginning of mine started out as important, but now he's just background noise in a few key scenes, and then he's absent until the third book. Writing his stuff is relatively easy because I know his importance to the story, but my audience will only receive what's necessary. Determining that took a lot of sorting through information and deciding what went where. I didn't really have a process for it, just set a personality down and wrote him to fit that with what I knew about him.

    I dunno if this is helpful or just a ramble, but it's what I have.
     
  6. Aled James Taylor

    Aled James Taylor Contributor Contributor

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    For me, the key is telling the story. If you have a group of three characters where two would suffice, one of them is surplus to requirements and can be removed. If you have a scene that requires a new character who will never come into play again, that character is essential. You can have characters who are referred to by others but don't actually make an appearance at all. This can create a sense of mystery and suspense.

    If a character needs to behave in a way which the reader might think unplausible, you need to include some background details to explain their behavior and therefore make it believable. You can add as much background information as you like, so long as it's interesting. The reader won't object to humorous anecdotes but will resent plodding through mundane details.

    You can get away with a great deal that is less than ideal, so long as the reader remains engaged and is entertained.
     
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  7. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    The big danger I can see is if after developing the character in so much depth you then give in to the temptation of using all that info in the story. It can be hard to resist.

    Case in point—Peter Jackson's King Kong. A remake of the classic, but like 3 times longer, because they felt the need to go into extremely detailed backstories for every character. The boat trip out to Skull Island takes up the first half of the movie because we get stuck with insane levels of backstory on characters who really play a very minor role. If you go back and watch the original again, it's a really tight script with perfect pacing, and things happen exactly the way they need to for the story to unfold properly.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2020
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  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    The problem, as usual, is often best solved via POV. Who is your POV character? And how does your POV character relate to this minor character? If the POV character doesn't know this other person very well, there isn't really any need for the reader to either. And if the POV character DOES know this other person, ensure that their interaction reflects that, even if the minor character never reappears again.

    I've created several 'minor' characters who provide a few plot points, but even now I have no knowledge or interest in their backstories, and never developed any. They're in my story ONLY to affect the plot in a minor way, and then disappear.

    Two of them are old school chums whom my MC meets at a dance, and shares gossip with. It's the particulars of the gossip that matters to my MC, not the character of her old school chums. I've given them personalities during the scene, but only to move the scene along. Another minor character is a new teacher in town, who chases eligible men. It's the fact that she aims herself at the guy my MC fancies—and makes my MC realise how strong her own feelings for him are—that matters to my story. The man-chaser gets nowhere fast with my MC's guy, and just ends up aiming elsewhere—and vanishes from the story. We don't need to know why she's a man-chaser, or her background, etc.

    Do we really need to know the backstory of the bus driver who takes our ticket every morning and gives us a cheery hello? What registers is that a nice start to the day boosts our mood. Our character may even wonder how anybody can be so cheerful on such a soggy day, but we don't need to find out our bus driver's reason. He's cheery—which cheers us up. And that's that.

    We are only interested in what effect these minor characters have on our main characters. It's their actions, not their motivations, that matter.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2020
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  9. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    No, and I don't imagine anyone arguing that we would. But just speaking for myself, there's a significant divide between what my readers need to know to enjoy something I've written, and what I need to know in order to best write the story.
     
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  10. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Just out of curiosity, would you construct a backstory for that bus driver? If the only thing he did in the story was take the ticket and cheer up the MC because he was so pleasant doing it? Wouldn't the temptation be to include more about that driver, if you knew all about his background, his home life, etc? I would be afraid of getting distracted, but maybe that's not a problem for other folks. But just like I don't know the background for my own cheery bus driver (and there is one on my frequent route) I don't think my main character would need to know either. I know that particular fellow puts a smile on my face every time, but I don't know diddly about him.
     
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  11. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    To answer for myself, I definitely wouldn't, but I might have the POV character speculate as to what his life might be like as he's riding the bus. What could make a person with such a potentially miserable job so cheerful—is he a fool, or somehow deeply spiritual? (the Fool on the Hill)
     
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  12. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    If you find yourself writing throwaway characters, save yourself a lot of effort. Throw them out before you write them.

    Either they play a role in the story, or they don't. If they do serve the story, do them the courtesy of making them memorable. A stranger can change your life in a single moment. His appearance in your own life need not be long to be a memorable hero - or villain. In your story, make him or her stand out even if he or she will vanish forever by the next scene. Put the same effort into writing that character as you would in choosing one of your central characters.

    That's what I love in the mystery genre. You meet the oddest kooks in random scenes, and as odd as they are, you've already met them in real life. Only later do you realize how crucial their presence is the story really was.
     
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  13. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Exactly. But those thoughts will come from the POV character. We don't need to know the real bus driver.

    I confess, I'm a bit of a pantser. When I need a minor character to do something, I just pop that character into the story, and let his personality emerge, so his interaction with my main characters is fun to read. But I don't actually give him a backstory. Hard to explain. But the question here got me thinking about my characters, and which ones had backstory and which ones didn't. The minor ones just didn't. I'd have to sit here and make those backstories up now. And yet those characters people my story without any bother.

    It's kind of like real life. You meet lots of people, recognise them, maybe share some banter with them as you go about your daily affairs, but you don't actually know anything about them, unless they tell you. There are about five checkout women at the small supermarket that I go to, whom I either know by name (because of their badge) or by sight. We exchange pleasantries. Some of them are really outgoing and friendly, one is good, but grumpy, and one is very quietly pleasant but not particularly outgoing. They all have personalities ...but I don't know anything about their previous or present lives, other than that they work at the store where I shop.

    I have characters who play that kind of role in my novel as well. They are there for a reason, but it's the 'reason' that's important, not their motivation or backstory. HOW they behave is important; WHY they behave that way is not.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2020
  14. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    I like to let some characters become whatever they need to be as the story unfolds. If you develop a backstory that's a lot less likely to happen, you'll try to rigidly control them (I think, maybe not). Even sometimes for fairly central characters I'll sometimes just let them grow in the writing itself, even if I then have to go back and change a few things about their earlier appearances.

    Obviously I'm talking here about something more than a 'throwaway' character.
     
  15. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    I understand, and I don't dispute that. But my point still stands that I — the author — generally need to know much more than my main character would know, or even could know. My protagonist might not ever learn the backstory of his or her antagonist, but that doesn't mean I won't need that information to write the story.

    My readers have things they need to know. My main characters have things they need to know. And I have things that I need to know. There's a good deal of overlap, sure. But they definitely aren't equal.
    I wouldn't think so, no; not a legit backstory. But I would almost certainly need to brainstorm some amount of info about the bus driver (likely a few bullet points) that my main character wouldn't need to know.
    That's never been an issue for me. I mean, I've got a lot of weak spots as a storyteller, I just don't believe that's one of them.
     
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  16. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, yeah, I take your point. It's just that if I started thinking about backstory, I'd be tempted to make the character more important than he/she was intended to be! Which, for me, would be distracting. I've got a tendency to over-write anyway, and I'd be very tempted to insert a few little, you know, harmless bits of info. This would be a diabolical mistake for me. Yoiks....
     
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  17. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    This.
     
  18. cosmic lights

    cosmic lights Contributor Contributor

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    I usually know more about my characters than the readers ever know. And some readers like lengthy description of "mundane" things. I read a chapter of a Fantasy novel a few night's ago and it started with a three page history of the town, the Inn and the man running it. Then the Inn Keeper served a warrior who turned out to be the main character. We left the town and never saw it, the Inn or the Inn Keeper ever again. The writer basically opened with a "never do" which was a massive info dump on three things that weren't important. This irritated me and I thought this novel will be too much for me. We then got a history of the warriors horse lol.

    My rule of thumb is do I need X to tell the story i.e does X move the plot along. Lots of people think it's okay to have a chapter with no plot movement at all as long as there's character development. I don't agree. There must be plenty of opportunities in your plot to show your characters personality, relationships whatever. Those chapters to me are just filler. So if the character is more like an 'impact character' I keep them and tell what the reader needs to know. Example, a knight shows up to save a town and we meet a few of the people whose lives are at stake. This is good because it makes us realize it's human lives. Saving a vast amount of people requires some form of connection, we feel their humanity, they became a living thing, not just a face in a crowd.
     
  19. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    I just cut another character today.

    His only importance is that he gave shelter to an important character.
    2 important charcters are on the run. This character, a merchant, gives them both safe passage. He offers one of them a job on the ship. Years later, the captain is old and that important character he gave a job now is in command of the ship.

    Originally, i had given the captain a whole back story. He was shot in an attempted mutiny. He used to have a family. He has a love interest. He wants to retire on the island. Etc.

    .....now im im l, why do i need all of this? Hes already served his purpose. He doesn't need any depth. He's never mentioned again (other than as the person who gave my important character a fresh start). Hes still around, but i realized i dont need to talk about him anymore because doesnt do anything else for the remainder of the story.


    Just thought i'd toss that out there lol.
     

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