I have a character who has been around for years and was the first character that led into this current story. The nature of this character- who he is, what he does, etc has evolved so much from the beginning that now he's pretty much a new character and very undeveloped and flat one with a minimal role in the entire story- but an important one, if that makes sense. For many many years this character went by the name "Billy" (For backstory, from way back in my play make pretend days with friends and stemming the character of Billy in Young Guns and then Emilio Estevez's character of the same name in Maximum Overdrive). First came Adam who turned into Christopher and christopher became the main character with Billy his boyfriend and then Benny came along as a later character until Ben took over and Billy became a placement for competition with Ben over Christopher and now he's become somewhat of a side character whose role is brief and not much included, if at all, in anything I currently have in this story but I think he needs to be developed more and be brought back into the story- or not! Either way, I can't have a "Benny" and a "Billy" as adversaries in the story, that's too ironic or coincidental so "Billy" has to go. The question is, what else do I name him? Who is this guy?? Some brief description on who "Billy's" character is: He is going to be an antagonist? I think? He's not a good guy and Benny hates him from the first meeting. In case you aren't following my WIP through my other threads, Ben and Chris are dang good friends (and love interests). Chris is a party animal who stops at nothing for a good time and meets "Billy" through his grapevine of assorted personalities. He is a sucker for musicians and "Billy" is the lead singer and guitarist in a band. "Billy" is a rebel. He is a little wild and crazy (just as Chris is) so he speaks to more of Chris' hardcore side of his personality. Billy was, at one point in the mix, a Vietnam Vet turned gay biker. Yes, there were Vietnam Vets who came out of the closest later and there were also badass gay bikers, even in the 1970s. If Ben is going to disapprove of and go toe-to-toe with and kick the ass of ANY guy at any point in this story over his fair maiden Chris- it's "Billy". Suffice to say, "Billy" is into slightly harder core stuff like than Chris is into in the story up until he gets involved with this guy his crowd and it gets Chris into a lot of trouble. The details of who this character is still are unclear to me, who he is, how they meet, and why they get involved to such an extent. I am still on the fence about Chris going so far as getting in Heroin but it is written into the story already that this troublemaker bad news guy gets Chris hooked on dope and that "Billy" uses his addiction as a form of control. "Billy", as Ben suspects at the beginning, does not treat Chris kindly and kicks him around. "Billy" is not in the story for long, at least not right now, but I think he could be a very important character addition to add to the movement of the story. I don't know what you would refer to him or his purpose in the plot (still learning all the names of stuff). I am completely open and asking for ideas to help develop this character more. He needs a new name and more of an identity and personality so that it isn't so one-dimensional.
I personally like the name Billy for an antagonist, another name that gives me Billy vibes is, Shawn. No reason really the name Shawn makes me think of how you described him, I haven’t seen your other works but I will check them out, your world you are building seems very lovely! Another thing to add I use to make my characters more in-depth is have a side character / object that is of importance to your character , and use it to drive their characters motives for it. I hope this helped just a bit! Good luck!
Hey! Thank you for your feedback on this-- I am so stumped and it is going to be really difficult to break myself from calling this character "Billy" because he's been Billy before even the two characters wo are now my main characters developed but I can't have a Benny and a Billy, that's weird. Shawn-- that is an option. I wonder how common that name was in the late 1940s early 1950s (he has to be old enough to have been in Nam). I need to develop a backstory and personality for this character, too.
