writing the heart of your story (12 page)

Bad Guys Have a Story to Tell

What does your antagonist want more than anything else? Can you think of showing a moment where she might waver in that desire and reconsider? Where she has a moment of hesitation about the evil she is perpetrating? Have second thoughts? This is where you could get a bit in about their greatest fear because often fear is at the core of why we do sucky things to other people. We lash out and hurt others to prevent ourselves from feeling hurt. And again, this goes back to the wound from the past. Just what happened to your antagonist way back when to make him so awful? Does he carry guilt over something shameful he did? Or something he should have done and didn’t?

Once you come up with a good reason for your antagonist opposing your protagonist, you can create a moment where that memory of the past hurt is triggered. Maybe something happens in a scene that makes your bad guy remember what it felt like to have that done to him. Maybe he’s about to beat up his kid and flashes back to when his father beat him and winces at the painful remembrance of that time. You don’t want to give your antagonist a quickie unbelievable change of heart; you want to show a little of why he is the way he is to garner a little empathy.

Maybe you think this is a waste of time and counterproductive to your plot. After all—you want the reader to hate your bad guy, not feel for him. But I’d like to encourage you to try this and see if it doesn’t make that antagonist more believable.

The movie
The Runaway Jury
comes to my mind. Isn’t there a moment at the very end of the movie when Gene Hackman’s character, the lawyer Fitch, is watching Nicholas and Marlee (the heroes) back in their hometown after he’s learned the whole truth about who they are and why they rigged the jury? He seems to be almost sympathetic in his expression, as if he gets why they destroyed his career. He doesn’t say anything, show any remorse—you wouldn’t want that anyway. He’s the bad guy, and we feel he got what he deserved. But I like to think at his moment of understanding you can tell there’s a bit of humanity underneath him. His expression hints at admiration for what they did.

Of course, in your novel, you have to find another way to show this sensitivity, and it can be done through the eyes of another character (maybe your protagonist sees something in her antagonist’s face), in the antagonist’s thoughts or deep POV, or by some subtle action he may engage in that shows he has some feelings.

Show a Little Compassion

A great exercise Donald Maass had us “breakout novelists” do at his workshop was to rewrite our synopsis from the POV of our antagonist. At first I thought that was a little weird, since I didn’t write my original synopsis from my protagonist’s POV—I wrote it from my POV, but I gave it a try. Wow, it was great! Suddenly a different tone took over. What happened was I began to see, as I outlined the plot and premise from my evil mother character’s take, was a whole new side to the story. She looked at the whole situation and conflict with her daughter in an entirely different way and really believed that the cruel choices she was making were justified—they were for her daughter’s own good, in her mind.

Writing this caused me to mentally step back again, and it made my antagonist so much more understandable. How can you truly hate someone who does horrible things to her family if deep in her heart she really believes she is doing the right, moral, and best thing for those (she thinks) she loves? From that, I was able to rework some scenes to give my “evil mother character” more sides, and I hope I made her at least a bit more believable and well rounded.

Think about
. . . (if you have an antagonist in your book), taking a good look at him or her. See if this character is just a flat stereotype or is complex. Does this character have a redeeming quality? If you haven’t shown it, find a place in your book to reveal this. It can be shown through dialog, action, or internalizing. Play around with this and see if you’ve made your antagonist better and more believable. If you are still in the planning stage, come up with a rich past ,as I’ve discussed in earlier chapters, then give your antagonist one vulnerable quality or moment that’s not trite but genuinely shows a human side.

If you’re game, try writing your synopsis in the POV of your antagonist. Or if you don’t have one written or want to try something different, freewrite in her POV and let her explain the moral reasons for behaving the way she does. Let her talk about her past and how she became who she is. She may not think she’s evil at all. Or she may feel her cruelty is quite justified. Then work some of this into your novel and see if your stereotyped character now looks a little more real.

Chapter 18: Secondary Characters Have a Life of Their Own

“If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched.

It's not the size of the thing but the detail.”

~actor Brendan Gleeson

We all need a supporting cast in our novels. Secondary characters have to be in there, unless your book is about a guy stuck on a deserted island the entire time or in some other solitary circumstance. But even in that instance, an animal or even a volleyball (sorry, had to put that in there from
Castaway
) can play the role of a secondary character. There are plenty of great movies in which even the hero is an animal (
The Incredible Journey
is one that comes to mind) or something not human. But whether your secondary characters are human, feline, canine, or bovine, they need to be fully human in their characteristics (well, maybe cats can getting away with just saying no).

They Stick in Your Mind

To be honest, I don’t come across a whole lot of manuscripts that have many terrific secondary characters. And I struggle with creating good ones in my novels. The tendency is to throw someone in there only as a vehicle to bring out the plot or reveal aspects of the protagonist’s personality, but when we do that, the reader can sense it.

I love a great book in which a secondary character almost steals the show. Right away I think of Fermin, the oddball street guy in Zafon’s best seller
The Shadow of the Wind
. His performance throughout the book riveted me without taking away from the story in any way. Another character that has stuck with me for decades is Le Cagot, a Basque nationalist and lunatic in Trevanian’s novel
Shibumi
. If you haven’t read those terrific novels, I highly recommend them—if only to learn how to craft great supporting characters.

Think about Sherlock Holmes’s sidekick Watson. My husband and I have watched just about every Sherlock Holmes movie and TV episode made in the past century (as well as read all the stories many times). We even went to 221 Baker Street when we were in London—just so we could feel what it was like to walk on that street. Watson is a real character in his own right, and although he can hardly overshadow such a larger-than-life character like Holmes, he does stand out as a well-rounded person because we see who he is apart from Holmes. He has a life when Holmes suddenly disappears from his apartment (which Holmes tends to do a lot).

Tell Them to Get a Life

This is what you want to think about as you create and develop your secondary characters. They do not live for your protagonist; they all have lives that take place in their world when they are not in those scenes with your lead player. The more you can give them a life outside the novel’s scenes, the better. Don’t settle for giving them a past and some physical attributes. Spend some time thinking about what their life is now. Ask: What would this character be doing if I removed the protagonist from the story? What would his life look like? What problems would he be facing in his personal life right now?

Giving secondary characters a problem that is unconnected to the plot is a great element to add. Why? Because now you have a subplot. And don’t just give them any problem; think of something that can tie in with your theme and enhance the main plot. This is what secondary characters can do best.

Make Their Needs Clash

Here’s an example. Let’s say you are writing a novel about a woman named Debby who is struggling with infertility issues. Her goal is to get pregnant, and she’s in despair trying everything to conceive. Her need is destroying her marriage and affecting her job performance. But she is so grateful for her best friend Joan. Joan isn’t married and doesn’t have kids, and she’s been BFF (best friends forever) with Debby since kindergarten.

Now, Joan’s got a boyfriend who is pushing the relationship, and she’s not sure how committed she is. Whereas Debby’s been married for some time and is committed, but her husband is pulling away (kind of the opposite). Just when things are really falling to pieces with Debby (who may not be letting on just how badly she wants to have a baby), Joan accidentally gets pregnant. She’s in turmoil about this because she’s not married and doesn’t want a baby at this point. What does she do? She tries to tries to keep this news from Debby, knowing it might upset her. But Debby finds out—right when Joan has decided to have an abortion.

Now you have some great conflict. Their friendship will be stretched because these two characters’ deepest fears and core needs are clashing. I can envision a lot of tears flying as Debby, shocked, tells Joan not to abort.

I’ve read a lot of books that have subplots thrown in that have little connection to the main plot. And those secondary characters involved in those subplots have a disconnect with the protagonist. What I’m trying to show here is that if you create secondary characters who have a life of their own, with their own needs and fears, and make those things clash with the protagonist’s visible and/or spiritual goal (as discussed in earlier chapters), you will enrich your story a thousandfold. Don’t leave them stranded outside, waving their hands and hoping you’ll notice them. Bring them to the fore, and give them their time in the limelight.

Developing great secondary characters really helps get to the heart of your story. As I mentioned above, having those secondary characters’ needs and fears clash with those of your protagonist will drive the plot toward the mother lode—the heart of your story. That’s just one way you can not only bring your secondary characters to life but also enhance your overall theme. I’m big on themes, and I believe books with well-explored themes can have great impact on the reader. So as you consider your secondary characters and create their lives and personalities, think of a problem they come to face as the book unfolds that will tie in with the theme.

Create a Moment

Here are some other things to think about regarding secondary characters. It’s good if you can come up with a moment or two in the novel that is a special highlight of the relationship between this character and your protagonist. Maybe this is a moment where one of them gets an insight about the other or changes how they feel for the other in some way (for good or bad).

When you think of various friends you’ve spent time with over the years, do any particular moments come to mind? What about that uncomfortable time where one of you did or said something unintentionally hurtful, and the fallout from that incident lasted a few weeks before getting resolved? What about the time when your friend revealed something shocking to you? I can remember the moment my good friend Bob confessed to me he had AIDS. He worried that I wouldn’t want to be his friend anymore. I recall the wash of emotion that went through me as I sat there with him. That moment changed the dynamics of our relationship and took it to a deeper level—a level we enjoyed for a number of years until he died.

If you can create a specific moment in your novel where something special or intense or important passes between the protagonist and this secondary character, it will do wonders for your story. So many moving, poignant scenes in movies are ones in which the two friends have a moment like this. It feels sometimes like a beat or pause in the story, being more reflective and slower paced. But it adds heart, and that’s what we’re after as we journey through the mine to reach the mother lode.

Let that “minor” character show some depth of emotion, and not in reaction only to the plot playing out or to what the protagonist does. You don’t want this to be a forced mushy moment—you may be writing a suspense/thriller. But even then, you could have that short pause in which your protagonist and work colleague have a talk. Let the protagonist learn something new about this other person, get some new insight about them. Let the secondary character see something new in the protagonist.

They Don’t Always Get Along

Think also about creating one moment in which this secondary character is really opposed to what the protagonist is saying or doing and voices this opinion. Allies in stories are sometimes called “refection” characters. That is, they reflect back to the protagonist things that he might not be able to see about himself—or like. That can cause conflict.

Also consider finding a moment in which you can switch this role and have the protagonist opposed to what the secondary character is saying or doing. When are they the most at odds with each other? Often it’s when one or the other has made a big decision. It’s often a turning point in the story, and it tests their friendship or work relationship. Most plots involve the protagonist going off on a course that stirs up conflict and opposition, so that’s probably where you would have this moment. And this is another way you can tie in theme, as the secondary character can act as an antagonist, taking an opposing view and challenging the protagonist’s beliefs and actions, helping bring your theme to the forefront.