CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Side-Kicks (is that spelled right?)

Secondary characters. Every story needs them.

Unfortunately, the primary character can suck up all the writer's energy and imagination, which leaves the rest of the cast out on a limb.

I often spend about as much time thinking of ways to make secondary characters intrigueing as I do with the main character...sometimes I wish the characters could swap roles!

Secondary characters add A LOT to a story. For instance, can you imagine the Pirates of the Caribean without those two pirates (one of them has a glass eye)? How about Prince Caspian without Repecheep (now I know I've misspelled that)?


Sorry I haven't been able to post a lot lately! What I thought would be an easy Senior year blew up in my face.

7 comments:

Echoes in Ink said...

Do you spend a lot of time developing your "sidekicks" as you call them? I often spend weeks developing characters... so much that sometimes I get too far away from my plot with my really fun fictional "friends". Good post.

By the way, Reepicheep is how you spell it : )

-Catey

Jamin said...

I spend as much times as I can. I spent about 4 years developing some characters! But that whole story fell through, once I think about it. :)

Arianna said...

In my novel, I have two main characters who mostly steal the show ;) But I also have several secondary characters who add a lot to the story. My novel probably wouldn't survive without some of them ;)

Araken said...

I don't quite think that Senior Year and Easy belong in the same sentence together...unless we're talking about high school musical 3...then again...ugh, gotta study for exams.

Ciao

Jamin said...

Yeah, I know that feeling, Arianna.

Hmmm maybe I should see the HSM 3 sometime.

Kiwi da Fruit said...

I love sidekicks! Sometimes they're almost even better than the main characters, especially in movies. Have you ever seen National Treasure 1 or 2? Riley Poole provides comic relief during the intense parts of the movie, as well as being an important part of the film. Or Fish-Out-of-Water in Chicken Little.
Or, if you like LOTR, Merry and Pippin are great sidekicks.

You like the High School Musical series?
~Kiwifruit

Jamin said...

I've only seen a few bits here and there, actually.