Do you have any favourite minor characters in your stories?

[oggbashan]

I can think of two:

Don in Durante the Dog (and Durante himself!)

and:

Elmer in Rural Station

What about You? Have you considered giving them their own story?

 

[KeithD]

Minor characters in my stories do tend to get their own stories eventually. It's a technique I picked up in mainstream writing from Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.

Some of mine, like the spy master Sam Winterberry, get their own series without losing their minor character status.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Minor characters? Certainly not! All of my characters are at least 18 years old.

 

[ElectricBlue]

What about You? Have you considered giving them their own story?

I've had two story cycles where someone who I first thought was a bit character moved in and became a significant third character, and ultimately got equal billing.

I have a couple of other bit characters where I've left hints that they might reappear, or who show up repeatedly playing the same role. They'll get spin-offs of their own, one day.

 

[TxRad]

I try not to have minor characters. Everyone should get their shot, one way or another.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Jeez...

When you say 'minor', can I interpret that as secondary? As in, not the focus, but still around?

Because if that's the case, then Jeanie from my Alexaverse series of stories. Air-headed slut with a heart of gold. Jeanie is becoming very popular these days, and I'm really glad, because I love her to pieces. She loves everyone, but she has a speech impediment- she can't say 'no'.

And frankly, calling her a halfwit is not fair to people missing fifty percent of their brain. She really is genuinely dumb, like of below average intelligence, but I use it for comedic effect without mocking, if that makes sense.

Friend: "Okay, you need a new password."

Jeanie: "Uhhh... chicken."

Friend: "It has to have a capital."

Jeanie: "... chickenkiev."

Thank Sanguinius she's pretty, because if she were any dumber she'd have to be watered twice a week.



And from another series, Time Rider, I'd go with Nanu. She's an Egyptian girl, brought forward from being a slave during the time of Imperial Rome. She's bright enough, in her own way, but everything confuses and frightens her.

She also thinks our 20th century morals make no sense whatsoever. Why is sex with people under a certain age illegal, but lots of people pretend to be much younger than they are as a fetish?

If this is a free society, what can't she have sex with whomever or whatever she wants?

Did English invent ANY words, or are they all stolen from other languages?

Toilets are loud and terrifying. Skyscrapers make her faint.

Subways? Cars? Planes? *thud!*

On the other hand, internet porn...

I love Nanu. I should do a series about her and Jeanie with a time machine. The universe won't know what hit it.

 

[PoisonPen33]

Evelyn Ballion from "Come As You Are," a young Goth woman whose primary character trait is speaking without using contractions as well as combining Morticia Adams with Vampira.

She began as a one-scene character who came upon one of the main characters naked, calmly remarked on their state of nudity, complimented them on the aesthetically pleasing nature of their penis as well as their impressive buttocks, and wandered away without a second thought.

She eventually grew into a secondary character who plays a part in the overall story, and I find myself resisting the urge to make her more of a character. Her strange and unusual nature is perfect for someone who shows up on occasion. Any more than that and I feel like she'd lose her appeal, both to me as an author and to my readers.

 

[KeithD]

In the mainstream, in my first published book series, my protagonist was an American woman archaeologist working a site on a Mediterranean island. She got embroiled in a mystery and the chauvinistic Cypriot detective who came as a very minor character to give her grief--not even the lead detective--decided to stay around. He did, married her, and remained, a coequal protagonist, for the next twenty years of series coverage. He even supplied the name tag for the series subhead slug.

 

[yowser]

I am assuming ‘minor’ refers to characters not absolutely central to the main story? (Although they have even a significant role, you could remove them and still have a more or less intact tale?)

I only have two favorites, the French Canadian college student Rick who has a bit part in Lisa Sweet Lips 2 but possesses a wacky off-beat sexuality appealing to Lisa (and would be her ‘steady’ if either of them were capable of such a status.)

And Joanne Winters, the sweet, erotically experimental, accommodating girlfriend in (Don't) Let Sleeping Dicks Lie who puts up with (and even enables) the narrator’s distinctly unique fetish. Pity she only occupies about a third of the tale.

 

[YDB95]

Rosa in Changing Partners was a lot of fun, and I'm curious about her relationship with her brother. But I don't see how a story about her could work, when she and her brother were probably figments of Dan's imagination. Amanda, the snotty waitress, made a great antagonist and has some potential too, I suppose.

 

[RetroFan]

They figured pretty prominently in the stories so weren't minor characters, but Allison's husband Dennis and Jenna's twin brother Todd from the PTA Queen Bee & Teen Rebel stories were a lot of fun to write about.

Dennis is a very strange man with some very weird obsessions, which include going to a brothel where he dresses up like a cowboy. Todd is a 300 pound, gluttonous bully who is so stupid that he thinks about himself in the third person.

Billy from 'April Leads Julie Astray' is a minor character I liked writing about. He has a huge crush on Julie and always does and says stupid things around her.

 

[beachbum1958]

Julie, a cameo character from my 'Nia' story, who intrigued me (and others) to the point where she got her own story sequence, 'Lost Girl: Julie's Story', which is probably my favourite story of all those I've written.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I have quite a few in my first story here - Phoebe's family, Yvonne's housemate, the couple they stay with at a B&B - but for some reason, my other stories here haven't fleshed out the supporting cast as much. Not sure why that is.

 

[oggbashan]

I have quite a few in my first story here - Phoebe's family, Yvonne's housemate, the couple they stay with at a B&B - but for some reason, my other stories here haven't fleshed out the supporting cast as much. Not sure why that is.

Lack of time? Or lack of inspiration?

Some of my less important characters from my earlier works have gone on to have their own stories, but some I feel have done enough to move a particular story forward.

The two quoted in my OP have significant parts in the plot and without them, the story would have to be changed.

Don in Durante the Dog makes the main characters aware of how much they trust each other.

Just the possible return of Elmer in Rural Station makes the hero propose.

 

[karaline]

Yes, in one of my earliest and not very good stories, there is a hotel maid called Connie, who, in retrospect I realise was probably far better formed in my mind than she was on the page. She is a bit of a caricature and I loved writing her.

--

Connie picked up the statement and held it out, as though it was a discarded sock she'd found underneath one of the beds, and handed back to Andrea with a distasteful expression on her face. "Things might be different this time?" The incredulity in her voice was hard to ignore. "He's changed?"

--

And there is a police officer who begins life with a cameo role in The Bank Job, and then is the love interest in Goodbye Girl -less because i wanted him to have more of a role in a later story, and more because he is based on a real person.

 

[MelissaBaby]

That's a tough question, as I really feel invested in all my characters.

I would call her "secondary" rather than minor, but the most fun character to write in Mary and Alvin was definitely Bonita, because of moments like this:

"Get the fuck up, bub. I got to get ready for work."

He muttered but did not move. Lola, who had been sleeping on the floor next to the bed, rose and dropped her head in Bonita's lap. Bonita nuzzled it and scratched the big dog's back. "How's my sweetie this morning?" she said.

Ben grunted again.

"I wasn't talking to you, dumbass," Bonita said.

And I have a special affection for Alvin's father in law, Stanley. I really thought he was a sweet, lovable guy, and I totally destroyed his life. I felt so bad about it, I brought him back and made things a little better for him.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The housemates who appeared in my April Fool story Gas Station Guy are the main characters in my Hallowe'en story - the protagonist of GSG moves out but still visits, new colleague moves in.

I'd better get on and write it...

 

[AlexBailey]

Shawna

Shawna. One of my favorites. She is an 18yo high school athlete. Mediterranean features with long black French braid. She's talking to friends after a rope-bondage session. They're asking her about the welts and raw spots left on her body after being tied and suspended for so long.


*****


Shawna says, "It hurts but the endorphins get me higher than the pain can reach. The cooling gel feels good, but even now I'm high from the burn."


"That must be why you love water polo so much." Cheryl says. "You get beat up a lot when we play."


Shawna's face lights up. "Do you remember the semifinals against Ventura high? That one left flat was all over me. Every time I got the ball she yanked my suit into a front wedgie. She gave me welts! She bruised my nipples and yanked my hair...I was in love! We had a moment under water—I'd already passed the ball but she grabbed me, pinching my nipples and yanking my suit from behind, until the coaches yelled at us. They thought we were fighting. Then she got all shy and everything was awkward for the rest of the game..."

*****

 

[Voboy]

I love mine.

As with many others here, my lesser characters often get tapped to star in their own stories. I like that.

 

[Athalia]

Well, there are Mr. Dohenny and Ms. Roberts from my story "Summertime Sex Ed." They're the two older adults that gently and lovingly introduced Emily and her boyfriend Jerry to fucking. I don't know if you'd call them minor characters, since they're essential to the plot.

But there's also Tina, who pops up in the "Daughters of Priapus" stories. She's smart as a whip (breaks codes for a hobby!), sexually adventurous (likes guys and gals, but guys more), and loving and insightful. Maybe I'll write a story around her someday; she deserves it.

 

[vanmyers86]

I love 'em all - except the jerks, of course.

Madame Caron from No Men to Love has been nagging at me to tell her story of being forced to work in a brothel in 1880s-90s France, which is where she realized she had a gift for massage.

I think she and Uncle Henny, Alison's uncle and a minister in that story universe, would make a most interesting couple if they were to meet.

Hmmm... Never even considered that before I typed it just now.

Hmmm...

 

[PennameWombat]

Sam, a red headed graduate student woman from the “Mel & Chris” stories. She’s in love with Chris’s housemate Teresa but also with Chris. She’d dated him a few times until he introduced her to his friend Teresa and she finally admitted and acted on her attraction to women. But it’s more complex than that, Mel and Teresa know Sam’s feelings toward Chris but Sam won’t admit it to herself.

Bonnie “not Parker” Baxter and Jake “the Wolfman” Jacobsen, (“Geek Pride” stories, “A Tale of Two Parties” and “Chasing Robes and Shadows”) petty criminals who met at a Halloween party and appeared through various stories. Dreamed of escaping dead-end jobs and crime to start over together somewhere new. A dream that died when Jake came to a rather sudden and unpleasant demise.

Vikrangia “Vicki” Skyburster (“Adrift in Space” and crossing over to others). An alien who’s gaining a much larger role with the death of Queen Anna. She and Sam will get a star turn soon.

Marsha, the ill-fated coworker of Janet, a beautiful young woman on whom she’d had a long unrequited crush in “City of Angels.” Marsha is now in a persistent vegetative state because of Janet.

 

[jehoram]

Minor characters?

Two that I can think of are Barry and Alison from "A Very Private Beach." These middle-aged exhibitionists were fun to write, especially in the way they encouraged others to get out of their shells and become exhibitionists themselves. The plot may have developed that way eventually, but they got it rolling a lot sooner because of them.

 

[oggbashan]

It sounds as if we have a number of characters that need their own stories.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

It sounds as if we have a number of characters that need their own stories.

I gave Freja and Jeanie their own series (imaginatively named 'Freja& Jeanie') and it's my part of the Alexaverse series where insanity and craziness can really be expressed. They try to be camgirls, they end up getting kidnapped by an incel, they're on the run from the Danish police and get stuck in jars...

A sexfight led to a barn collapsing...

Yeah, it gets weird.

But they're comedy gold for me, so I love them.