Who's your favorite side character?

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

This isn't an advice column, I just want to hear about your side characters. They can be published or a part of a work in progress. It's a fun show and tell section so feel free to ask people questions about the characters.

I've numbered the questions for those who don't want to rewrite them. Feel free to skip any for any reason.

1) Do you write side characters? (Why or why not?)

2) Have you ever liked a side character so much that you gave them a bigger role? Who were they and what did you like about them?

3) Who's your favorite side character that you've written? What are they like? Why are they your favorite?

4) What would you say is the utility of side characters in your story?

 

[GrushaVashnadze]

In my novel Alison Goes to London, one side character with whom I fell in love as I wrote her was young Riley Throstlethwaite. It is 2050, and Alison and her friends Claire and Eva are students at the Royal Academy of Fucking in London. By chapter 9, Alison's faith in the "Enlightenment" has been shaken by recent events, notably the self-exile (for love, which is proscribed by law) of students Anna and Andy, and by the fact that Eva's brother Rob has also self-exiled himself out of love for Alison. As Alison broods in self-doubt:

Suddenly she realised she must have been brooding a long time, for the students had moved on several verses. There were now several couples in the centre, fucking in a variety of positions, and a skinny girl with long silver-blond hair was leading the next verse:
And in that GAPE
There was a cock,
The hugest cock
That you ever did see.
"Oh, I must watch this!" said Alison to herself, coming to her senses, standing up and moving forward to get a closer look. [...]
The silver-blond girl grabbed the very large cock of her chosen boy and dragged him into the centre of the circle to join the others. She crouched down with her ass high in the air and pulled her cheeks apart to reveal one of the most beautiful gapes Alison had ever seen outside her own buttocks -- perfectly round, gleaming with natural lube, and dropping away immediately into a dark maroon anal cauldron. "Oh fucking Jesus!" exclaimed Alison, louder than she meant to, just as a brief lull happened in the song. The skinny girl heard, turned her head, did a double-take, and looked in amazement at Alison.
"'Ey!" the girl called. "You're Alison Bates!" said the girl.
"Uh... yeah?" replied Alison uncertainly.
"Lick m' pussy!" squealed the girl in delight. "My name's Riley. You're my idol! I watched you on the Fuck Factor and everyfink! I wanna be like you!"

They become friends, and Alison helps Riley secure an audition, in chapter 15, at the Royal Academy of Fucking. Riley arrives nervous:

"Will I be all righ'?" asked Riley. "I'm so fuckin' nervous!" She was dressed in a white blouse, plaid skirt and tie. "This is the best I've got to wear. Don' 'ave no fancy clothes like you. And do I 'ave to talk all posh for this Doctor Dick -- ya know, ''ow d'ya do' and all 'at sort o' fing?"
"Just be your normal self, Riley. You'll be great," Alison reassured her. "I'm sure Doctor Dick will be very happy with you wearing that -- besides, it won't stay on long, will it? And I don't think he'll care how you speak -- just so long as it's filthy!" she laughed.
"Wai', wai', I been practisin' talkin' all posh-like. Me mum's bin teachin' me. She says for the fuckin' Royal Academy of fuckin'... uh... Fuckin', I better not sound too common, righ'? You know me dad was all posh -- came from 'Enley-on-Thames or somefink: didn't stop 'im fuckin' scarperin' as soon as I come along though, did it? Now listen ta this..." Riley stood up straight as a choirgirl, before declaiming, with an exaggeratedly upper-class English accent, "Good ahfternoon, Miss Bates. Would you maynd awfully licking my pussy?"
Alison doubled up with laughter. "Wha'? Wha'?" said Riley "Wasn' 'at posh enough for ya? Should I say 'cunt' instead o' 'pussy'?"

Needless to say, Riley aces the audition:

A couple of minutes later, Riley and Dick-Dick appeared at the door. Both were clothed again -- though a long dribble of cum snaked its way down Riley's right leg. "It's awfully kaynd of you to see me today, Doctor Dick," smiled Riley, regaining her mock-posh deportment as she gave a genteel curtsey. "Thenk you sooo much for your taym." She gave a little cum-scented burp and licked a stray drop of semen off her lower lip.
"It's been a pleasure, young lady," said Dr Dick. He looked flushed, breathless, and ecstatic. "You have great talent: I'm so glad you could come."
"Oh, I think you also did come too, Professor, did not you?" said Riley, arching one eyebrow.
Alison and Claire guffawed again, and Claire put her arm around Riley's shoulders. "Come on, you amazing chav slut -- let's take you home..."
"Chav?" replied Riley in mock outrage. "Ay nay, Lord love you, I am not nay chav, Miss Claire, I am gaying to study at the Royal Ackedemy of Fucking. That makes me proper posh totty, dayn't you think?" She giggled, stuck out her bottom, and emitted a long noisy squelchy fart. "Au revwah, Professor Dickhead, I do declare I em so cunting pleased to have met you!" Her exuberant laughter tinkled like a carillon through the corridors of the Royal Academy.
Dr Dick looked absolutely smitten.

And so am I.

 

[KeithD]

My first series of mysteries written for the mainstream were contracted by the Cypriot Tourist Ministry, meant to be English-speaking tourist beach reads at beach resorts but were to include settings at archeological sites and hotels and restaurants and other attractions in the interior of the island to entice the tourists to spread their activities and money into the interior. I wrote six novels, each using a different post-Cold War international crime or espionage theme. My protagonist was an American woman archeologist. Near the end of the first novel, a male Cypriot detective entered as a side character. They, of course, butted heads and got in each other's way and on each other's nerves. They married in the second novel with him moving up to be her full partner as a protagonist. The books spanned twenty-five years, during which they divorced and came back together again, but that originally side character held his own as a co-protagonist for the rest of the series.

In erotica and Literotica terms, I have a Washington, D.C., vice cop protagonist, Hardesty, who I've now written ten crime Gay Male novellas to. He's a rough cop who is addicted to the same vices he polices (and protects). He lives with his much younger sidekick, Toby, who is a high-end male escort. They live in a ritzy high rise apartment house in Crystal City, by the runway of the Reagan Airport, across the Potomac from federal D.C., and the tension of the dynamic between them provides the atmosphere of separate GM sex-slathered crime mysteries.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

When writing ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE I created Nikki as a fill-in girlfriend for the protagonist, Andy. But as I described her, her fantastic cherry nature, her crazy, huge hairstyle, her slender frame and all-round good-naturedness, I started to really like her and she ended up having a major role in the story and wound up being in there right till the end.

Sometimes if you create someone and make them awesome you just want them in your head for the rest of the story, I guess the same way we do as people in real life.

 

[Rob_Royale]

1. Side characters are needed to flesh out any story. IMO.
2&3. In my story, Getting Busy, a mature woman/young man story, my main characters are Ben and Debbie. But, I've included Angela, Debbie's sister-in-law who puts a polyamorous spin on the whole love story. She's a curvy little fuck-toy of a woman with a dom personality. She turns me on in ways I can't describe.
4. Characters don't exist in a vacuum. The story should include the characters rather than the characters being the story. Side characters help build the world, engage the main characters and help us know them.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My side characters often take over and become central to a story (turning what was a two protagonist story into a three-way), or they get a later story of their own.

They usually show up in the space of a paragraph, leaving me the author thinking, hello, who are you? Or they're bit characters (Lizzy the waitress in several stories, for example) before becoming central.

So they're either over the top and "arrive" in a story, usually as a foil and bff for the female lead, or they're the quiet slow burn who eventually gets noticed.

 

[RejectReality]

Alice, Betty, and Cammie only had a few lines of dialogue in Lowborn, and a small part of the epilogue. Now I'm working on the last of 10 chapters of a story that's a pseudo-sequel where Betty is the main character. I enjoy writing the whores with a heart of gold, and that fits Betty to a T.

There are a butt-ton of brand new side characters in that story that I love as well.

Devan is a peripheral character at best through Danica until the end, and only has a light presence in SOTM, but she's got a starring role in several stories of her own. Of course, she was an existing character in my PnP game long before I started writing. Danica was actually nothing more than an unnamed sister on the back of Devan's character sheet before I started penning Danica.

Though she ended up being the star before I finished the first chapter, Arilee from Blackhawk Hall and Take Me Away was originally nothing more than a set of eyes to introduce Mindblind and Christi. A side character graduated to main in record time.

The old man from my Virtual Reality: Dragon Quest series. He's technically driving the whole plot along, but his appearances throughout the story until the very end are as a comedic foil to the hero, spouting parodies of sitcom themes and onomatopoeia from Weird Al songs.

Xantwilla from Blessing of the Wood. Her whole story is told posthumously, but she's a sweet character that was fun to dream up. She was the inspiration and co-star of my first micro:



I spent an insane amount of time on that cover for a 100 word, non-erotic, rhyming couplet micro that's only posted on one low readership site. LOL Eight layers, not counting the text.

Mindblind and Christi's barely mentioned oldest son gets his own story in Breaking in the Boy. Ernest from Facing Destiny is a fun, plain-spoken, somewhat debauched side character who will get to strut his stuff after taking a step up in life during the third story of Darkni's trilogy, Something Familiar.

A few off the top of my head. Some side characters will always be that. Just there because they're necessary to move the plot along in some way. Others take on a life of their own.

 

[TadOverdon]

Maybe Ruth Stewart or Amber Harvey in The Mom Next Door.

Ruth is drunkenly indignant at having the city attorney interrogate her carryings-on with her son, because he and the other guys "are all eighteen, damn it," and so no reasonable person should look askance at them.

I get attached to the characters whose personalities are a little deranged, probably because most people in my damn stories behave in unlikely ways without being apparently affected by it at all.

 

[MrPixel]

I have many side characters in my hotel series, but two stand out, Gail Rogers and Elliott Jacobs.

Gail is the administrative assistant in the executive offices. She is the most significant holdover from the old administration, secretary to the FMC's father and surrogate mother to the FMC, whose real mother abandoned the family when she was 3. Gail is the mom figure for the entire group, figuratively rolling her eyes at the troupe's antics when appropriate, and coming to the rescue when things explode.

Elliott is the new bartender hired for the FMC's spot after the FMC was put in charge of the hotel after the MMC (with 3 others) bought the hotel from her father. Elliott is an ebullient flamer with a quick wit; he fits well with the group of lovers as a friend and supporter, and, of course, dispenser of libations. He appears in almost every chapter since introduced mid-series given that the default rendezvous point for the group is the hotel's tavern.

There are others that significantly shape the story line, especially Bethany Simmons, psychologist to the MMC and one of "the ladies" who was dealing with a crisis. Beth was the center of most of the tension in the fourth "book". The tables are being turned in future chapters as the MMC teaches Beth about joyous love and sex, filling in the gaping voids in her book learning.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

1) Do you write side characters? (Why or why not?)

Obviously I do, I wouldn't be hosting this thread if I didn't. As for why I do it, I see people as a product of their interactions with other people. Most of our personality and mannerisms are either learned from our parents or a reaction to our parents. As we get older we pick things up from our friends and coworkers. In order for a character to convincingly have a bolder more out there personality they should have friends and acquaintances outside of the leads. Now how much depth these side characters gets comes down to their narrative function.

2) Have you ever liked a side character so much that you gave them a bigger role? Who were they and what did you like about them?

It's happening as we speak. In the gay male story Im working on I came up with a female character named Mika because I needed Jun (One half of the endgame couple) to have a female friend for his parents to assume he's dating or at least interested in. And then I decided that Yuma (the other half of the couple), a confidently gay but not publicly out delinquent type, to have a coworker to be in on his secret so he has someone to talk to about his issues. So I decided that Mika who up until this point has only said two words and has very little about her personality or interests established, would fill the role just fine.

I wrote out one conversation, (no narration yet) with Mika and Yuma. That's all it took. The way it played out she has to be important to the plot. Like on the spot I recognized that if this is Jun's best friend and she acts like this, his dad probably hates her. Suddenly it all clicks and she's a goofy, irresponsible, hot mess of a human being, with a crush on a gay man. She becomes the supportive best friend who jokingly says "Well if you ever change your mind." In reference to Yuma being gay.

So now I'm like, fuck. She has to be a beard at some point.

3) Who's your favorite side character that you've written? What are they like? Why are they your favorite?

I once made a janitor in a universe where people have powers and do superhero things causing superhero damage. Her whole schtick is that she's the one who has to clean up all the rubble the heroes leave behind. She hates the heroes so much that she actively gets in their way.

Just this 40 something scrawny tomboy looking woman in a red beanie threatening to hit a bunch of superpowered teens with a broom because "Last time you got one of them rocks I had to clean up MOON DEBRIS!"

4) What would you say is the utility of side characters in your story?

Flavor and environment.

 

[Duleigh]

In We're a Wonderful Wife my favorite is Kim-ly Nguyen. She's the bad girl that can do or say anything, a real troublemaker and a true comic. The series actually starts with her and will end with her front and center. I love her because Asian women are rarely written like her, but I've met many women that are like her in so many ways, funny, sincere, outgoing, troublemakers, yet smart and faithful to their friends and family. So many Asian women are written as shrinking violets, or tiny, fragile things. That's what people like Kim-ly want you to think.

A new favorite side character is Maxine, she first appeared in Amorous Goods: Black Pearls. She doesn't look, act, or feel it, but Maxine is well over 80 years old, she looks like she's the same age as her youngest daughter (28). I don't explain why, and I probably never will because she's too much fun. Maxine does what Maxine wants because she's so old experienced, who's going to tell her No? Maxine has been there, and done that and has a world of knowledge yet untapped. She was a Gunnery Sergeant in the USMC in the early 1960's. Her daughter Vicki inherited Amorous Goods, a shop full of magical items, and Maxine feels that she's entitled to use any item in the store, so she'll pop in and out of unrelated stories whenever I need a comedic foil.

Have I ever given a side character a bigger role? yes, Ming Yu Long in AI Era: Agent AI was supposed to be a toss away badass, one or two snarky lines and she was supposed to take a bullet - cranial ventilation - advanced lead poisoning. But I saw something in that character than needed redemption, I saw she was a victim of her evil father, so she became co-hero.

Another side character that got a bigger role was Tam Nguyen, Kim-ly's older sister. She is cool, no two ways about it, she could out Bond James Bond if I let her, so I gave her a side story of her own, a story that received some incredible feedback from blind Literotica readers (and one blind Literotica writer) Blindsided by The Blind Guy.

 

[Voboy]

1) Do you write side characters? (Why or why not?)

Routinely. I like making them interesting. I LOVE the process of fleshing out characters, whether they're leads or sides.

2) Have you ever liked a side character so much that you gave them a bigger role? Who were they and what did you like about them?

All my stories start out as explorations of where the side characters [from other stories] go and what they do. Most of the time, it works. Occasionally, it doesn't. No biggie either way.

3) Who's your favorite side character that you've written? What are they like? Why are they your favorite?

Many are like extras in a film; they're there as scenery, but I hope the scenery is interesting. Others are set up as foils to the main characters, in classic literary fashion. My favorite is an enigmatic young lady who drifts in and out of other characters' stories, but never ever takes a leading role (and barely ever speaks). Other characters think about her, talk about her, speculate about her... but we never really know. The reader never finds out, because I don't know either. Her name is Gretchen. She's a cross country-running barista-turned-film student.

4) What would you say is the utility of side characters in your story?

They add to the verisimilitude of the story. In real life, the side characters are actual, believable people. Why can't they be in a Lit story, as well?

 

[TheRedChamber]

Side characters are important. They can fufill any number of useful roles in an erotic story.

1) If one of your MC's traits is 'everyone wants to fuck him', have some side characters who want to fuck him.
2) If your female MC's trait is 'socially awkward around men', have her be non-socially awkward around women - otherwise readers will just think she's 'socially awkward period'
3) Having side characters allows them to hover on the MC's shoulders angel and demon style encouraging them to go down the good or bad route ("Fucking this woman would be highly illogical, Captain," verses "Damn it Jim, you're a man not a monk. She's right there waiting for you.")
4) SIde characters can leave the reader guessing as to who your MCs one true love is eventually going to turn out to be.
5) If all else fails, having your male MC need to punch a side character can add some much needed testosterone to your story.

 

[NakedNymph]

I haven't written anything for Lit yet, but my take on side characters is that they're really important for fleshing out the world and making it feel alive. Side characters might be side characters in this story but they've got their own lives, backstories, and plots. Our protagonists are side characters to their story, it's just that their story isn't the one being told. When that feels real, the world feels a lot more alive.

 

[PennameWombat]

This isn't an advice column, I just want to hear about your side characters. They can be published or a part of a work in progress. It's a fun show and tell section so feel free to ask people questions about the characters.

I've numbered the questions for those who don't want to rewrite them. Feel free to skip any for any reason.

1) Do you write side characters? (Why or why not?)

How else can I write a ‘full’ story? Yeah… yeah, I know I need only two people (unless I’m doing something in Toys and Masturbation ) but I rarely write those.

2) Have you ever liked a side character so much that you gave them a bigger role? Who were they and what did you like about them?

I write in multiple shared universes. So a side character in one story or series is often by design a main character in a different series and vice-versa. Some side characters float in and out as side characters across many of the stories.

Closest I have to such a character is my high school English teacher turned policewoman, Joyce Shaw. She first appeared in A Tale of Two Parties, but became the central character in Chasing Robes and Shadows. She’s had key appearances in additional stories. But I’d always considered her general arc, so it’s a stretch to claim she was a side character who grew. But she has become more prominent than I originally envisioned. Mainly because she provides a useful foil against Mel and Chris and offers an aspect that better reflects their ongoing story.

3) Who's your favorite side character that you've written? What are they like? Why are they your ?

My absolute favorite is Marsha, from City of Angels. She lived at a time when having a crush on another woman was not something openly displayed. But the misfortune that befell her just when her deepest desire had come true was something that she could’ve never dreamed of. But she was vital to Janet’s (the MC) achieving her true desire. She didn’t appear in but her memory played a small but important part in Predators (which is set about a quarter century later.)

I also have a soft spot for my Stonehenge terrorists, Patrick, Brigid and Cherry. Depending on which timeline I’m on, they are alive (Chasing Robes and Shadows) or dead (You Promised Me Geeks: UK Summer). Cold-blooded killers who started something they didn’t fully comprehend. But without Sheryl Grace, they’d have never found their calling.

And Bonnie Baxter, a slightly drug-addled twenty-something who’s had a shit life but manages to find at least a few of the small, good things that keep her going. Her story winds in and out with Joyce Shaw’s. She’s an expert pickpocket and when she meets her Wolfman, their futures looks like they might be bright. Alas.

4) What would you say is the utility of side characters in your story?

Cops. Criminals. Coworkers. FBI agents. Gangsters and bikies. Mothers in bikinis. Whatever I want them to be and do.

It’s a whole world out there.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I mostly write in first-person from the MC husband's POV, so everyone else is effectively a side character. His girlfriend/wife became the MFC in all the stories.

As I've added other characters, I bring some back in later chapters or other stories to reuse them for the traits I built. For example, I wrote a series chapter in December about sex clubs, where I described a dominatrix and her female sub at a sex club. The sub was a female exec who just liked to "zone out" and be told what to do sometimes. When I wrote my "On The Job" story in April, I brought those characters back (but I changed the Dom's name to Denise) as the side characters in describing consensual BDSM relationships to my MCs.

I try describing different traits in the side characters to build a more diverse world of characters, with the story arc of "It takes all kinds" in this world.

My favorite "side" character is my MFC Jan, as described by her husband from his first person POV. She's intelligent, sexy, flirty, confident, and wild, but a devoted wife and partner for him. I wrote my latest chapter 13 from a divorced guy's POV to try shutting down the LW trolls by showing her as a more loving and devoted wife for her husband.

 

[SimonDoom]

I had to think about this one for a while, because my stories tend to have small casts, and they overwhelmingly focus on the main characters involved in a sexy relationship of some kind. My side characters tend to play relatively small roles, usually serving as foils, advisers, or spurs to action in some way, but not necessarily being very interesting.

But if I had to choose, I'd pick . . . me. I cast myself as a kind of alter ego named Simon in my Slut Lessons story, in which I orchestrate the events between a husband and wife, who are the main characters. In the story, I am not a POV character. It was fun to write a story in that way and to imagine myself in that role. In a way I'm writing about myself authoring a story within the story.

 

[MrPixel]

But if I had to choose, I'd pick . . . me. I cast myself as a kind of alter ego named Simon in my Slut Lessons story, in which I orchestrate the events between a husband and wife, who are the main characters. In the story, I am not a POV character. It was fun to write a story in that way and to imagine myself in that role. In a way I'm writing about myself authoring a story within the story.

I might borrow this idea. It would be interesting to create a similar "me" character as an older fellow who becomes a regular at the hotel bar, always wearing a bemused expression in witnessing/appreciating the MCs' antics. I may have already created him in one scene. I'll have to check.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Cripes...

Well, from Time Rider, that's Nanu, without question. She's an Egyptian slave girl from the Roman empire, trying to make it in our modern world, where everything attempts to kill her. She thinks our social mores are stupid, everything is loud, and her favourite food is baloney. When it comes to food, she's basically Nibbles from the Tom & Jerry cartoons of the late 40's, coupled with a demonic sex drive.

The Alexaverse would be MUCH harder to pick one.

Jeanie is an adorkable idiot with a speech impediment (she can't say 'No'). If she applied for a job as a speed bump, they'd need to give her a second interview to make sure she understood the job.

Freja, Jeanie's Danish wife, if a brilliant tinkerer and engineer, with the morals of an alley cat. Her relationship with English is best described as a restraining order, and she insists on learning the hard way, which usually involves blowing herself up.

Lisa is a neurotic, gassy, lesbian Jewish redheaded activist, prone to whining and easily trolled by her friends for it. She's proven to be a lot of fun to write, I look forward to writing her parts.

Val, handmaid to Mike and Karen, is hilarious. Eager to please and usually in over her head (not hard, she's very short).

Come to think of it, all the gals I've mentioned except Jeanie are very short. Freja, Lisa, and Val are all just a shade over five feet, and Nanu is downright tiny, even by the standards of the ancient world. She's four-foot something.

Freja and Lisa both have little breasts and are self-conscious about it (Lisa whines, Freja punches). Val and Nanu both have big boobs on tiny frames, which makes lots of other women very jealous. Both flaunt it, too. Jeanie is average height, has pretty big boobs, and complains that she needs to exercise more (read: more sex) because she's getting dummy thicc.

Jenny. Gawwwwwd, Jenny, where to begin... she's a total party girl stuck in a countess' body. She has blithe and funny observations and she loves getting it in. Her predilection for brütal hangovers (note the umlaut over the u, meaning it's serious) and complaining like they're not her fault is wonderful. She's gorgeous and sassy, what's not to love?

All these characters are comedic, that's why they're my faves, no question. I know I listed six people, but this is a tough question for me to answer.

 

[NotWise]

1) Do you write side characters? (Why or why not?)

I do. I think it would be hard to write a story with just main characters.

2) Have you ever liked a side character so much that you gave them a bigger role? Who were they and what did you like about them?

Penny in "Watch Me!" started out as a mechanism for bringing Chad and Rae closer. I found a photo of a ballet dancer that I pictured as Penny and used it as wallpaper while I was writing the story. Every time I sat down she looked at me from the screen and said, "Write about me."

She got a promotion.

3) Who's your favorite side character that you've written? What are they like? Why are they your favorite?

I've had quite a few side characters that I like, but only one I liked so much that I considered writing another story about them. That was DeeDee from "No Brand on My Pony." I scrapped the idea when I realized her story would be tragic.

I have another tragic story in the wings. Maybe someday I'll either find a venue for them or get up the courage to post one here.

4) What would you say is the utility of side characters in your story?

I use them to help tell the story. Large parts of my tales are told through dialog, so there has to be someone to talk to. Aside from that, different characters have different roles depending on the needs of the story.

Writing this makes me realize that most of my significant secondary characters are women.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It was fun to write a story in that way and to imagine myself in that role. In a way I'm writing about myself authoring a story within the story.

I wrote a three part story where a character recognises herself as the inspiration for an earlier story, and contacts the "author" and they meet - it's an Adam story, and goes all self-referential where he/I blur as the author. A ton of fun to write, circling back on my own writing.

The original (earlier) story was in fact based on a real life encounter I had with a Maddy in the street, where we talked together, walked together, introduced ourselves, until I went into my building and she went on down the street. Stupidly, I didn't get her number.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My significant side characters tend to end up with their own stories...

Rachel in Gas Station Guy has two housemates, who cheer her up after a breakup and end up addressing questions like "if lesbians don't do cock, do they buy cock-shaped toys?". Ellie seems shy and quiet but actually thinks about sex a lot, resulting in a string of crap ex-boyfriends.

Ellie was perfect to become the lead in my Romance Homesick Halloween, so Rachel moved out and a nice American chap moved in. Rachel and the other housemate helped him and Ellie eventually get it together.

They all work in a science research place and travel the world meeting at conferences. (Scientists Booze. Hotel rooms. Sex ensues!) I've got an increasing cast of side characters who have assisted in moving plots along or just adding some character to various situations - Rachel and a lairy middle-aged Frenchwoman Marion get Emily and Bradley together, for example.

There's a couple lab heads this crew work for or look up to (Verity, Sandy), and they'd be shocked to know Verity (hard-boiled, 50s, brassy hair, proudly single) and Sandy (same age Scotsman, doesn't suffer fools gladly, lived in New England for 20 years now) have actually been shagging for 25 years when on the same continent (haven't written that yet).

Then there's Richie, 'arrogant dickhead genius with stupid piercings and long ginger hair' and terrible social skills. Blunt and tactless, mix of on purpose and can't help it. He first walked in on Bradley and Emily, but then insisted on getting involved with Educating Laura, where a young lass working at a summer camp has a lovely colleague but they're both very shy... Cue Richie plonking his size tens in with lines like "You like him, he wants to shag you, what's the fucking problem?" Next thing we know he's in seven chapters, another woman (Ali from Wheelchair Bound?) has been drafted in, and there's another spin-off where Rich and another series protagonist had dysfunctional drunk student gay experiments.

Possibly my favourite side characters who have stayed that way are Gareth (gay, plays Michael Hutchence in a tribute band, lawyer, single), and Will and Lindsey (married, from Belfast/Newcastle, two small kids, Will can't hold his drink, both are in the background being incredibly normal, for the rest of the characters in Smoking Hot to bounce off). Poor Gareth keeps ending up on the cutting room floor - he got a little dialogue and a one-line sex mention in Third Time Getting Lucky, but his own story keeps petering out as he's too defensive to actually get a relationship going...

 

[jaykaythree]

Right now, my front runners in this category are Gil and Marlee Swindon, first introduced in Naples, Missouri .

Their daughter is that story's female lead, and Gil and Marlee have much to do in shaping the futures of not only their daughter, but her romantic interest (later her husband) at a critical point in their lives.

In the story I'm working on now, Gil and (especially) Marlee remain side characters but take more of leading action.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

In one of my stories I never managed to finish, I had a side character by the name of Jan, a gay Austrian-Hawaiian man who was a pimp with a heart of gold and ran a karaoke bar in Waikiki that catered to Navy sailors and Japanese businessmen as his main hustle.
Never finished writing the story because I just couldn't sympathize at all with the main character. But he was super fun to write. He had personality. Would love to pull him off the bench someday.

 

[Mnkinkcpl]

I actually had to go back and read this story My time with Heidi since I wrote it so long ago under a different pseudonym. But Scarlett is my favorite side character.

There are a few reasons why. One is that she is based on my wife Anne and second is that she is everything I love in a playmate, sexy, confident in her sexuality, funny.