Writing Tips — Secondary Characters

At this week’s Story Club, my young writers’ workshop, we looked at secondary characters (or the fancy name, deuteragonists).

We discussed both helpful ‘best friend’ secondary characters and difficult ones who get in the protagonists’ way. Ron and Hermione are wonderful best friend characters to Harry, the protagonist in Harry Potter. They bring complementary skills to the plot. Ron has knowledge of the magical world, and access to magic items such as the flying car. Hermione is great at spells and brings a lot of cool magic to the plot in that way. And in the films especially, Ron brings the comedy. The three work together as a team in their fight against He Who Must Not Be Named and they work well to convey a solid story.

What about Maui in the film Moana? He begins as a reluctant demi-god who doesn’t feel confident or inclined to help Moana’s mission to restore Te Fiti’s heart. Moana has to convince this secondary character to help her, despite attempts on his part to trap her in a cave or throw her off the boat.

So secondary characters can support the main character, or cause tension, or they can do both! So what did the young writers come up with?

Three young writers came up with a lonely main character. Their secondary characters (ranging from loving kitten to confident human) brought friendship and support. Other ideas were a character made of paint, colouring the world, and a time-travelling main character who finds different animal or human side-kicks to help out depending on when/where they go.

Some questions to help us think about secondary characters:

• Are they helpful to the main character or unhelpful, or both?
• Why is this secondary character in the plot (ie have they chosen to be in the main character’s mission, or did they get dragged along?)
• If it is a best friend, why are they the protagonist’s friend (ie what is the friendship bond based on?)
• How is the secondary character different from the main character? How are they the same?

Enjoy writing those characters!