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- Herausgeber: Publishdrive
- Sprache: Englisch
It takes a village to populate a book. Writing Supportive Supporting Characters looks at the different ways they can advance your plot, build your world, and reveal your main characters. From Secondary Leads to the hum of the crowd, Tere Michaels gives you ideas and tools to make your Supportive Characters memorable.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Writing Supportive Supporting Characters
Writer Garage Craft Series
Book One
Tere Michaels
Writer Garage
Copyright © 2025 by Tere Michaels/Writer Garage
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 979-8-9903515-3-0
Formatted with Vellum
This one is for Rayna, my first publishing friend, and the person who asked me if I wanted to teach a workshop. That question opened up an entirely new side of my career, and I love it. Thank you! Love you!
Contents
Introduction
1. What Supporting Characters Can Do For You
2. The Second in Command
3. A Rich Tapestry
4. Getting to Know You (Well, Not All of You)
5. Non-Humans Need Love Too
6. The Goldilocks Paradigm
7. An Interlude About Subplots
8. Sourcing Your Supports
9. The Collective
10. George Washington Walks Into a Bar…
11. Baddies
12. Just Say No…
In Summation…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
At the end of the day, no matter what the genre or trope, whether it’s happening in Alabama or on Mars, we are all trying to create the best possible characters to tell our story.
Writers spend a lot of time on their main characters – our heroes, our villains. We want them to be unique and memorable, leaping off the pages or screen to grab the reader and pull them into the world.
But that world needs to be populated. By names and faces (and the nameless and faceless) who bring forth information, distractions, difficulties and even just color and commentary. They are the supporting characters and to forget to give them the attention and depth they deserve is to short-change both yourself and your readers.
We will explore different types of supporting characters, how to make them work for you and your story, how to create a future main character (without letting them take over), and more!
This book was culled from the many workshops I’ve taught over the years, and all the students who asked questions! It purposely has a “conversational” feel because I want you to feel like like you’re being “taught” and more like we are sharing information.
So enjoy! And if you have questions, you are welcome to contact me via www.writergarage.com.
Happy Writing!
Tere Michaels
What Supporting Characters Can Do For You
Think about your household. Who lives there? Who is a regular visitor? Do you have a cleaning lady? A pet sitter? Does your sister have a key and drop-in habit?
Think about your own neighborhood. Step outside and look right and left. Chances are you’ll see friends, familiar faces, and strangers. Or maybe goat and sheep. Or nothing at all.
Think about your job, your extended family, and the route you take to work. Your favorite restaurant. The people in your life you've never met except over the Internet.
Let us go back a bit further – to the hospital where you were born, the kids in your first-grade class, the people at college, your first job.
You get the idea.
Where this all happened is not nearly as important as the people who made it happen. Who shared the moment? Who shaped the moment? Who was a witness to your greatest failure or your greatest success?
Do you have the same relationship with all of them? Do you interact with them the same way? (Spoiler alert: Of course not.) If they each pooled together their interactions with you, what sort of portrait would emerge?
They’d each have a different view of you, that’s a fact.
My example, from my personal life, is my paternal grandfather's wake. His children and grandchildren knew him as a fun guy who LOVED Christmas, as well as beer, cards, cigars, and his family (not in that precise order...). At his wake, the funeral home piped in Christmas music (it was August) and his children put a six-pack, cards, and a cigar in the casket with him. It made everyone feel better, imagining him strolling into heaven with those props and my grandmother going, "Oh my GOD, seriously?". So the family knew this version of my grandfather. They loved that version. And then the visitors arrived, including his former co-workers at the bank where he was vice president for years. Some of them chuckled. And some were absolutely taken aback. What the heck was that? Beer?! They'd listen closely to the music and go, "Um...is that Christmas music? Why?!"
We all knew the same man, right? So why did some people laugh and some people act shocked? Why would 100 people who attended that wake all fill out a slightly different survey about the man in question? Maybe they'd all agree with him being friendly or charming or outgoing. Maybe a handful would talk about his perfectionism while someone else would term it "fussy." My grandfather wasn't a master spy with different identities, but knowing him was a unique experience to an individual, based on when they knew him and how they knew him.
Human interaction reveals character; how your main character talks to his mother differ from how he talks to his boss. (But what if his mother IS his boss?) As you introduce your characters and their emotional journey, their past and present – and the people who inhabit those spaces – will help you tell their story. A back-story is just words – but populating it with people and suddenly it starts to come alive.
The conversation turns exposition into action. Want to avoid info dumps? Consider how your character would relate this information to another person. How is the story different, depending on who they speak to?
Let’s use an example:
Bill is the sheriff of a small town, no-nonsense and emotionally stunted. He grew up there but in the shadow of a troublemaking younger brother. He’s the “good” one, the boring one. He doesn’t have friends or confidantes – he just does his job, steady and quiet.
So the townsfolk have a clear opinion of who Bill is.
But the writer knows that Bill has layers. He plays the classical piano. He grows antique roses. He’s a sentimental person with professional walls he feels he has to keep up. He’s guilt-ridden by his no-good brother’s life behind bars. We want to convey that to the audience in the best way possible.
Way #1:
Bill drove his pick-up to the end of the road, turning a quick left into Maddy’s driveway. In the dusky twilight, he parked under her shade tree and then he waited. A few minutes later, Maddy’s porch door swung open and the elderly woman and her tarnished silver walker began her slow tromp down the stairs.
He didn’t dare get out to help her. He knew better. Miss Maddy had been older than God for as long as he could remember; if he found out tomorrow she was a hundred and ten he wouldn’t even blink.
“I have cuttings!” she called, finally reaching the bottom step, the bag swinging off the belt of her housecoat. “Madame Alfred Carrier!”
“That’s quite a find.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, partially impatience and partially excitement. The second his shift was over, he’d be in the dirt like a little kid while the rest of Callan County kicked back at Laramie’s with a few dozen wings.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Bill said, Sunday morning church manners always at the ready.
“They’ll look good by your south wall!”
“That’s an excellent suggestion, ma’am.” Bill itched to open the door and help her make the journey between rickety stairs and his cruiser.
The walker and Maddy finally reached the driver’s side, her gray topknot barely visible over the door.
A slender hand shot up, the burlap sack containing his precious cuttings peeking over the side now in his eye line. He tried not to grin like an idiot.
