Walk on By: Secondary Characters

Secondary characters are the seasoning in your story soup.

Who can be secondary characters, or sidekicks? Often, they’re the protagonist’s best friend, but they can also be a family member, co-worker, neighbor, or even a frenemy. Sidekicks give the hero and heroine someone to talk to, someone to confess their feelings to, someone to be honest with. Sidekicks can say things your heroine or hero need to hear. Secondary characters can act as the hero’s conscience. Secondary characters often provide comic relief with quirky characteristics, either physical or in their personality.

If you’re writing a series, a sidekick can be the main character in the next story. Susan May Warren is a master at this. Her series, Global Search and Rescue, starts with friends Jenny, Aria, and Sasha on Mount Denali. They meet Orion, Jake, and Hamilton. Book Two is Aria and Jake caught in a hurricane in Florida, with Jake’s friend and boss Ham Jones, the hero of book Three. Warren’s Christiansen Family and Montana Marshalls series all focus on different family members in each book.

Or the secondary character could be a common character in each story in the series. The coffee shop barista with hair that’s a different color each week. The waitress at the diner who never writes down an order but never mixes them up. Or constantly mixes them up. Gayle Roper’s Seaside Seasons series has a guy with a metal detector on the beach in each book. He often has a word of wisdom to pass on with the buried treasure he finds. J.D. Robb’s In Death series has the candy thief who steals Eve Dallas’s candy no matter where she hides it in her office. Nora Roberts (writing as J.D. Robb) has promised to reveal the candy thief when she ends the series, which I’m happy to say looks like won’t be happening any time soon.

The secondary character can provide what James Scott Bell calls the “man in the mirror” moment. This is when your protagonist looks at their life and who they are, then decides if they’re happy with that or are going to change. The sidekick can give your hero or heroine advice or feedback, facilitating that man in the mirror moment and assisting the change.

In the movie Sleepless in Seattle, Rosie O’Donnell played Becky, Meg Ryan’s character Annie’s best friend and editor. Becky provided a sounding board for Annie to talk to about how crazy her obsession was with Sam, the “Sleepless in Seattle” caller to the Dr. Marcia radio show. When Annie pitched Becky an article about the Dr. Marcia show, Becky (and the viewer) clearly knew Annie was really asking if she should try to find and/or meet Sam.

Sometimes a secondary character will walk into your story and try to steal the scene. Be careful to keep the spotlight where it belongs: on your main characters. If your secondary character turns into a scene stealer, give them a stern talking to, then consider offering them their own future story. That will usually convince them to play nicely for the rest of your current project.

Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.

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