Young Writers Society

Background Characters, and How they Can Seriously Screw You Over

A crap background character isn’t any good for anyone. It’s like a tiny gray blurb that no one will remember. Sucks, especially if you’re supposed to remember them. You will remember stories where the background character stood out. For instance, Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. There was a bartender there who, though only in a few scenes, said the occasional cutting remark. I remember him. So, no matter who your background character is (a woman ahead of your protagonist in line, the coffee-shop girl, a random old scary guy on the street), he or she is obviously important, because he or she has space time in your novel. So make it count. There’s no point in making a space-filler. Even if the background character is a space-filler, make it interesting anyway. Give it realism (a pretty girl who spilled coffee down her really cute top and skirt), make it frightening (the man was hunched over, he had a high pitched voice that carried a desperate tone), make it funny (Oliver, ahead of you in line, explaining the origin of his name on his cell phone), give it a purpose (he wanted to bang the girl ahead of him on the escalator, she had an ass like Jessica Simpson), you can even get your own messages across (the girl at the club walked up to the DJ and started making a fit over the music, saying it was sexist, making all women a sort of faceless body good for nothing but an easy screw. Have her call the rappers “chauvinists looking for a bitch-in-a box and an easy f*** to stroke their ego…and something else, at that…”)

My point is that these tiny blurbs who get maybe one or two scenes of screen time need to be interesting in themselves. A forty-something year old crying on a bench and blubbing into her cell phone that her husband left her that the main character walked past on his way home, a stripper with a sad gleam in her eye and a diagonal scar barely hidden by her tight, plastic costume. A homosexual man twittering along in a fairy costume for god-knows-why. I’m just saying that background characters need to have depth and interest, and need to imply that they have their own distinct personalities. The way a woman holds her hanky, fresh and clean, at the local McDonald’s, the reallyreallysuperspeedyfast tone that a man uses on his cell phone, the way this strange teenage boy can’t look anyone in the eye, ever…

Background characters add flavor. And if they’re flavorless, it will definitely draw away from your novel.

Well... it just depends how flavorful the novel is. If it's already quite flavorable enough, then you don't need to go overboard.

Sometimes they don't need to be described. It just depends. You, the writer, shouldn't be obsessed about making the background characters stand out. Instead, think of background characters as the atmosphere.

For instance, in my story, there aren't many background characters, mostly because the characters are generally secluded from reality. But one of the first background character is the driver. He's not really important or even described. He just drives. The important thing is that I need to show the reader how rich the man is that he has a driver.

Elsa, on the other hand, is a background character, but whenever she appears in the story, she is treated as a main character because her actions do have a profound effect.

So yeah.

It doesn't have to be exciting. Sometimes, background characters need to be expanded on. But other times, it's irrelevent. Look at the story and decide what's right for it. And, if you can develop a background character, by all means, do it. But, if that halts the story, then don't. Let it be.

In the end, good judgement is always better.

Good advice there, and I agree with you and Snoink.

With Stickit's advice, I agree that background character's can't be treated as a spec of dust. In some minor respects, they should be treated as main characters. What I mean by that is, these 'blurb' characters who may only play a minor role should have depth and personality.

In my novel, I have many background characters. Some are hidden in the shadows, only making their presence by newspapers or my main characters talking about them in dialogue. By the third chapter, those background characters take the stage, and play critical roles.

Other parts, I have 'blurb' chars that take the stage for only one scene, and that's that, the reader will never see them again but I believe they will remember them because of their quirks, physical appearences or special traits.

I didn't mean to turn my reply into an encylopedia, but all in all, I third the opinions. Make sure these brief characters have personalities, or they might as well be 'Yesturday's News.' Cliche, I know, but it'll suffice.

I agree with all advice on this thread, which is a bit confusing, but none the matter. In any case, my backgruond characters are usually very defined characters that question the deeper things about my characters, since the people close to them wouldn't delve that deep so quickly.

Agreed! Background characters should have life and not be rocks laying on the road. But don't go overboard by discribing every single background characters. This will become slow and boring, fast. Shoot for a few memorable ones and just kind of ignore the rest or give a vauge over view of them. Or use them to discribe the setting. Depending on the BG characters, the read will be able to tell if your at the grocery store, a volcano, or a rave.

Good point Snoink.,..and everyone else.