On May 13, 2011, bluekiwii wrote, ….I often have the problem that I concentrate solely on one character as I do a scene and the result is that I often neglect the other characters in the scene –making his/her speech patterns, overall behavior, and, well, “character” inconsistent. This often happens because I’m so in tune with the main character’s mind-set, that I sort of forget the mind processes that the characters reacting to the MC have. How do guys avoid this?

In A Tale of Two Castles, the ogre Count Jonty Um is usually with his dog Nesspa, who’s important to the story, but, since this isn’t a talking-animal tale, he doesn’t speak. As I wrote I tended to forget the dog was there, and the reader would forget, too. Then, when he comes into the action, the reader has to leave the story for a moment to think, Nesspa? Then the reader may page back to make sure Nesspa was in the scene to begin with. By that time the reader is feeling sleepy or hungry or checking to see what her own dog is doing, and the book is closed to be picked up later or never again.

The solution was to cause a refrain to go through my head as I wrote and as I revised. Where’s Nesspa? When did I mention him last? Put him in. Put him in. Put him in.

Since he doesn’t talk, I needed other ways to bring him forward. Count Jonty Um, who loves him, could look around for him. Elodie, my POV character, could think about him or make sure he isn’t putting his nose where his nose shouldn’t be. Somebody could give him a command or say something else to him. Or he could bark, snuffle, whine, put his head in somebody’s lap. When you write this kind of situation, your mentions can and probably should be short, but a page shouldn’t go by without one.

In Beloved Elodie which I’m working on now, Count Jonty Um himself is the problem. In A Tale of Two Castles, he’s central to the action so he never fades into the background. But in the new book he’s not the focus and he does tend to disappear, for all he’s eleven feet tall. Trouble is, he’s shy and not talkative; he can speak, but he rarely does. I have to treat him almost as if he’s a dog, give him actions, have Elodie think about him, have a character speak to him or ask him a question, forcing him to speak.

I’ve decided to intersperse chapters here and there from other characters’ POV, including Count Jonty Um’s. One reason for doing this is to bring the ogre more to the fore. If I’m writing from his POV the reader hears his thoughts.

If you neglect characters in a scene, you keep happy accidents from happening. Let’s say the star of a scene is Harlin, who, along with his friends, Jana and Sylvie, is in the wizard Florian’s stronghold and meeting the wizard for the first time. Florian has been causing havoc in the friends’ home town: tornados, spontaneous fires, rampaging bears on Main Street. The friends have designated Harlin as their spokesman. The temptation will be to focus on Harlin and the wizard, but if we do, we may not give Jana a chance to surreptitiously lift the edge of a wall hanging and see a secret door behind it. We may not be aware that Sylvie thinks Harlin is bungling things, and she’s getting angrier and angrier until she has to burst into speech. Maybe she provokes Florian into revealing something he doesn’t want to tell.

Part of the solution to bringing your secondaries in is mechanical, merely a matter of reminding yourself until it’s automatic that there are four people in the scene, and all of them have thoughts, feelings, actions. Although you don’t have direct access to your non-POV characters’ thoughts and feelings, your main can guess at them or they can express them in dialogue and action. So, get a reminder refrain going as I do, both while you write and as you revise.What’s doing with my secondaries? What are they doing, thinking, feeling, saying?

The rest of the solution is to ask yourself questions about your subordinate characters, to get interested in them in this scene in which they aren’t the most important actors. How does Jana react when Florian pulls out his wand? Why is Sylvie crossing her arms? What got Florian muttering in a language nobody else understands?

You might try recasting your scene, just in your notes, not in the ongoing story. In my example, I’d make Jana the main for the purposes of the exercise. She might be the one to speak to Florian, or, Harlin may still be the speaker, but the scene is told by Jana, focusing on what she notices and thinks and feels. Then you can write it again from Sylvie’s POV and Florian’s. When you have all four versions, you can roll them together, probably omitting a lot from Jana, Sylvie, and Florian, but still coming up with a more rounded whole.

And, as always, it can be helpful to have someone read your scene and say if your secondary characters seem to disappear and where that happens. This someone may also see opportunities to show them off.

Alas, I have the opposite problem, a tendency to let my secondaries steal the show. In Fairest, for example, I became fascinated by Queen Ivi and Skulni, the being in the mirror. I wrote scenes for them that had no place in the story, and when they were in scenes with my main, Aza, I gave them too much attention. The manuscript called forth an eighteen page, single-spaced letter from my editor, much of which was about the pages and entire chapters I should cut – sections I had spent months writing.

The downside, of course, is the wasted time and energy. The upside is that I got to know these intriguing characters, and they live for me outside the book that got published. (Too bad for the reader!) Often my side characters are even more interesting than my main, who has to be sympathetic and normal enough for the reader to identify with. There’s no restriction on secondary characters; they can be wild, eccentric, downright peculiar. If you let them breathe and expand in the scenes they’re in, they may dazzle you with their exotic natures.

Here are a few prompts:

•    Write four versions of the scene with Harlin, Jana, Sylvie, and wizard Florian, one from the POV of each. Then write a composite scene in third-person omniscient. Decide which you like best. Rewrite your pick so that your main is dominant but the others also shine.

•    Write the story “Snow-White and Rose-Red” from the point of view of the bear. Then write it from the point of view of the dwarf. (If you don’t know this fairy tale, I found a synopsis on Wikipedia.)

•    Write the scene in Pride and Prejudice in which Elizabeth first meets Wickham from Wickham’s POV. And/or write the dance scene in which Elizabeth first meets Darcy from the POV of Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte. And/or pick a scene in a different book you know well and write it from the POV of any side character.

Have fun, and save what you write!