  Mystery
This week: Best supporting characters Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week: "No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye."
~Elizabeth Bowen |
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Many authors spend a lot of time developing the main protagonist and antagonists of their stories, while leaving the other characters somewhat neglected and underdeveloped. In a mystery story, secondary characters are just as important as the main ones. All suspects need to be developed as well as the one who will be found guilty. If you spend too much time on the guilty party at the expense of the other characters, the readers will sense it. Other characters might not be among the suspects, but may provide vital clues to the solution.
Each of your suspects has to be believable as the perpetrator of the crime, but there also must be a plausible reason to exonerate each one. The identity of the guilty party should be somewhat unexpected, but not unbelievable. Remember this as you plan the backstory of your characters. Ideally, all suspects should be equally suspicious. Experienced readers of mystery know that the villain will not be the person who looks most guilty or most innocent.
Develop a back story for all characters even if it is not going to be used in the story. Get to know each character as if he or she is going to be the main character. Here are some items you might want to develop:
Where and when was the character born?
Are their parents still alive? Do they get along with them?
What does the character look like? How do they speak? Do they have any type of accent? What type of clothes do they wear?
How many brothers and sisters do they have?
How much money did their family have?
What is their educational level, and where did they go to school?
Are they married or in a relationship?
Do they have children?
Are they religious, and if so, what religion?
What is their political affiliation if any?
What type of home do they live in, and what does it look like? Is it neat and clean or cluttered?
Does the character like to read, and if so, what types of literature?
What type of music does the character like?
What do they do in their spare time?
You can probably think of other items you might want to include as well. Remember, this information should not be included in the actual story unless it is important. The main purpose of answering these questions is for you to get to know your characters and make them more complete.
As you develop the characters in your story, try them out in different roles. Maybe someone who was initially planned as a minor character, or one who would be killed off toward the beginning, would actually make a great major character. Sometimes this happens naturally, because characters often take on lives of their own.
When Ed McBain began writing his "87th Precinct" series, he did not intend to have a main character. His intention was to have a the cast of detectives change over time as they would in a real police department. McBain originally wanted to kill off the character of Detective Steve Carella after just a couple of books. His editor objected, saying, "You can't kill him. He's the hero."
McBain argued that there was no hero, and that the real main character was the precinct itself. His editor persisted, and Carella was allowed to survive. He eventually did become the unofficial main character of the series, even though several stories focus more on other detectives. This is a case of a character taking on a life of his own and emerging as the "hero" of the story in spite of the author's intentions. I agree with the editor. Killing off Carella would have been an unnecessary waste of a good character, and the series probably wouldn't have been as good without him.
Something to try: Take a minor character from any of your stories, and write a short story with that character as the main character. |
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Mystery: January 17, 2018 Issue [#8706]
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