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How to Write Side Characters That Make Your Story Better
Ensure your side characters leave a lasting impression
No matter how well-written, your main character can’t carry the story on their own. At some point, they’re going to interact with other characters. If those characters aren’t as phenomenal as your protagonist, you will have problems — namely, that readers will dread certain parts of your story.
What to avoid
On the scale of badly written side characters, there are two extremes: NPC and too-cool-for-this-place.
An NPC (non-player character) is a term used when talking about video game characters who are programmed to do very specific things. An NPC has a few lines of dialogue, maybe a couple of actions, and very clearly exists only to impart that information.
Sometimes you need a character to say a couple of sentences to lead your protagonist in the right direction, but you can do better than an NPC.
A too-cool-for-this-place character is fun to write. They’re grand. They’re exciting, and you think surely that must make them interesting to readers. But ‘cool’ is only worthwhile if it’s meaningful, and writing a character solely based on that coolness factor will give you someone that doesn’t gel with your story.
