Comments on: Revising characters

By: LauraJMixon

LauraJMixon — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 15:22:13 +0000

I like your advice. I think it’s particularly important to give attention to your minor characters and your villian/ antagonist.

By: Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:22:14 +0000

This is a good list. To which I’d add, emphasizing the cliche aspect of sidekicks: are they reacting like typical spear carriers? In other words, is everybody laughing uproariously at something the author wants us to take as wit from the protagonist? Are they all exhibiting the same expression of surprise when Heroine takes out her Magic Dingus? Different reactions–unexpected ones–underlines that they, too, have their own stories, even if, as George Elliott says, their lives “run in channels which have no great name on the earth.”

By: Kathryn Hinds

Kathryn Hinds — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:28:06 +0000

Thanks for this fantastic list; I’m printing out a copy so that I can refer to it again and again!

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 13:04:43 +0000

This is excellent, Carol. One of the little things I like to do is to try to look at every character and imagine, oh so briefly, that that person is the main character in the book. What would the book be like if you told it from that character’s point of view? How would that change the emphasis of the story? I’ve found it’s a pretty good way of getting inside a minor character’s head.