Fall in LOVE With Your Side Characters – Tips for Writing an Unforgettable Cast of Characters

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for Mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the Kate and Abby show what's up guys welcome back to another episode of the Kate and Abby show today we're talking all about how to give your side characters internal conflict and show that internal conflict throughout your story so this is a question that I get asked a lot Kate and I get asked a lot on the podcast as well um on writing Side characters that once you start writing them you might find you struggle a little bit or hit a wall like how do I show the inner conflict that this side character is going through when they don't have a point of view so when you're not switching over into their perspective it can be difficult sometimes to figure out ways to show that struggle that this character is having especially if you're writing from first person perspectives and you're getting used to oh I have all this internal thought and dialogue that I'm able to utilize to show the conflict and then when you're just talking about the the side character which we're now seeing from a third person perspective of your protagonist it's like how do I get that same like potency with with their and their internal conflict as I do with my main character even though we're not seeing their perspective from a first person point exactly yeah it can be really tricky um so we're going to tackle this topic today and go over some of our favorite techniques that we have used that are tried and true techniques and that we've also seen done in other stories like our favorite books and movies and TV shows that really showcase the side characters internal conflict in a very natural easy kind of effortless way and how you can use these same techniques to make your side characters conflict effort list as well so super excited to get into this topic it's a highly requested one so we hope you guys enjoy this discussion but before we get into it we want to thank our patrons you guys are the sponsors of the Kate and Abby show we appreciate you so much if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the Kate and Abby show and help us keep it alive and free of interruptions also when you become a patron of the Kate and Abby show you get to join us for live monthly hangout sessions so we do that at the end of each month at the last day of each month we have a hangout together live stream and you guys can join us at any level of the patreon you can join us and ask us questions and we hang out and talk about stories it's super fun yeah it's really organic and it gives us a chance to connect more personally with you guys and we often ask like for you to tell us about like what you're working on and it just feels like a writer's group it has this fun energy and we kind of just all encourage each other and it's been neat to see everyone showing up to just hang out together yeah so when you join the patreon at any level you get access to those live streams and we hope to see you over there as well so let's get into today's topic how to write internal conflict about a character who we're not seeing inside their head so we're not going to their perspective but we can see what's happening beneath the surface what are some ways some techniques that we can use to bring that conflict to the surface without switching point of view so I think one of the first ways that immediately comes to mind for me first techniques is through dialogue because that's a technique where you have you know these characters interacting with each other and you have the opportunity to reveal what's going on with the other character now not necessarily like they're not gonna just like you know start unloading their internal conflict like well I'm worried about this and I I believe this and I have this struggle and I have this need and this want and they're not going to necessarily lay it all out like that but through dialogue dialogue I think is your best friend for starting to reveal these little hidden bits and pieces about the other character and I see you do that a lot in your writing too it's like even if it's just a little clue here and there about something that this other character is keeping a secret or you know something that they're not necessarily talking about maybe they don't even recognize that they're dealing with an issue themselves but it comes through their conversations it comes through their attitude food in their mood and how their mood changes based on like what's happening in their internal life and their personal life in the parts of their life that the main character doesn't know about right and so I think I think establishing think of it in terms of real life like maybe you can have a close friend or some family members or you know your own kids where you you can tell when something is off just by the way they behave yeah um so think of what is that exactly well that's from like you know a little bit of a psychology perspective it's you've established a benchmark based on what they're that's what their normal behavior is you've observed them long enough to know like okay this is their normal and then when you experience something other than that you're like oh is something up with them so it's based off of their behavior is a lot of time yeah a lot of times what creates a little warning flag of like something might be wrong are you okay yeah so it's the same for your character take time at the beginning of the book even if it's just a small amount of time to establish what is the norm for this character are they super buoyant and funny are they the comic relief character and then later when we see them not responding in conversations or not showing up to events or not jumping in and you know telling jokes and being the funny person that they normally are we see oh there's something kind of off with that character or they say something you know heavier and and we think okay wow what's going on inside that person because now we've seen like what they were like and they're kind of acting differently now so I think a lot of it and vice versa if you have a character who's more quiet and then suddenly you know they're saying specific things it might cause you to think okay something has changed something is going on so creating what is the normal for this specific character with whatever unique traits um are present there yeah and then when we see the differences in the behavior that your main character will be observing through their perspective and they'll be noticing something different and the reader is going to be noticing that through their perspective yeah 100 I love that that's so true and that's really important to create that Benchmark at the beginning like you were saying because otherwise we don't know right yeah right it's just like oh this is an unpredictable character they do all kinds of things right but you can use your your point of view characters perspective your main character to set that set those parameters because they know this character and they know what their Norm is and they know when something seems off um and even you can even set that Norm not necessarily by having the main character say like well they're usually funny and Lively but today they look like this it could be even something that they're referencing in the past about this character's personality maybe just like a one-line two-line flashback to something really fun and um you know something that that portrays what this character is like in the past like some way that this character you know say it's the comic relief character who has like some sort of internal conflict that they're now struggling with maybe the main character sees that they're a little bit off and they're remembering a time when this this other character like did something really fun and surprising to make their day better and contrasting that with how they are now you know just like using little I guess Reflections sort of from the past to emphasize how things are different now or what they might be dealing with now um and I think you and I do this a lot and are writing respectively like just little flickers of the past that the main character will think about and that reference can be so powerful to show us the roots of this other character this side character you know what makes them who they are who were they in the past and how has that how does that now reflect upon what they're going through currently you know and reflecting on how they've changed over the course of time maybe or if the character is somebody knew that they just met you have the opportunity to like start to set that Benchmark from scratch sort of because they just met this person right and if that transformation has already happened maybe it's mutual friends or someone's saying oh you know they used to be like this and now lately they've been behaving this way yeah so a lot of it can be Behavior can also be through conversation picking up bits and pieces um nuances in conversation as well I think um kind of maybe a character saying something as if they're talking about someone else but in inadvertently they're giving their kind of telling a piece of Their Own Story through talking about another person yeah yeah we've talked about using that method before where it's like you know they're almost projecting their own thoughts onto someone else and it gives a glimpse into what they're actually thinking about their own lives yeah without coming right out and saying you know oh I feel this way about XYZ they might be projecting that belief onto a story that they're telling about another person right yeah exactly so interesting to me how like most of writing compelling believable characters has to do with just like understanding the psychology yeah because it's stuff that we deal with all the time every day in our own lives like you're saying with our own relationships and I think observing your own relationships in real life can be a great teacher of how to write relationships and characters in books because it helps you to sort out like okay what's really happening beneath the surface and that's and I love them the behavior thing because that's that's another way that I like to look at it is like misbelief and misbehavior so like the misbelief is what's happening below the surface and the misbehavior is what's happening above the surface and you can even think of it like you know the surface of a lake if there's something under the water in the lake moving around you're going to see the effect of that on the surface but you don't really know what it is under the surface but you can still see the Ripples and the disturbances and those Ripples and disturbances is what you're trying to write okay that's what you want to show through your main character's perspective and all they can see is the ripples on the water but it does it does illustrate and point to something beneath the surface and I think too like another thing you can do to enhance that and you'll I'll let you start I know you're going to dig into the Enneagram thing here but you can look at what what is the personality of your character and how would they express fear frustration disappointment yeah happiness sadness whatever emotion it is they're feeling discouragement how would they express it what would be their go-to emotion how do they vent that because everyone expresses these emotions differently some of us might become angry or aggressive about something yeah um or or the reaction might be to like shut off completely to pull back from other people to not talk about it to get really closed off and withdrawn so what what would their main expression be and I think that can help to bring it can help you tap into that internal conflict to really hone in on how would they be expressing these feelings yeah very true yeah and that's something that's different for each character like you're saying um and I think that's that's a mark of like good writing is when each character feels like they're so well developed that they become a little bit predictable they should become a little bit predictable in that they're you kind of are gauging like how they're going to react to something or how they're going to behave based on their personality yeah a good way to get to do is if like I at least I found for me you can tell me if this happens for you where sometimes you'll write a line that a character says and then you'll stop and be like they would never say that yeah and then delete it that's actually a great a great sign yeah that you're really tapped into what that character would say because for you to even be able to identify like that doesn't really sound like them yeah that's excellent yeah like do you find yourself doing that ever like definitely a sign once in a while you catch yourself that just doesn't sound like them yeah and that's a great Discerning um eye to have because to me like one thing that really sticks out to me about like amateurish sounding writing is when every character is like reacting the same way they sound the same way they all have like these really explosive reactions and it's like well everyone's different we all have different nuances to our personalities and not everyone expresses anger in an explosive way some people bottle up their anger or they you know they are a little bit passive aggressive or maybe they're just like burying this resentment and it comes out in like self-loathing there are all different ways that we deal with various emotions so yeah the Enneagram is a great place to start with that if you're a little bit lost with personality stuff then definitely check out the Enneagram personality typing system because it's a great springboard for creating very relatable and realistic characters because you don't have to just like take a type and be like okay they're this type I just follow this to the letter like no make it your own of course make it more subtle and layered and bring your character's unique internal conflict into it but you can use the parameters of a personality type to gauge what's realistic for them you know and not to step outs if you step outside that boundary a little bit too much it can start to feel like your character is unpredictable like they're shifting different personalities from one page each the next and we never know how they're going to react that shouldn't be the case you should feel like this character has absolutes to their personality you know like yeah they have certain things they always do they have certain things they never do they have certain things that just it's who they are you know how they react to certain emotions so figuring out how they react to emotions I think can really help to Showcase that internal conflict on the side when you're not in their head because you are seeing how they behave now you know maybe they're bottling up their anger maybe they're hiding their sadness about something or their heartbreak about something or maybe they are a person who deals with their Heartbreak by helping other people really aggressively or like trying to be selfless and take their mind off things and be really caring and loving and maybe that's their Outlet so then the the point of view character can observe that and be like okay what's going on here that this character is now doing like all this stuff that I know is a sign of they're dealing with something they're struggling with something internally right and if you can use that instead of having that character flat out say like you know oh I'm really hurting right now because of this this and this and I know I'm just doing these things because I'm feeling that hurt because that's coming at it from a place of being like a certified psychologist analyzing someone else because most of us I think it's safe to say don't always fully process all of our emotions or what we're dealing with that's why people will talk to others and go to therapy and cash things out with a loved one because they a lot of times we don't even fully process what we're thinking and feeling so sometimes when characters including Side characters especially that you're trying to you know be subtle with the way you're communicating their internal conflict and not just blurting it right out because a lot of times that conflict isn't going to be fully processed yeah they won't even know why am I doing this so sometimes I we've both seen like movies or TV series or even books where it's like the the side character because it's like well we don't know how else to communicate what this character is feeling so they're just going to come right out and say I'm feeling hurt because of this and so I'm behaving this way yeah and it feels so unnatural when a character just comes out and says that's like okay what nobody is able to self-analyze quite that well and quickly yes yes like for most of us it takes maybe years to even understand why oh maybe that's why I do that is because I'm trying to process this other thing right and even if they even once they have like an aha moment and they might even come out and say a like confess what they have learned about themselves they probably won't be able to put it in like such you know scientific traded terms yeah it'd probably be more like a a simple understanding of something real that's happening in their life usually pertaining to a goal so this is another way to like I would kind of like layer this on top of what's Happening um with your character as far as like what their their misbehavior their behavior on the surface layered on top of what they're going after like what is their goal that they're pursuing and how does that goal reflect upon what they are dealing with in the conflict that they're struggling with um and this will come into play with all sorts of different goals for your characters but when your character has a goal that they're actively pursuing and other characters in the story know about this goal like your main character knows about the goal that the side character has a lot of times we can better understand why somebody's doing something than they even know why they're doing it you know like oh I can see that you know she's going after this because really she's dealing with this thing so maybe even the main character has better insight into the side characters conflict than the side character has into their own conflict you know like they might see things that the other person doesn't even see because a lot of times we know our loved ones better than they know themselves you know right and that's why we can help advise them and guide them and help them on the right path is because we as an outside Observer can see more of the big picture whereas when you're you know when you're on your own path it's hard to see where some of those deeper struggles come from so sometimes the point of view character might know more about the side character than they know about themselves or sometimes they might know less and so the side character might be hiding some secrets from them or keeping something back and now there's this new goal sort of from for the main character to like figure out what's going on the right character what's happening beneath the surface here yeah I think it can especially be powerful too when maybe there's their purposes are crossing paths yeah like maybe what they're going after is the same as what the protagonist is going after and so now there's an even greater depth to their internal conflict because it's not just something they're going after it's something the main character is also going after right whether it's maybe a job or a relationship or something they want to do in life you know and that can just add to the complexity yeah yes 100 I love that yeah that's very true and um I think this is especially fun like the the outside Observer thing when you have a character who like I'm currently working on a story where the main character is sort of on the sidelines witnessing a side character like having this unrequited love for this other character and and really the main character can see that okay she really should be with this other person not this person that she's trying to be with and so we kind of have like this omniscient Viewpoint from the protagonist watching this side character knowing what's best for her but kind of being detached and gently guiding her towards what's best for her in a way that feels natural because we have this the protagonist kind of objectively observing the whole situation and seeing like okay she feels this way he doesn't feel that way he feels this way and I wish I could just like move these people around where they're supposed to be but we can't do that so we kind of just have to stand on the sides and gently encourage and try to point people in the right direction right you know if that's your goal which works out super well like if you're just the reader yeah that's always something versus when you're the reader yeah because it's so frustrating yeah so as the yeah when you're in the position of the writer like also being able to just feel it out as you flesh out your characters that's that's another thing is just stepping into their conflict as like as if there's someone that you know like creating this person in your head and creating their personality and okay this is how they would Express themselves and then if you can reference that person and think of it as a person like okay what would they do they just experienced this this confrontation from another person how would they react to that and think of it in terms of if it was if it's a real life person that you know and you're referencing a best friend How would this best friend of mine react in that situation you'd probably be able to say oh I know they'd they would say this you know we even say things like that in real life like oh I know what you would have said and yeah we should be able to feel that same way about our characters because we should sort of create this profile in our minds of this is their temperament and their personality and this is how they'd react whether they'd withdraw or lash out or not know what to do and and and so you can kind of reference that in your mind yeah yeah that's a very good point that's a great way to look at it because they should become like real people to you that you know and that you're you know you start to learn what their personalities like and how they would react to things before those things even happen to them um and just hypothesizing about what might happen yeah I think that's great that's a great great piece of advice to follow um and another thing if you want to dive deeper into this whole idea of like subplots happening on the side and we're not in the heads of the characters but we can see what they're dealing with because they're really conflicted Side characters I did a whole live training on this exact topic months ago possibly even a year and now a year ago now um but it's a really really solid live training packed with value and I think that if you're into this topic and you've watched this far into this podcast you're definitely going to get a lot of value out of that training um you can watch the replay the link is below this video if you want to check that out but in that training I go deep into like subplots how to make subplots progress on the side in a natural way where you have you know characters dealing with other things on the side and how do their plots intersect and interweave with the main characters plot because like you said it's like it's great to have those two lines sort of meet those two paths are crossing um and they won't always be Crossing like every single chapter but maybe every few chapters those lines sort of intersect and you have um another update on the subplot and how I like to look at subplots is it's like the side characters plot so it's basically like what the side character is going through is the subplot usually unless it's something extra that the main character is going through but a lot of times subplots are connected to a side character so it's easier to just think of them as like okay that person's over there doing that this person's over here doing this and their actions and interactions create the story you know right that's really like why I always say you know story isn't about what happens it's about why what's happening is mattering to the characters so how is what's happening to the side characters mattering to the main character and how are those two points of conflict meeting and you know suddenly it's not just something happening to them the thing that's happening to them now matters to me the main character because it's coming into my life and you know creating sorts of new conflict right you know because of the ways that it's clashing with what's happening to the main character so lots of different things to play with with um yeah crafting subplots and just try different things experiment see what you like see what you don't like see what works you can always go back and make changes and enrich Side characters which you've explored a lot with rewriting stories uh Abby has been working on some rewriting projects and she's like wow you know it's amazing how you can go back and you can take a side character that didn't have that much life breathed into them and you can give them a whole new story so there's always opportunities to Circle back to it these so don't like freeze up on it you can always make changes and another um we did another episode like a couple months back that was a story mining episode of outside characters as well crafting compelling Side characters and we use a bunch of examples from a bunch of different series that we love so if you guys are looking for a little bit more on how to craft compelling Side characters you can Circle back to that episode and enjoy listening through that and getting even deeper into this topic yes definitely check that out we'll link that below this video as well as the live training I mentioned before and it's definitely a topic worth digging deep into because to me it's like you can never get deep enough into your characters and making them more real and relatable and layered it's so much fun especially if you're writing like a series where you have you know multiple books in the series and each book you want to bring new conflicts for your side characters which we've been exploring a lot in our own Series yeah yeah it's been a really cool exploration and finding new ways to like keep it interesting um and try new things and like explore some new layer of their of their character so lots of opportunities for improving your writing and also just having fun you know having a new adventure each time yeah so yeah check out all those links and thank you guys for joining us for this discussion if you liked it smash the like button and comment below and tell us what are some of your your favorite Side characters that you love in stories in books TV shows movies what are some of your favorite Side characters and how have their con how do their conflicts reveal themselves that's a really good thing to study if you're going to study some of your favorite stories look at like okay there's this side character that I really love how was their conflict brought to the surface in a way that I could clearly see what they're dealing with without having to switch to their perspective so another great question to ask yourself as you are digging into stories and kind of mining them for inspiration so do that comment below and tell us about it and thank you guys so much for watching this episode thank you again to our amazing patrons who make this show possible we couldn't do without you guys and we so appreciate your support so go to patreon.com the Kate and Abby show to help us keep this podcast alive and free of interruptions and we will see you in the next one until then stay stuffed and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 9,299

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Id: PdMWAyEEJXA

Length: 29min 22sec (1762 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 11 2023