How Much Focus to Give a Supporting Character?

The situation you're describing reminds me very much of Bishop Myriel in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables: had he not granted Jean Valjean hospitality, had he not drawn him to a new path, we would never have had the reformed Valjean. Thus, Myriel's influence on the story is crucial and transformative. However, once Myriel's part in the story is done, he walks out of it, never to be seen again. Only his silver candlesticks continue making appearances, as a reminder.

So yes, having an important character in a small role that get the ball rolling is absolutely workable. And absolutely fine. There's no need for more involvement. Just give an occasional reminder of the influence that character has had, and it is perfectly enough.

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Galastel‭

1885 reputation 81 551 319 3

There are no right answers, though there are conventions that are typically followed.

One such convention is the 'pyramid' method. Known as the Characterization Pyramid.

(above is image of, dun dun duuuuuun, a pyramid. Please note, I'm being lazy. So I didn't put in too much effort to find a good image. Keep in mind, the point here is simply that it's a pyramid, meant to illustrate the importance of levels.)

How this works is, the bottom of the pyramid is your main character(s). The entire story hinges on the readers liking them and the readers will spend the most time with them. Therefore, they are the base, all others rest on them. And accordingly, they are the broadest section (most time spent on their development, characterization, etc.)

Then you get main supporting cast. They are usually those closest to the MC, so they tend to get a fair share of the spotlight and usually their own character arcs. (no hard and fast formula is used to show how much time, or how in depth an arc, or even how many arcs).

Then you get your supporting cast. They help, sort of, but not as much as the main supporting cast. These are most commonly the '2D' characters, though I would argue they still need to be well-rounded, you simply don't have enough screen time (or page space) to develop them too much. They almost never have an arc of their own, though it does make it quite interesting when there are supporting characters that do.

At the top is your background characters. These sometimes don't even have a name, but they are very much needed to show there's a world out there. The woman at the market that always has a warm smile and a kind word for the MC. The janitor the keeps grumbling things under his breath. Their main job is to show there's a world, on basically that's it.

However! Keep in mind that you, the god of this world you are creating, can do as you please. Maybe a nameless character has vital information that will drive the plot forwards. Maybe they'll give the MC(s) the motivation they need.

I like using the example from Genma's Daughter (and subsequent continuations), a Fanfic based on Ranma 1/2. In it, the main character, Ranko, finds her motivation to keep on keeping on (even after her existential crisis) almost entirely because of a little girl with otherwise little to no plot importance. Ranko, an aspiring violinist, loses chunks of herself, finding out her whole life has been a lie. But she finds a passion for the violin, almost by accident. But she's incredibly gun-shy because of her past.

She is asked to play an incredibly hard piece for a concert, and she finds it hard to find the will to put in the work. She's too busy trying to figure out who she is, so it's almost too much for her. But, one of her pseudo-sisters tells her the cold hard truth: there were no posters of women she could find, because no one found these women interesting enough.

So Ranko thinks on that little girl, and she decides she's going to be an amazing violinist, just so that she could one day be a poster in the little girl's room; to be someone the little girl can look up to, to aspire to become.

And so, a 'almost unimportant' character, because the sole driving force in motivating the main character.

So. How you, the writer, choose to do this is just that: a choice. How much time you spend on each character is just that: a choice. What you need to do is find a balance. And that can only come through trial and error (and beta readers... lots and lots of beta readers).

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Fayth85‭

210 reputation 0 28 39 0

From the sound of it, you are creating what I call a catalyst character. The dictionary definitions for this term are:

1. Chemistry. a substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected.
2. something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected.
3. a person or thing that precipitates an event or change:

Unlike the other characters, he doesn't end up being "transformed," but your story couldn't begin without him. So give him the importance he deserves (but not more).

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Tom Au‭

335 reputation 24 26 53 0

You say that this supporting character has little "screen time" but that they are a major motivator in the mind of your primary character. You also say that this character is the cause of a lot of the conflict and participates in the primary character's backstory. So this supporting character is "present" in the mind of the character, through all the struggles and recollections and is hopefully made happy by the ending of the story. A character doesn't need to be physically present, "on-screen" to be important to a tale.
Consider the victim in any murder mystery. They rarely have any screen time other than the discovery of their corpse in the opening scene. Still, the story would not even exist if not for their part in it.

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Henry Taylor‭

305 reputation 0 36 61 0

I think a story can work fine this way. Cinderella is helped by a fairy godmother at her crisis point in the story, that pretty much appears once in the story.

Many mystery / adventure / mission stories are instigated by characters in this way, the people bringing the case are introductory props never seen until the end when they act as amazed props for our fine hero to explain what happened.

Sometimes, not even that: The story ends in a life and death struggle for the hero in which the definitely bad villain is dropped screaming into an industrial cheese shredder.

Think of 007, his boss gives him a case (he would not have had otherwise) and the show ends with a dead villain and a roll in the hay for the successful 007.

It might help matters along if your introductory prop is clearly incapable of joining in the mission themselves. A Not Their Job situation, as in 007, or a PI tale, or a princess or elderly priest for a Knight's quest, an old dying man confessing his sins to the young and vigorous hero, a distraught mother of a kidnapped child. The hero's daughter kidnapped (Taken). Most of Die Hard does not show the hero's motivating characters from the beginning.

In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington is a retired CIA operative motivated to kill a few dozen mobsters by his protective feelings for a young prostitute that gets beaten severely by her bosses. She appears in Act I, and for a few minutes at the end of the film when Denzel delivers her freedom.

I think you can make this work, it is really just your mechanics of motivation to work on. Give the readers a good reason to expect the motivating character is not going to be appearing on this quest and adventure, because they are not adventurers, detectives, or fearless warriors. Or they are aged, sickly, disabled, or even already dead for some reason (the quest is due to their last wishes to set something right, or stop an evil they could not stop themselves, OR they get killed early on, like luke skywalkers mentor, Obi Wan Kenobe).

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37