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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40052
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40052
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> When does a supporting character become necessary for the plot?

Think of a supporting character (SC) as a partner to the main character (MC), somebody they can rely on when they need help in a jam they truly can't get out of themselves. The MC gets captured, or injured, or drugged, or arrested, or even confused: And the SC has the solution.

The SC is necessary to the plot when you engineer some situation in which the MC would fail without the help of the SC. This "help" can be physical, emotional, analytical, or all of those. It can be the SC warning the MC of a danger the MC did not see coming. It will help if you try to think of "supporting character" as actually providing some kind of necessary tangible support to the MC.

Of course the alternative is that the SC just fills some gaps in the story, provides the author an excuse to revisit memories of shared experiences, etc. They can be a foil to help you convert boring one-sided exposition into conflicted conversation (Jack laughed, "That's a total lie and you know it!"), ("conflict" means emotion rousing, so it can be humor, laughter, sadness, nostalgia, anger, frustration, etc).

This doesn't make the **plot** dependent on the SC, but it makes them a necessary character for the story to unfold smoothly, and feed the reader information without having to make them stop and eat their spinach with background exposition about why the MC became who she is.

A good SC can perform both functions, even if they have never **met** the MC. As a friend, they can invoke shared memories. As a stranger, they can ask questions. Just make sure these conversations _feel_ like conversations and have some emotions in them and disagreements or misunderstandings or frustrations or whatever; the characters should be feeling things. Otherwise it comes off as boring exposition anyway.

However the SC saves the day, that is something you, as a writer, must build into the story from the beginning. In order to avoid this SC help at a critical moment seeming like a deus ex machina, you must give the SC and MC some reason for the SC to be around, and the MC to let them be around. They can be friends, of course, but show us some **reason** they are friends, the SC makes the MC laugh, or the SC is not hero material on their own, but really does often have better ideas on how to proceed than the MC does, and the MC doesn't mind that, or even knows they are not genius of this group.

A SC should walk a middle road. You need to make sure the **main character** stays the hero of the story and makes the final decisions and takes the final risk, but you can make the **supporting character** the hero of the **MC** , if that makes sense. The supporting character finds a way to get him out of jail or frees him when he is trapped, or distracts the enemy, or defeats the alarm system, so the hero can infiltrate. The SC is the one that realizes they were betrayed, or that they are falling for a trap: The MC is the one that does something about it.

But I say a middle road, because although you don't want the SC to be the hero of the story, you **also** don't want the SC to be just another burden the MC has to constantly rescue. You don't want your story to be about something the MC could have done easily alone in an afternoon, but to get it done she had to struggle for a week with a grown man baby strapped to her back.

It is generally also considered cliché to write a beloved SC that is just going to be killed or kidnapped in order to motivate the MC. This is often done as a love interest (wife, child, girlfriend), lifelong partner/mentor (cop on his **last day** before retirement, oh no!), or even just a helpless friend.

To be necessary to the plot, they must be necessary to the MC, which means they must have a talent or ability the MC does not have, without which (and you make it so) the MC would fail in their quest or mission.

Original score: 3