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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41645
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41645
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

By their very nature as being main characters, your main characters would receive more attention than side characters. That's what makes them 'main'. It's their arc that we follow, it's their motivations that we know, it's them we care about and sympathise with.

Take _The Lord of the Rings_ as a famous example: we know what goes on in Frodo's head, also in Sam's, a bit less of Merry and Pippin. We see a lot of Aragorn, Boromir and Gandalf, but what goes on in their heads we must infer from their actions. As for Legolas and Gimli - those characters remain virtually undeveloped. (And that's just the members of the Fellowship.) That's as it should be. The story is the story of certain particular characters - the main ones. Other characters are prominent in that story, but it's not _their_ story. Yet others walk into the story for a spell, then walk out of it again.

**You cannot tell the story of each and every character in your universe. If you try to do that, if all the characters are 'main', the story would disappear - one wouldn't be able to see the forest for the trees.**

Of course, that isn't to say that minor characters shouldn't have motivation of their own. It's just that we would see less of them, know less of them, and must infer who they are from the little we see. To continue with the _Lord of the Rings_ example, Faramir is a fascinating character: he has motivation (Gondor), he has his own conflicts - his story could be a fascinating one. But we don't get to follow his story - we don't see him grieving for his brother, we don't know whether he blamed himself or his father for the fact that Boromir went to Rivendell instead of him, we can only imagine what his life growing up was like, or who his friends were. All we see is as much of his story as crosses paths with the hobbits.

It's not favouritism that some characters get more spotlight than others. That's the way it's supposed to be.

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