I love coming up with characters’ backstories, so this happens to me all the time. I can’t say I know how to deal with them appropriately. I guess it’s not a bad thing to have characters with complex motivations, but it’s way too easy as a writer to get sucked into them.

Have you ever created a character to be an extra with about two lines, but then they blossom out of control?

Yes.

I love coming up with characters’ backstories, so this happens to me all the time.

Side characters with interesting quirks and personalities often make me wonder; why are they like that? What does the world look like from their POV? How did they end up here?

Which is why the unfinished sequel to this one horrible story I once wrote focused a lot on the backstories of three of the kids who weren’t really all that plot-important initially (think Seamus & Dean from HP) as well as the villain’s enigmatic righthand man (who was probably the best bad guy I’ve ever written) and a new assassin who wasn’t there in the previous book and just came into the story to do the new villain’s dirty work (can you say Boba Fett?).

And I’ve heard that that was how some of Terry Pratchett’s most memorable characters came about—they were created as throwaways, but they gradually became more important.

Like Death, for example.

originally supposed to be more about Carrot

I didn’t know that. Isn’t Guards! Guards! the first Watch book?

incredibly weird name of Julius Dennamar

Really? Really, now? You think that’s weird?
Try (Professor) Naster Quaddleton – the name of one of my new MCs.

He was originally made as a half-comical antagonist, but now his role in the story has greatly expanded.

I have two of those.
They’re going to cause a lot more trouble than they’re worth – for the heroes, at least. Not for me.:-)

My story takes place in Russia, so that kind of cements the kind of names I use. (unless someone was a forgiener). I try and find names that are easy enough for English speakers to pronounce, though.

But I’ve figured out how to use my new character as an unexpected love interest who has mysterious ties to another character in the past. Twill be all twistyful and lovely. :3

What I have been known to do in that situation (the whole two times that’s happened to me) is I delete the exchange and rewrite a boring-er one. But I save a copy of the interesting exchange and then planned to use that character in something else where they could shine on their own rather than mess up my nice plot.

How many facepalms do you guys want to post because of this?

I think that killing the character off would be best to do at the very beginning while more is learned about the character afterward, possibly from another character who knew him, maybe even the main. They could also be killed off at the very end of the story/arc after a good amount of character development has taken place and bonds have been forged.

Those are two pretty good options.

Also – spinoffs?
I think this is how they happen in the first place, but then again, that’s pretty obvious.

Bump. bumpitybumpbumpbump.

I like that idea too.

Roll with it. Honestly, I think there’s nothing better for a story than finding characters that you didn’t expect and having them force their way into your story.

That’s what I’ve been doing and now the previously unwanted character is an important part of the story, (though he’s kind of turned out to be a male Polyanna type character, lol) and I don’t honestly know how I could have written it without him there..

Inspector is Mmurikan, and a Pollyanna is someone who’s overly positive.

Is Pollyanna like British for “Gary Stu” or something?

You never read Pollyanna? Well, you’re not missing anything. What Sansa said.

@Steph: I almost never plan. Or rather, all my plans are in my head, and they can evolve and change at a moment’s notice. Like, I know exactally where the story is going, but I have no outline, and things can be changed for new characters.

Oh, I have complexity and intertwining plots, but I can keep it straight in my head. I’m just that brilliant.

catches daggers

Oh, I didn’t say that I do it well. :D

Funny, I’ve always thought I might want to try outlining, or rather, just try it for the sake of trying it. But the thing is, that makes it seem more like work….and even if I want to do it for a living, I don’t want it to become a chore. (I do, however, always go back and edit, which can be a chore at times.) It’s like writing out my “to read” list. Once I do that, it becomes a task list and therefore dull.

Actually, I have done SOME outlining, in the form of a timeline. My WIP spans a time period of almost thirty years, so of course characters are being born/doing other important things that aren’t actually in the novel offpage. The timeline went year by year, for every important event in the story and/or backstory, just so I could know that what was happening made sense. And then I found that according to their ages, one guy ended up being a dad at like, 14. So I fixed that.

However, the timeline didn’t show the future (not the end…), just the past and what was happening presently in the story, ‘cause I added to it as I wrote more.

I should really do that for this draft of it, since it was pretty helpful

And I can see how for a magic system an outline would be useful (or one with ten main characters). But I gave up writing fantasy ages ago, and generaly have only one main character, with a handful of supporting characters and a load of minor ones.

I tend to have a very small group of close-knit characters. It makes it more heartbreaking when I kill them off.

We came to that conclusion before Steph; there used to be a long discussion about magic in stories somewhere around here…

As it’s an abstract phenomenon, it’s better to leave it to the audience’s imagination, as Sly repeatedly argued, because if you try to build your world around the details, it’s bound to fall down somewhere.

Ms. Inspector, I don’t know why people say the first part of your name makes you sound masculine (as if women can’t be inspectors!), but you could probably work in a really intriguing sub-plot to push the main story forward and have him die in it. Make it all mysterious and you can hook the audience like that.

We came to that conclusion before Steph; there used to be a long discussion about magic in stories somewhere around here…

Oh, knowing us, probably. I’ve just decided that we’re having it again. In a completely unrelated thread.

As it’s an abstract phenomenon, it’s better to leave it to the audience’s imagination, as Sly repeatedly argued, because if you try to build your world around the details, it’s bound to fall down somewhere.

The thing is, the way the magic works is tied to where the faeries (it’s urban fantasy) come from and how they use it. It’s a fairly important part of the story, which is why it’s so detailed.

IK, your novel does sound delicious.

IK, your novel does sound delicious.

Oh, it is. :3

You know, you’re both ticklin my fancy with these stories of yours. Any chance I could proof-read?

Well, mine is an utter wreck that is actually kind of embarassing to read. :/ I’m in my third draft of it (which means this is the third time I’ve completely re-written it), and it’s still not fit for human eyes.

As for my story, I’m flattered you want to read it, but draft one’s not even done, and once it is it will be so incredibly preachy that it will make you want to tear out your eyes and impale them on a cross sitting on the closest church rooftop.

...yeah, it’ll take a while to tone it down.

XD maybe the heat’s getting to me, but that made me laugh out loud. How is it ‘preachy’? Do you go off on tangentical sermons or something?

At the end it completely abandons all semblance of a metaphor and the goal is to get everyone to heaven, with angels coming down and fighting the powers of darkness, and stereotypical stalwart evil people, and i’ve manage to turn something that could be awesome and epic into something completely terrible.

The stupid thing is that I never wanted any metaphor or any preachiness in it in the first place. I just wanted to write an urban fantasy that incorporated Christianity instead of ignoring it, with some romance on the side.

And of course because as a Christian, I worry about the state of peoples’ souls a lot, I had to start exploring how my faeries fit into that structure and how they could be saved, and now the story ends with them all going to heaven.

Which, I mean, it’s nice, but it’s not the point, it’s preachy, it overshadows any other story I try to construct using that setup for pure epicness, it crowds out the romance aspect, and I didn’t want it in the first place. sobs

I think I need some help.

AHAHAHAHAHA... oh, it’s too true, it’s not funny. What have I become?

Anyway, he did it on purpose, so nyah!

This thread is the closest thing I could find relating to the little problem I have right now.
It goes like so:

I have an MC who’s a vampire. And no, the story isn’t a Vampire Story™; it has pretty much everything in it (except Tolkienesque elves and hobbits – I might put in dwarves, though). Vamp’s personality is worked out fully, now, and so are the dynamics between him and the other MCs. He has a thing for the “traditional” horror tropes, so he does a lot of them on purpose, because a) he fully embraces what he is and b) he’s an utter drama queen. E.g. he got himself a castle in a secluded area just so he can get a kick out of telling people to “enter freely, and of your own will”.
As result of this, he has four gorgeous “brides”; not really concubines, rather friends/roommates/employees/Praetorian guard/personal band of assassins (it’s that complicated). Initially they weren’t going to feature a lot, but I changed my mind and started working on making them more developed and distinguished than just a couple of living props.

Basic and simplified (read: un-spoilered) description would be like so: Their leader (brunette) is a manipulative, scheming little bitch with a bit of a psycho side when she gets angry. The other brunette is a calm, sensitive, motherly artist-type. Blondie is a total 100% psycho.
Redhead is my problem – I can’t decide on a personality for her.
Can you guys help me, please? :-)

Not to speak in tropes or anything

Of course not. We’re above all that. ;-)

As for Little Miss Badass, the leader “bride” is physically a small teenager (think Summer Glau), so she kinda fits the bill already. And at least one of my other MCs could kinda fit the description, too.

^^Just the redhead bit would be good for the Disney princess tropes, since so many of them have red hair anymore.

eg when she sings, animals flock to her, driving Blondie mad…

I love that. It’s brilliant.
That should make her balance out Blondie and not-leader-brunette.

since so many of them have red hair anymore

You mean “so few”? I can only think of one; Ariel.
Fiona doesn’t really count, because Shrek isn’t a “straight” fairytale.

I’d so love it if she kept getting new animal sidekicks, and the other brides were just constantly going, “Where do you find these things?”

Are we talking normal cute little birdies and bunnies and puppies and stuff, or “I’ll go with what I can get” like in Enchanted? Cause she does live in a paint-by-numbers haunted castle, after all.

^True.
Redheads are rare IRL.

The MC male vamp is a redhead, too. And I’m probably gonna put in one more non-vampiric female redhead in somewhere. The rest of the main cast are a brunette, a black-haired guy, a grey-haired old timer, a dark blond guy, a normal (light/golden/whatever) blonde girl and a hairless alien.
And now I sound stupid cause I only described their hair.
:-O

Of course I will.

But you have to help me out with this one, first:

Are we talking normal cute little birdies and bunnies and puppies and stuff, or “I’ll go with what I can get” like in Enchanted? Cause she does live in a paint-by-numbers haunted castle, after all.

Yeah.

Hahaha, I can just picture it: she’s sitting in a huge chair in front of the fireplace, and the rest of the room is dark and gloomy and full of cobwebs and dust… and there are a bunch of bluebirds and bunny rabbits on her lap. Priceless.

^Of course.:-)

I also seriously consider making her the youngest of the four brides by a long shot – that would kind of justify the way she is, I think.

Okaaayy…
But she can’t be the oldest, either – cause the leader-brunette (the one who looks like a tiny teenager) is by far the oldest. Also Blondie has to be really old, because things were horrible back when she was (sort of) human. That’s why she’s so psycho.

Cool.

Heyheyhey, now – I’m already subverting a bunch of cliches just with this one group (one MC, four SCs). Let’s see:
-neither the MC nor his brides angst about being vampires
-there are four brides instead of three
-the oldest one looks younger than all the others
-the brides aren’t really, well, brides If You Know What I Mean
-the blonde isn’t dumb
-the redhead isn’t fiery
-the brides are fully developed people as opposed to being, well, brides….

I could go on, but I won’t.
;-)
But yeah, very good idea overall.
I’m definitely putting you in the acknowledgements…:-D

Will any of them die?

Please make at least one of them die!

Well…you could do it so the character that dies is one everyone hates.

I actually believe that cultivating a really abhorrent antagonist is far harder than shaping a main character.

I much prefer the likeable antagonist. Nothing spices up a manuscript for me like a good dash of TOR-MENTTT! Who should I root for? Who’s the good guy? Can this dude be redeemed? Will he become completely EVUL? So much more fun.

As a Roman Catholic, incidentally, I have much less of a problem with characters who are pagan or believers in other religions or “unsaved” or whatever, because my religion teaches that all other systems of philosophy and religious thought have greater or lesser degrees of the truth in them, and also teaches that those who do not know Christ will be judged on what they did know. So a good Muslim or a holy Buddhist or a saintly Protestant (I’ve known quite a lot of those) has a better shot at salvation than a lousy Catholic (of whom I have unfortunately also known quite a few). Just another point of view.

I have to say that Tamora Pierce does some pretty good antagonists. The Nothing Man (Bayce whats-his-name), Duke Roger of Conte and Princess Imajane are some who spring to mind. I hated Duke Roger.

Hey, now – I was using examples of characters that were loved by their creators, but were seen in a different (negative) light by others.

Totally understandable, but do you see my point? Really, a good story can be categorised as one with powerful positive and negative influences. If one is out of balance, the whole story becomes weakened by it. Only very few writers can carry on and still publish a work without that scale. JKR did it, but looking back on it now, the conflict between Harry and Voldemort was always secondary until the final book and maybe that’s why DH fell down for me.

We never find out his past, and it doesn’t actually matter, either, cause there’s this urgency to stop him now.

How I wish there were more villains like that.

Exactly. It’s a difficult proposition, even for the best authors and that’s why I truly believe that the villain is just as important as the hero in any story.