No Matter How Small

I’ve come to the realisation, doesn’t matter how small your character is, give it some dimension or you’re just sabotaging your own scene!

Something I said on Twitter the other day, figured I’d like to talk about it in more detail. I’m reminded of the quote from Horton Hear’s a Who by Dr. Seuss “a person’s a person, no matter how small”. Great story, even got the original book :)

In this instance, I’m referring to ’side characters’. You know, the ones that you use to get your story moving from Point (A) to (B). Those characters need character.

If they are totally vapid, it knocks the mood you’ve created in the story so far right on the head, causing it to have a concussion. You are creating a ripple effect in your work. It carries over from one scene to the next and chances are, you’ll make the same mistake again.

These are not your ‘extras’ in your story. I’m not talking about the man standing in the background fiddling with his tie. We’re talking about your ‘Smuggler No. 1′ who has a line to say that gets the scene moving. Or your ‘Plane Inspector’ who only shows up for a very small scene and then is never heard from again.

Their dialogue is just as important as your leading Protagonist / Antagonist. They must have mannerisms, a way about them that makes them that little bit more interesting.

“What? All this over a single line?” you say. Not quite. That one line may be the result of you being lazy and wanting to rush the scene along. You have to be honest with yourself on that one. It could be a perfectly fine line. You probably don’t need to change a thing. It’s really up to you.

I myself have fallen victim to this many times, but gone back often to expand on these characters. By adding a little more depth to my ‘Smuggler No. 1′ most recently, the scenes got a little longer but those ripples appear to have subsided and the story, at least for me, is flowing nicely again.

I’ll leave you with this rather classic moment from “Wayne’s World 2″ that kind of reiterates my point :D