Characters and Plot: How Your OC Fits in the Plot

Next to figuring out the plot, character creation is probably the most important thing a starting novelist needs to do. While the plot is important and can be all nice and fancy, it is the characters that carry the plot, engage your readers, and makes your world real. Basically without characters, your novel would just be an outline of things that happened with pretty descriptions of trees and china cabinets.

That being said, creating a character can be a somewhat mysterious process. We have all encountered the following questions: what makes a character boring? How do I know this character isn’t useless? Should my main protagonist be a clone of me? Etc.

Today I will be discussing maybe the most difficult part of character creation-fitting the character to the plot. The purpose of a character-any character- is to advance the plot in some shape or form. If all the character does is sit around and make sarcastic comments all day than he’s not serving his purpose. Even the sarcastic people need to serve the plot. I have a three step process that I-somewhat-follow that usually helps me. Let it be noted that this works for me but it doesn’t mean it’s going to work for everyone. I thought I’d share my experiences and hope you find something useful in what I have to say.

What is your name? What is your quest?

The first thing I like to do is categorize my characters based on two criteria:

1. who your characters are
2. what their archetype is

Most people are familiar with what an archtype is (wise mentor, damsel in distress, innocent hero), but you can also think of it as what is the character’s function in the novel. The function is basically what is the one word you’d used to describe your character. The who is more granular. It’s whether your character is an Iranian prince, a female assassin, or the romantic and emotional lover that your protagonist is going to screw over (because I know there are arsehole protagonists out there. Got to love them).

Obviously, your protagonist and antagonist are easy to work into the plot (the plot is basically going to be about them), so we’re not going to focus on them. Instead, we’re going to focus on all those side characters you created but don’t really know what to do with. I’ve found that it’s best to separate these characters into three generic groups:

1. characters that side with the antagonists
2. characters that side with the protagonists,
3. the ‘innocent’ bystanders.

You can also add a fourth category for the neutral/gray characters that could go either way. Once you figure that out, you break those sub-groups into smaller sub-groups i.e. the main antagonist’s second in command, the suck up, the potential love interest (it’s fun giving your antagonist’s love interests!) etc. So the first step should look like this:

 

Plot?! Who Needs a Plot?!

The second step is to look at your non-primary characters and figure out who deserves their own subplots. By subplot, I mean either their own separate plot from the main plot or they have a strong part to plan within the main plot. A perfect example of this is the Lord of the Rings. While it can be argued that the four Hobbits are the main characters, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli all get their own smaller subplots throughout the trilogy that end up connecting to the main plot one way or another. I tend to give my antagonists side characters subplots as well, but that’s just because I love my antagonists. Don’t feel that you have to do this, although I find exploring the antagonists even a little bit makes for an interesting story.

Now, what are some guidelines for deciding who gets a subplot and who doesn’t? Some of this is intuitive and some of it is common sense. Would you give that one clerk who gives your protagonist(s) potatoes a subplot oooooor would you give your protagonist’s best friend a subplot (unless the best friend is the potato guy, in which all bets are off)?

My basic rule of thumb is if your character has a first level relationship with either the antagonist or protagonist (sibling, lover, advisor, best friend, etc) they should probably have either a subplot of their own or take part in the main plot. No one likes it when the protagonist and antagonist do all the work and the side characters just look pretty.

So the three questions you should ask yourself are:

Bringing it All Together

The third and final step is to figure out WHAT kind of plot you’re going to give those characters. The worst thing you can do is to create a meandering subplot that takes away from the main plot.

I’ve found that the best rule of thumb is if the plot of the side characters doesn’t affect the main plot or protagonist/antagonist in any shape or form then it’s a meandering subplot.

Often the plot can be small. Here are three great examples for each way a character's plot can be important:

1. The subplot affects the protagonist: Galadriel in Lord of the Rings. She’s barely in the book and yet she gives each member of the Fellowship an important gift that either reveals their true character or affects the plot later on)
2. The subplot affects the antagonist: Emilia in Othello. She is Iago’s wife and she’s barely in the play, but she’s instrumental in Iago’s fall)
3. The subplot affects the main plot: Mrs. Almond from V for Vendetta. She is a fallen woman of society who is pushed to the brink and snaps-sparking the entire climax.

Notice that these plots aren't complicated nor do they take away from main plot. In fact, they help the plot without sacrificing the development of each side character.

So when creating a plot for your side characters keep these three things in mind.

Wrapping it up

When creating characters and trying to work them into the plot it’s important to remember these three things:

Happy character creating!