I genuinely didn’t know that any of my characters were wrote for any role or purpose.
For me, it was completely subconscious.
I had Sage and her love interest from the start, with two best friends and a couple of personalities dotted along the way.
There was never a time when I cut out a character or felt like I had to add someone to beef up the story.
So, researching the different character roles made me feel comforted that I had the right mixture.
Before I knew it, everyone had an obvious little pigeon-hole to define their purpose.
And that was cool for me!
But generally, there are 7 most common character roles:
· Protagonist
· The Love interest
· The Confidant
· The Antagonist
· The Deuteragonist
· A Tertiary
· A Foil
Even in a broader view, they can be described as:
· The Dynamic
· The Round character
· The Static character
· The Stock character
· The symbolic character
Instantly I was able to see that my main character Sage is both the protagonist and dynamic role in my book. She has the backstory, the character arc, and undergoes the significant internal change throughout the story.
The main love interest is Manu, although it may not be obvious at the start (🚨 🚨 spoiler alert 🚨 🚨). He is also the round character that bounces off and comes into conflict with Sage. Together they spur on each other’s character development, mostly due to his complex personality. The confidant and static character throughout all the books would be Sofie. She is Sage’s cousin, house-mate and best friend. Her role is to link both Sage’s past and present, and even though Sofie has her own things going on in the book, they aren’t detrimental to the storyline. I feel like Sofie is one of my favourite characters, even though her story is played down in the first book, she takes a definite arc in the next novel. She is the yin to Sage’s yang.
Now, my books have two Deuteragonists or stock character. These are guys who often overlap with the confidants, but their story generally stays the same. Usually, Stock characters represent specific stereotypes, and let the reader feel like they all know ‘that’ type of person. Dean is… the stereotypical gay-best-friend of Sage and Sofie. They live in his apartment, and he provides comic relief. John gets a major arc in the next few books, but he is the beefy Sous chef for the first story. Kind of like, Manu’s side-kick and ties together some of Sage’s experiences in the restaurant.
Tertiary characters are minor personalities that pop up every now and then but have no relevance to the storyline. They are down at the bottom of the ladder regarding importance levels, but they set a scene with many functions. Alexander is my tertiary character. He is Dean’s boyfriend. It only ever feels like his name is mentioned in passing, but is needed for Dean’s development in the book.
A foil character is needed to accentuate or draw attention to the qualities of the main character. It’s literally concerning an old jewellery trick of setting a gem onto a foil base to enhance its shine. Like… Thelma and Louise, or Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. And for me… that character is Dave, or Irish Dave as he is called in the book. He sets Sage up in a brotherly manner and is quick to jump to her defence. Dave brings attention to all her positive attributes, even in the most negative of times.
Antagonist. Or the Villain of the story. In my first book technically the antagonist is Sage’s past…
But I don’t have any antagonists like Lex Luthor, or Lord Voldemort.
Sage is her own antagonist in many ways, and ta-da! Hence the book.
(Note: An antagonist can’t be confused with Anti-heroes who are villainous people who function in a protagonist’s role, like awwww… Walter White).
The symbolic character is someone who represents a concept of themes bigger than themselves. Example: The man in black is there as a representative of Death.
They are there to direct the audience’s mind towards broader concepts. Most are supporting characters, but some stories have symbolic protagonists. But I think that may be more sci-fi writing or maybe horror and supernatural.
Because I thought about this all day, and I couldn’t place one character in my book as symbolic.
SHAMBOLIC, maybe… symbolic… no.