supporting character in creative writing

What is a Supporting Character — And Why They Matter Featured

Scriptwriting

What is a Supporting Character — And Why They Matter

W hile many films include archetypal supporting characters, these molds are a little worn out. The audience is getting smarter and more curious. They crave more than the all-too-familiar “mentor” or “sidekick” as a way to convey information or to push the protagonist forward. Watching to see what a supporting character is capable of by themselves and how they relate to the main character, is much more interesting. Writing supporting characters that build conflict creates much more dynamic on-screen relationships than tired old tropes. But before we jump into all of that, let’s answer what is a supporting character the best way we know how.

Defining Supporting Characters

First, let’s define supporting character.

All great stories have at least one protagonist and one antagonist with opposite goals and desires that create the initial conflict. Supporting characters are responsible for reinforcing the narratives that exist between the protagonist and the antagonist.

Supporting Character Definition

What is a supporting character.

A supporting character is a character who isn’t the main focus in the story but instead supports the protagonist in to ultimately help them achieve their goal, have a transformation, or move the story forward. They can exist as many different kinds of characters. Common archetypes have often been used to describe each supporting character’s purpose. And of course, the supporting characters themselves could be antagonistic. Some of these archetypes are helpful to get the writer thinking of the purpose of each one of the characters.

Common Archetypes for Supporting Characters:

Supporters (the care giver, the best friend or sidekick, the fool or comic relief, the love interest, etc.)
Those that provide information (the mentor, the prophet, the wise men, teachers, etc.)
Antagonists are also support (the henchmen, the nemesis, even a love interest, etc.)

Supporting characters can be developed as much or as little as needed. Though the most realistic and enjoyable characters are those that have full back stories with fully formed goals, desires, and needs.

In fact, the supporting characters are, well, there to support the lead. So without them, the narrative would fall apart. And if that’s not the case, then it’s likely those characters may not need to be in the story at all.

As an example, look at the characters in Harry Potter — it’s hard to imagine the story without Ron and Hermione. It’s hard to imagine who Harry would become without Ron and Hermione. They’re integral to the story.

Ron and Hermione exist within two kinds of character archetypes — Ron being the comic-relief/fool while Hermione is a kind of caregiver. But because their individual characters and friendship is so developed, they often oscillate between support and antagonism for Harry.

And the best kinds of supporting characters are the ones that cross archetypal lines. By nature of being a fully developed character, the nuances naturally break the mold of the archetype.

Supporting Character Archetypes

Get to know the archetypes.

Archetypes aren’t a bad thing in the general sense. They’re helpful when we’re trying to convey information to our audience. They can even help us with understanding a character’s purpose for being in the story.

Maybe exploring a trope will lead you down a creative path to subvert the predictable. Or you may discover a brand new version of a character you didn’t think existed. A character that isn’t perfect but perfectly supports your lead.

Let’s start with the ultimate supporting characters — the ones that really support the main character, i.e. the caregiver or the best friend.

The caregiver
The best friend/sidekick
The love interest
The fool/comic relief

They typically provide emotional support or act as the protagonist’s voice of reason. Our character archetype series includes the video below exploring “the caregiver” and how it’s used in contemporary cinema and TV.

The Caregiver archetype • Subscribe on YouTube

When we look at someone like Sam from Lord of the Rings — we get a caregiver in the truest sense — generous, empathetic, with an innate ability to anticipate the needs of Frodo.

In other instances this particular archetype is simply distinguished as “the best friend.” This support system can lend itself easily to comic-relief. Like in Get Out , how Rod is incredibly logical and warns him and the audience about what could happen. But he is also equally hilarious that gives context for their closeness and eventually Rod’s final decision at the end of the film.

Actually, while this archetype often appears useless in battle whether emotional or physical (like Sam in Game of Thrones ), in the case of Get Out , this archetype was subverted a bit. Rod was able to turn off his fears, and take charge to save his best friend at the end of the film.

Many times this character is a victim, as it’s incredibly easy for the antagonist or villain to take advantage of this kind character. It’s an opportunity to show the audience just how far the antagonist will go and this can heighten tension as it shows exactly what the protagonist is up against.

Now this is compared to a character with a different purpose — like an antagonist. Or a character with a completely different goal than to be a supporter but instead to give information like a messenger or a teacher.

But there are of course blurred lines here.

These bulleted supporters could be antagonists too...

The Antagonist

The nemesis/henchmen
The skeptic

Everything that falls in this archetype is still a supporting character. They may not be lovingly supporting our main character, but without them, there wouldn’t be conflict so alas, there would be no story!

The antagonist challenges the protagonist simply because they have opposing goals. Or they have opposing views of how to reach the same goal. They exist to teach or to help our protagonist overcome something internally and externally.

While the love interest can be a supporter, they can also be an antagonist if they’re getting in the way of the protagonist achieving their goal. Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , may be Joel’s love interest and vice versa, but they are both the other one’s antagonists without question.

Well, it’s likely none of these archetypes inhibit a character in isolation — the majority of the time, in today’s stories, well written characters embody many facets of each of these archetypes.

What about the skeptic?

While the skeptic could be a supporter by being the voice of reason one minute, they could truly challenge the protagonist later with their pessimism.

Think of the animated film Inside Out . Sadness always tries to bring the mood down, and it impedes a lot of what Joy’s entire mission is — to make Riley happy. Here's a collection of Sadness' best moments.

Supporting Characters Explained • Sadness Best Moments

But at the same time, she’s also supporting Joy by the very nature of her skepticism. She allows Joy to see a new side — that life can’t exist without sadness — both joy and sadness are needed. Which leads to the next kind of supporting character.

Providers of Information

The Mentor/teacher
Messenger/prophet

In the same movie, Sadness remains the skeptic but moves from an antagonistic place to one where she’s teaching Joy something she needed to learn in order to have a transformation. Sadness became Joy’s teacher.

The mentor, teacher, or prophet serves to provide information to the audience and protagonist that either inspire a transformation, teach something, or move the story forward in some way.

Aside from Inside Out , other examples is Yoda in Star Wars and Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid . This list goes on.

Again, of course love interests, skeptics, and funny best friends could also become your lead’s teacher. The interplay between archetypes is the most fun to watch on screen as it creates more nuanced and dynamic relationships that we actually care about.

These could be so deeply embedded in us from what we’ve seen or read in the past, we may unconsciously write to a stereotype without noticing. But understanding how archetypal lines blur especially for supporting characters, is a great tool to try out in your own writing.

Character Development w/ Worksheet

In the next post, we’ll show you how to write stronger characters that pop off the page. Ones that aren’t limited to "one size fits all" archetype. Stories cannot exist without characters. Events are meaningless until we measure a character’s relationship to it. We’ve laid some helpful tips out which also includes an in-depth character development worksheet for you to get started writing today.

Up Next: Character Development Worksheet→

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Writer Fuel: Supporting Characters – The Unsung Heroes of Storytelling

Jul 02, 2024 by Gabriela Pereira published in Writing

I’ve been thinking about supporting characters a lot lately. These are the unsung heroes of storytelling, and yet they are often misunderstood. We might call them “side” characters or “secondary” characters as if they play second fiddle to our main character, but the truth is they play a very specific purpose in the story.

You see, I believe that most stories have one—and only one—main character. I say most stories because there are some exceptions. For example, many romance stories involve two protagonists who make up the couple and the story is told equally from both characters’ perspectives. Regardless of whether there is one (or more than one) main character, the supporting characters still serve the same purpose: to support the journey of the protagonist(s).

One thing to keep in mind is that while supporting characters may not be the stars of your story’s show, they don’t know that. After all, no one wakes up in the morning and thinks: “Gee, I want to be a supporting character in someone else’s life today.” Every character believes they are the protagonist of their own life, which means they will behave according to their own motivations or desires. Yet, for the purpose of your specific story, the protagonist is the star and all other characters exist to support that character’s journey.

So, why do we need supporting characters, anyway? Why not just focus all of our attention on the protagonist? There are a few reasons why stories need supporting characters, but they all boil down to the way these characters support the development of the main character.

(1) They prevent the story from getting boring.

A story with no supporting characters could be extremely boring if not done well. In fact, even in a story where the character is alone for most of the time, it can help to have a supporting character. Consider the film Castaway , for example. Even though the protagonist is stranded on an island, he’s not completely alone. He has Wilson, the volleyball that he personifies and turns into a “friend.” Not only does Wilson help keep the protagonist from losing his mind, but he also serves as a supporting character of sorts and keeps the story interesting.

(2) They have backstories and goals.

Supporting characters are characters in their own right. Fully fleshed out supporting characters bring with them a history and at least one goal, and these are different from those of the protagonist. These elements can lead to subplots that add depth and dimension to your story. When you explore where your supporting characters have come from (history) and where they want to go (goal), you can potentially uncover material for an interesting subplot.

(3) They give us an alternate view of the protagonist.

When supporting characters interact with the protagonist, they give us a new perspective on that main character. Note that we do not necessarily need to experience the story from the supporting character’s point of view. Simply by bouncing the two characters off each other, we get a more objective view of the protagonist because we see them in relation to that supporting character. When characters interact, we see a side of the protagonist that we may not have seen otherwise.

(4) They give the protagonist the opportunity to grow.

Supporting characters bring their own set of motivations and these motivations are different from those of the protagonist. When a supporting character’s motivations are at odds with the protagonist’s, we get tension, which in turn keeps the story interesting. Supporting characters’ motivations will affect how they behave, which means that even when they are trying to help the protagonist, they might actually create conflict instead. This conflict gives the protagonist the opportunity to develop and grow as a character.

(5) They have specific roles in the story.

Different supporting characters play different roles in a story. The antagonist exists primarily to cause trouble for the protagonist, while allies are often used to raise the stakes or bring out a specific side of the protagonist’s personality. Advisor characters can sometimes provide much-needed information to the protagonist or fill in parts of the backstory. Some supporting characters don’t even need to appear on the page in order to have an impact on the story. The key to remember is that different types of supporting characters serve different functions and contribute to the story in different ways.

One question that a lot of writers wonder about is regarding the number of supporting characters. How many is too many? And when you have a large supporting cast, what should you do? The truth is, there is no hard and fast rule for how many characters you should have; it should be whatever number your story needs. The key is to consider the roles your characters play. If you have multiple characters that fill the same purpose, maybe you can fold them together into one composite character. Keep in mind that you can have one character serve multiple functions in your story, e.g. a mentor character who turns out to be the villain, or a BFF who eventually becomes the love interest.

In terms of managing a large supporting cast, there are techniques that authors use to help readers get a handle on who’s who. For example, some stories (like a family saga) might provide a family tree or other type of diagram so the reader understands who the characters are and how they are related to each other. Or in other cases, the author might list the characters along with their pictures so the reader gets a sense for who they are. An example of the latter would be Karen Hesse’s novel-in-poems Witness. The important thing is that readers understand who the characters are and how they relate to each other. After all, any moment when the reader is wondering, “who is this person?” is a moment when they get pulled out of the story. Ultimately, the goal is to keep the reader immersed in the story as much as possible.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!