Wednesday 9 June 2010

Pushy Minor Characters

What is it with these pushy minor characters? You're tooling along nicely from plot point A to plot point B you need someone to lay some pipe or ease you through a transition and the next thing you know the fuckers are measuring curtains. You've moved on to the next scene and they're still prancing around going "Look at me I'm so three dimensional; use me, use me!" It's like Bottom in a Midsummer's Night's Dream any little part and they're telling you how good they'd be doing. "Oh I can deliver that exposition,' they say. "Just give a chance, I don't mind doing nude scenes or dying, let me die. I can always come back as a zombie or my own twin brother, please, please, please."

I've got one character in the first book who's sole original function was to open the fricking door and now she's a fricking regular - a regular - my publishers are asking when she's coming back. Except my sodding viewpoint character is going "How come she gets all the best lines, if you love her so much why don't you get her to do the first person narrative." It's these pushy minor characters that put the 'extruded' into extruded fantasy series and the 'bloat' into bloated sequel.

Well it's not happening to me you hear? I'll put every one of you against the wall and have you shot - you see if I don't. No minor character is safe in one of my books and nobody's coming back as their own twin sister - evil or otherwise.