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Tag: fiction

  • March 26th, 2013 8:29pm

    How to Write Effective Supporting Characters

    agonyofanuntoldstory:

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave Sherlock Holmes a full panoply of supporting characters. There was Dr. Watson, the quintessential “sidekick,” to act as a sounding board; Scottish landlady Mrs. Hudson, to cook and clean and fuss over Holmes; Scotland Yard Inspector LeStrade, to provide a foil for Holmes’ intuitive brilliance, as well as access to official investigations; the Baker Street Irregulars, to ferret out information; and Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s politically powerful older brother, to provide financial and strategic support. Like Doyle’s, your cast of supporting characters should reflect what your protagonist needs.

    Balancing Character Traits

    An amateur sleuth needs a friend or relative with access to inside information—a police officer, a private investigator or a crime reporter will fit the bill. A character who’s arrogant and full of himself needs a character to keep him from taking himself too seriously, maybe an acerbic coworker or a mother. You might want to show a hardboiled police detective’s softer side by giving him kids or a pregnant wife.

    The most important supporting character in many genres, though, is the sidekick. Virtually every mystery protagonist has one. Rex Stout’s obese, lazy, brilliant Nero Wolfe has Archie Goodwin—a slim, wisecracking ladies’ man. Carol O’Connell’s icy, statuesque, blonde Detective Kathy Mallory has garrulous, overweight, aging, alcoholic Detective Riker. Robert B. Parker’s literate, poetry-quoting Spenser has black, street-smart, tough-talking Hawk. Harlan Coben’s former basketball-star-turned-sports-agent, Myron Bolitar, has a rich, blond, preppy friend, Windsor Horne Lockwood, III.

    See a pattern? It’s the old opposites attract. Mystery protagonists and their sidekicks are a study in contrasts. Sidekicks are the yin to the protagonists’ yang. The contrast puts the protagonists’ characteristics into relief. For instance, the thickheaded Watson makes Holmes look smarter.

    The place to start in creating a sidekick is with the profile you developed of your sleuth, so think about what kind of opposites will work.

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  • January 3rd, 2013 12:59pm

    A man is a fool to die slow if he does not have to. And I will know when to do it, too, Hostetler said I would. There will come a day. On that day I will take care of it. I am damned John Bernard Books will go out screaming.

    He put his right hand on the congenial steel of the gun under his pillow, his left on that of the one at his side under the covers. He had slept with his guns for years. He wondered which of them he would use.

    Books thought: No matter.
    He thought: Both are friends of mine.

    — The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout

  • December 27th, 2012 9:30am

    In this gritty world, people called me Gideon. A biblical name made famous by an adjudicator in the Book of Judges. That Gideon was also known as Jerub-Baal. Destroyer. Mighty Warrior. I was Gideon. Not sent by God. Employed by those who thought they were.

    I was a hired gun paid to do what people wouldn’t do for themselves.

    — Resurrecting Midnight by Eric Jerome Dickey

  • December 25th, 2012 9:12pm

    It could have been a lot of things,“ I said. "Maybe the police were called because somebody was sick. Maybe the two men in the plain car were doctors. Maybe our neighbor thought he saw a prowler. I guess if we really wanted to find out the thing to do would be to ask him.”

    The next evening I got in the car and drove down the road to do just that.

    “It’s because I’m a burglar,” our neighbor answered me amiably.
    I stood there and blinked, twice. I’d introduced myself when he’d answered the door, and he’d introduced himself as Jack Hogan and invited me inside and offered me a drink. After a few minutes’ exploratory conversation with the tanned and handsome man, I’d gotten around to asking him about the commotion at his house we’d witnessed last night, offering our help if anything was wrong.

    “The police were just here to harass me,” Jack Hogan went on. “Lieutenant Faber and his friends. I humor the lieutenant because I understand he acts only out of frustration.”

    “But if you’re innocent -” I said in a rather dumbfounded way.
    “But I’m not innocent,” Hogan said freely, his gray eyes as sincere as his voice. “Though if you tell anyone I said so I’ll deny it. Lieutenant Faber knows I’m guilty, but he can’t do anything about it because I’m too smart for him. That’s the fun of it.”

    — So Young, So Fair, So Dead by John Lutz