Best Friends: Your Main Character’s Sidekick

Sometimes good hero needs a sidekick or a best friend. They can provide the comic relief as Ron Weasley so often did. They can be helpful and save your hero’s behind like Timon and Pumbaa. They can sometimes be annoying like Edmund in the Narnia books (or worse like Eustace Scrubb). Sometimes, the sidekick simply gets your characters into more shenanigans like Ethel of I Love Lucy.

Either way, your character isn’t a solitary figure. (Unless you are writing about the last man in the entire world). Use those people around them to create a richer world and a richer character.

Here are some pictures of my two favorite best buddies:

U:Unique

Characters need quirks. What makes yours unique?

It doesn’t have to be something big. Not every book needs a ninja/librarian that loves chocolate ice cream and orange kittens. It came be something simple. Which character in popular literature wears round glasses? Which female protagonist survives with her mad bow and arrow skills? Which cartoon characters have a pet platypus?

It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but give your characters something that makes them unique. Give them a trait or a love or a dislike that will stick in the readers mind. This will make the character more real and memorable.

Important note: don’t go too far with the trait. If your character always does the Hokey Pokey when they hear the word red, it might get a little annoying. For a character whose uniqueness makes them obnoxious, watch Episode 1 of Star Wars. Jar-Jar Binks is unique, but . . . .

What are your character’s quirks?

O: The Oh Factor

Another important feature that good novels need is the oh factor.

What is the oh factor?

Well for me, the oh factor is when you get to the end of a book or to a plot twist and go “oh!” It’s the moment when something awesome happens in the novel that knocks your socks off. It’s when pieces fall together and you realize that the trinket mentioned a couple of books ago means something or the little insignificant detail that the character keeps talking about actually is significant. It’s the glimpse of how the pieces fit together. This is usually when I proclaim that the author is a pure genius.

In order to pull off the oh factor, you have to have clever plot twists or plot resolution. That is the first step. The second step is set up. You have to lead the reader to those moments without them realizing they are being lead.

You can accomplish this by mentioning some detail of the ending or plot twist throughout the book. Do so in a way that doesn’t make it stand out or seem significant. There is a fine line to walk here. Too subtle or if you don’t mention it then the surprise feels like something pulled out of a hat. Nobody enjoys a story where the Calvary swoops in out of nowhere to save the day. But on the flip side, if you don’t mention it subtly enough, the reader feels like you are hitting them over the head and the oh factor becomes the I-knew-that-was-going-to-happen-fifty-pages-ago factor. Not as effective.

The best way to see how published authors do this is to read their books twice. On the second time through, you know the ending, so you can pay attention to the little details that lead up to this. J. K. Rowling was brilliant at this. Reread Harry Potter. If you pay attention, guarantee you will find plot clues about the last book (and all the other plot twists along the way) even in book one. It’s so subtle that you miss it if you aren’t watching for it.

Good luck and happy writing!

PS: Today was a crazy day. First, I walked under a tree and a bird pooped on me. Then later, an eighteen-year-old tried asking for my number. He thought I was nineteen. Do I look nineteen? Uh . . . don’t answer that.