RISE and SHINE beloved writers! Forgive me for missing our call this morning. No excuse! My alarm was on mute aka non existent. I will make it up to all of you in class tomorrow… extra prompts for everyone. I have recorded our morning session and it is available for playback. You should have received an email with the pass code.
Our call this morning was on the significance of secondary characters and the roles they play. Not every character or person that shows up in our story is significant. There must be a reason that person is there. Secondary characters are important because without them we wouldn’t have a story. They impact our main character in some way. It is not important to know the backstory of Fulanito de la escina who plays domino’s unless he really is crucial to the story and we need to know everything there is to know about him. Some characters just show up and we never see them again. But our secondary characters or our antagonists… these folks we need to get to know better.
I will share an example from my novel; Dominican woman Dolores (a main character) is married to Don JP (secondary character/antagonist). It is important I understand his motivations. It is important that I establish his role in the story. He is there for something significant. In fact, he will pose a threat to my main character.
There are many characters that comprise a book, lovers, friends, family, acquaintances… all of these people are significant, but WHO really IS important to the telling of the story? Who is the person we really need to know?
Writing prompt: The person who poses the greatest threat to my main character is… and why/how? (Really go there! Set timer for 25 minutes… BEGIN! Keep repeating prompt until you have the answers).
Have an amazing day!
Love,
‘Yawo
The Writer and The Story 