Okay, if you're not a fan of The Hills the title will probably mean nothing to you. For the uninformed (hah!), it's basically a reality show that follows a group of well-to-do twentysomethings on their quest to.....ummm.....that is.....it's a reality show about a group of rich young people as they try to.....well...... see there's this young group of people who.......uh...actually I don't know what the hell the show is about. It's a show about nothing but not in the same cool way Seinfeld was about nothing. Literally, they sit around and stare at each other.....a lot........ in between a lot of boy/girl, girl/best friend, boy/girl/best friend drama. That clear it up for you? Oh well. All you really need to know is one of the secondary characters (though it's a reality show, characters are definitely what they are, in my opinion anyway) Audrina is going through her own boy/girl drama with said drama starring the aforementioned Justin Bobby. Think about the really cute guy who used to live next door to you....okay now picture his slightly creepy, dirty-haired, younger brother. That's Justin Bobby. His only good points so far are the ability to burp at inappropriate moments and dispense fortune cookie wisdom to an enraptured Audrina. Poor girl. I don't think she could get a clue if Colonel Mustard himself hand-delivered it to her...in the conservatory......with a candlestick.
So, you may be wondering, what has this got to do with writing? I'm so glad you asked. Besides Justin Bobby's other obvious talents, he did get me to thinking about secondary characters and their relevance or lack thereof in a good story whether it be television, movies, or books. They can serve to balance out our hero/heroine by shedding some light into a side of their personality we might not otherwise see, other times they can help drive the main plot along, or sometimes they even star in their own subplots. Ah, but here is where Justin Bobby comes in. What if instead of helping all they end up doing is inviting themselves over, cleaning out your fridge, and running up your cable bill ordering WWE Smackdowns? Okay, I have no proof that Justin Bobby is guilty of such things but I can only imagine what happens when the cameras stop rolling. But I digress. I've thought about my own past manuscripts...okay one completed manuscript and several in progress, and wondered how well my secondary characters held up under close scrutiny. To be honest, most of them were not really all that well thought out. They just inserted themselves into the story as I went along and before I knew it had gone from bit player to bona fide sidekick/secondary character. One of them even ended up becoming a significant plot point for one of my main characters that I hadn't intended in the beginning. This worked well in some cases and in others they are in apparent need of some fleshing out. There is at least one definite Justin Bobby in the bunch that should I ever decide to continue on that manuscript again, I would have to rethink.
And so what have we learned at the end of this somewhat rambling post? Clearly I'm in desperate need of some Masterpiece Theater.
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