The story I just finished gave a me a huge challenge. One of my secondary characters kept trying to take center stage. She's fun, carefree, a little dizzy, but smart. As a matter of fact, a lot of other characters under-estimate her because of the dizzy part.
I found myself in real trouble. A backup singer was trying to sing lead. I had to cut a lot of her lead parts. My heroine deserved to have her story told, but I had to promise the secondary character that she would get her chance. And she will. Her story has already started spinning in my head. She even has her hero.
So for right now, she's waiting patiently. Not one of her qualities). The bigger problem I have is I didn't plan on this story becoming a series. Still gong to write the story though. After all, a promise is a promise.
What do you do when your secondary character tries to take center stage?
Oh, good! I loved her! Of course, come to think of it, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson were my favorite Supremes, too. They didn't have Diana Ross's voice, but they sure had class.
ReplyDeleteThey get their own book(s). That's how the "hero" of my upcoming Blood-Mage book developed. He was supposed to be a one-chapter menace, then when I wrote (what I thought would be) book 2 of the series, he was there in detail, usurped the chemistry that was supposed to be between the hero & heroine, and I ended up going back and writing an entirely different book. Oy. He'll have a second one (necessary to finish the romance between him and the heroine), and then he goes back into hiding for a while.
ReplyDeleteI loved her, too! Great topic... usually, I do the same thing you are doing - make promises to that characters, make some notes and when the time is right, start writing her story.
ReplyDeleteThat's the advantage of writing first person--LOL. Although, in my rewrite, I've added more Caitlyn time and I love-love writing her and Bix's banter. So, the budding romance between her twin and Bix--gone.
ReplyDeleteI loved Branded so much I didn't want to let it go. But there wasn't really a lot of seconds who I wanted to tell their stories. But Jamie was there, so I aged her five years. Wala. Already from her story, there are two more I want to tell...fun!
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