Day Twenty-Two: Using your Minor Characters to Fuel Your Story #BYBin3

In fiction writing, your story will have all sorts of characters: antagonist, protagonists, supporting characters and minor characters. The minor characters in your story can be immensely helpful to the development of your story.

Minor characters can help to show the reader your main character. Just as with supporting characters, you can show your reader your main character through your minor character's eyes, both their appearance and parts of their personality. A minor character might be helplessly in love with your main character or jealous of the main character's beauty. A minor character might be annoyed with the way the main character bosses him around. There are a myriad of ways that your minor characters can show your readers details about the main character.

In rare circumstances and only under certain conditions, you can even show your readers how others view your main character even if it's not an accurate view. For example, your main character might be accused of a murder he didn't commit and which the people in his town believe he is guilty of committing. In this instance, you can help show this through the eyes of one of his friends, a friend who isn't sure whether to believe in his guilt or innocence due to his own internal conflict between the damning evidence and his loyalty to the main character. In this situation, you can help show exactly how intense of a situation your main character is having to confront.

Minor characters can move the plot forward or create twists and turns within the plot. A minor character might decide to confront the antagonist on his own, because he has his own reason for hating the antagonist. This can result in his death, which could be another moment leading to the main character's negative view of the antagonist, or it could result in his capture, which will up the stakes for the main character. He might even win the battle, but at such a huge cost that the main character is faced with something even worse. Additionally, your minor character can make seemingly small decisions which can affect the main character or the main character's choices.

Minor characters need to be fully realized people, complete with flaws, idiosyncrasies and their own desires and hopes. Create a minor character to be a normal and imperfect human. Minor characters can sometimes take on very large roles within your story, so give them the same care and attention that you provide for your main character. And be prepared for them to try and take over the story, because they have been known to do that. Many stories have been written with main characters who once started out as minor characters.

*****

Give-away!

This week's give-away is a Write About Life Tile Coaster. The winner will be chosen from the active participants of the challenge. Must be a signed-up member to qualify. The winner wil be chosen by a random number generator on April 28th, 2014 at noon GMT. (Winner may choose alternate colors of this item, including a version with photographic background.)

Day Eighteen: Changing Focus in the Middle of the Book: What Happens When your Book Has to Be Altered Drastically? #BYBin30

Unfortunately, writing a book is not always a smooth process. There are times when, after writing many thousands of words, an author realizes that there book is not going in the right direction or an author decides that his book needs a different focus. This can happen to both fiction writers and non-fiction writers equally.

When you are writing a non-fiction book, the first thing to consider when deciding whether or not you need to change its direction or focus is where your knowledge and current writing has taken the book. If what you have already written is leaning towards the change in focus, then the change will be much easier to implement.

The second thing to consider is what your readers, those who follow your blog and those who are your target audience will be most interested in reading; is it the original content you planned for your book, or will the new direction you are feeling compelled to move in be more suitable to your readers' interests.

Another detail to take into consideration is that changing focus can mean having to do a substantial amount of new research to cover the new focus for your book. Will some of the research you have already done help you in your new direction? If so, this will help to mitigate some of the amount of new research you will need to do.

Once you have completed any new research necessary for your book's new focus, there are a couple more steps to take. First, you need to read through the information you have already written and salvage the writing that will still be useful in your book despite the direction-change. Then you need to go back through all of the selected previously-written prose and make notations where changes need to be made in order to fit it in with the new version of your book.

When you are writing a fiction novel, you might also find it necessary to change the direction you book is taking the reader. Maybe you've come up with a different, but more suitable ending, or maybe you are finding, through the process of writing your story, that one of your secondary characters is taking on a stronger roll than your main protagonist and you have decided that your secondary character needs to become the main protagonist. For whatever reason, if you are going to change the direction of your story, you need to go back and make some changes within the writing you have already completed.

If you are making a secondary character the main focus, you need to read through your book and find the scenes where you have favored the protagonist over the secondary character. If your protagonist is now going to be a secondary character, you might be able to leave some of these scenes in the story, but more of them need to have their focus shifted to the new main character.

In whatever change you are approaching for your story, there will be newly created plot holes due to the change. You will need to go back, find them and fill them in. If your ending is changing, then you need to go find any foreshadowing added in the previous writing and alter it to suit the new ending. If you are changing a main character with a secondary character, then you need to go and fix some of the interactions between both of those characters with each other and with others to suit the new story. If you are changing the point of view of the story, for example switching from 3rd person omniscient point of view to first person, then you need to make sure that there is no over sharing (through the previous omniscient view point) and add in some of your character's personal views and thoughts, while also making sure that "he" or "she" and "her" or him" in reference to your character are changed with "I" and "me," and so on.

It can be a lot of work and can significantly increase your work load when it comes to finishing your story, but, most of the time, when a writer is pulled to make these changes, it is because the changes will strengthen the story. One thing many authors do when making these kinds of changes is to keep a copy of the previous story version, just in case.

Day Sixteen: Writing the Middle of Your Book #BYBin30

By now, you might be reaching the middle of your book. This is where, if you let it, your story might begin to sag. But there are ways to avoid writing a saggy middle to your story.

1. Use your outline. Not knowing how to get from the beginning of your story to the end can cause many authors to flounder in the middle, but that is why you are supposed to have written an outline, with a synopsis for each chapter. The outline should tell you what you need to achieve in these middle chapters and give you direction.

2. View each chapter as a scene. If this scene were a short story, how would it begin and how would it end? What can you do to keep your readers interest all the way through? Giving your story the same focus on each chapter as you would for a new scene or a short story will help you keep it interesting for your readers.

3. Increase the stakes. If the stakes go up in the middle of the story, your readers interest will remain hooked. Maybe your protagonist now has even more to lose if she doesn't overcome her problem, or something happens to make overcoming the problem less likely.

4. Introduce a new character. This won't work for every storyline, but if the character can fit in within the context of the plot, sometimes this can cause renewed interest by readers, especially if this new person is a mystery, causes a new conflict, increases the conflict in some way or provides some much needed advice for the protagonist. Don't just throw any new character into the story. He has to be integral to the plot and cause a change in some way.

5. Work on your subplot and use it to increase the tension in the main plot. Tie the subplot into the main plot. Spend some time developing it, while subtly increasing the tension of the main plot.

6. Create a setback. Maybe your character has almost overcome the obstacles by now, but you are only half-way through the book. You will need a setback to keep form ending your story early and so that the story can start moving forward again.

7. Use your characters' interactions with each other to move the story forward. Dialogue between characters, even the unspoken body language between them, can create tension and pull the reader in closer.

8. Ask a question. If your story gets to the middle and, instead of answers, your protagonist now has even more questions, readers will continue to read because they want to find out what the answers to those questions are. This also increases the tension in the story.

9. Reveal a secret. Is there something about your protagonist or antagonist that your readers don't know yet? Use the middle of the story to reveal it.

10. Create a twist. Has your story been leading your readers to a false conclusion? Perhaps the middle of the story is a good time to reveal that. As long as it isn't giving away the end of your story, creating a twist can be a good way to keep your story's middle strong.

Day Fifteen: How to Avoid Writer's Block and Get Your Story Written #BYBin30

In my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, I set a goal of writing 10,000 words every three days until I reached 50,000 words, and I beat that goal by reaching a word count of 50,020 words within the first two weeks. The following year during National Novel Writing Month, I wrote 100,126 words within the 30 days of the challenge. These are some of the strategies I used while writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. (I originally shared a similar version of these on my Imagine! Create! Write! blog.)

This is the half-way point in your writing, and for many, this is the point, when writing, that writer's block can sneak up on you or you might start feeling a lack of enthusiasm for your story. It's also possible that you have continued writing daily until this point, but you don't feel that you are getting the word count you were hoping for. Here are some tips that will help you to avoid writer's block and produce a high word count over the next two weeks.

1. Split your focus between different parts of the story-line. By writing different parts of your book at different times, whenever you feel stuck on what you are writing or just need a break from it, you will be able to switch to a different story to write about. This can work when writing a one-story novel or a non-fcition book as well. When you get stuck on a certain part of the book or just need a break from what you are writing, start on a different scene within the story or a different chapter within your non-fiction book. You can always go back to finish the one you started with and when you do, you will feel refreshed and full of new ideas.

2. Set aside as much time as you can spare for writing. You may find that you can sneak more writing time into your day than you originally thought was possible. If you're a parent, you can write when your kids are at school, when your youngest takes a nap, or when all of the children go to bed. Maybe you will stay up late to write. Take a notebook with you everywhere and write while on the bus or while waiting at the doctor's office. Wake up early to write before everyone else is up or before you have to leave for work.

3. Get rid of distractions during your writing time. Many things constitute distractions. Children can be very distracting, so write when they were in bed or at school. The TV is distracting, so make sure it is off when you are writing. Facebook and Twitter are distracting, so tell yourself that you will reach a specific word count before allowing yourself time on either site.

4. Challenge yourself. Try and beat your best record for word count in a day. Or look at how your friends are doing and try to beat their word count. Think of a daily word count that seems slightly out of reach for you and then challenge yourself to find a way to reach it that day.

5. Believe in yourself. No matter what obstacles seem to be in the way of you reaching your word count goal, believe that you will overcome them. Because you can.

6. Make writing a priority. There may be a lot of things that have to be priorities in your life, but if you are reading this, then there is at least a part of you that wants to make writing a priority too. So do it. Make writing something you will not allow yourself to set aside.

7. Get rid of your internal editor. Just write without looking back. When you finish your novel, you can go back and edit what you have written, but just let it go while you are in the middle of writing. You can't edit writing that hasn't been written.

8. When you are not writing your novel, talk about it with others. Not only is this helpful in coming up with new ideas or ways for you to think about your plot, but also, just the act of talking about it will help you to come up with new ideas on your own.

9. Give yourself a break from writing every now and then. Sometimes a change of scenery is all it takes to give yourself fresh ideas and keep the writing flowing.

10. And the one thing that is the most important is to have fun with your story! Enjoy every second of the world you are creating!

*****

Give-away!

This week's prize is a "Superhero Writer" t-shirt. The winner will be drawn by a random number generator selecting form active participants. Must be signed up to the challenge to qualify. (The shirt is white. I'm not sure why Blogger has decided to turn all the whites in my pictures grey, but lately, it has been an issue.) winner will be drawn on April 21st at noon GMT.

Day Fourteen: Creating Fantasy Worlds & Creatures #BYBin30

Creating fantasy worlds and creatures is a talent that is specific to fiction writing, and, within fiction writing, it is specific to a particular genre. When writing fantasy, you are only limited by the boundaries of your imagination, and, as a writer, your imagination should be limitless.

There are several techniques to help you build your world and your characters in a fantasy novel.

Borrow ideas from history and build on them. You can create a fictional character based on a historical figure and alter them to suit the world you are placing them in, or you can create a fantasy world with elements that resemble the real world as it was in the past. Use different religions and cultures and twist them to fit in your world, different but with similarities.

Fantasy worlds and characters have their roots in reality. If the world you create is so fantastical that it comes across as implausible, you will lose your readers. While there are no limits in fantasy, it still needs to be rooted in something more easily believed. Your characters need to experience real emotions and act accordingly; it's what will help your readers identify with them even if the character isn't human or lives a life completely different than your readers live. And worlds, even fantastical ones, will follow simple rules. There will be good and bad people (or creatures) in those worlds and there will always be progress of some sort. Your fantasy world's cities might even have corrupt leaders, just like in real life. Give your readers something they can relate too, no matter how much the world or the characters differ from reality.

Use mythological creatures and tales. Our reality is full of stories, myths about gods and goddesses, legends about dragons, sirens and fairies. You can base the creatures of your world on these creatures of fable. Just because fire-breathing dragons don't live in our reality doesn't mean that they can't exist in the fantasy world you are creating. Likewise, trolls, ogres, vampires and more can easily exist in your fantasy world.

Avoid stereotypes and cliches. While you can use mythological creatures in your fantasy world, they don't need to be exactly as they are in our folklore. They are myth, and myth is built on stories, so create your own stories for them. Create something entirely new that none of your readers will have heard or read about before. The Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling are full of creatures that borrow from mythology but are so different from mythological creatures that we are not entirely sure about the resemblance. The Harry Potter universe also has completely new creatures and mythos. J. K. Rowling's world has its own legends and stories, and fables about good and evil. If all of the creatures in the Harry Potter series were recognizable from our legends and fables, we, as readers, would not have become as enthralled with the fantasy world portrayed in the books. Not only are there creatures that are entirely different from what we expect, but they often act in a way that we do not expect. This keeps things interesting for the reader.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of allowing your imagination to be boundless when creating your fantasy world or characters. Werewolves don't have to change on the full moon, unicorns don't have to be on the side of good, there doesn't have to be only one moon and nothing has to be the way we expect. Build your world and build your characters as if you are their god of creation; your ability to craft this world and the creatures on it has no limits. Are you a loving god of creation, giving your most favored creatures an edge over others in this world, or are you a cold and uncaring god placing them in a hostile environment, where everything that exists in the world exist to kill or maim? As the writer creating your fantasy world and its characters, it's entirely up to you.

*****

Winner!

And now for the announcement of the winner of the "Novel Under Construction" mug, drawn by a random number generator.

The winner is:

Cecilia Clark

Congratulations, Cecilia! 

Day Thirteen: Creating Character Emotions #BYBin30

When writing a fiction novel, your portrayal of character emotions is a key part of the experience you create for your readers. You don't want your characters to come across as wooden and lacking in emotion. But how can you make sure you successfully convey your characters' emotions in a way that will enhance the story for your readers?

1. Show, don't tell. This is advice that is often used when it comes to writing a novel, but it is especially important when conveying character emotions. Don't tell your readers that Sally was tired. Show them the dark circles in her eyes and her constant yawning. Don't tell them that Jason is sad, show them the tears glistening in his eyes, his slumped shoulders and the trembling of his lips.

2. Use body language to convey character emotions. A person's body language can tell a story about what they are feeling, and this is never truer than when in a written story. It's another example of showing instead of telling. If your character is nervous, he might be pacing or fidgeting in some way. He might be sweating or jumpy. If your character is embarrassed, he might be blushing. He might be cringing or stammering. He might be looking down and avoiding eye contact. A happy person might have a smile on their face and a relaxed body. She might walk with a skip in her step.

3. Use internal physical symptoms to show what your character is experiencing. Your character might have a racing heart or quickened breathing. Or your character might have an upset stomach or loss of appetite. Maybe she feels her throat closing off or she's feeling a loss of energy. Maybe he's feeling an ache or pain in his heart or stomach or his mind is racing so much that he's experiencing insomnia. He could be feeling butterflies in his belly or his mouth has gone dry. All of these are internal signs felt by your characters that signal different emotions.

4. Use dialogue or the lack of it to suggest emotions. Sometimes the way a character says something can convey more emotion than through showing it in their body language, although a combination of the two usually works best. Instead of writing that your character thought Jason was an idiot, write: '"You're an idiot," Janice said.' Another way to use dialogue is by what your characters don't say. A poignant silence in response to a question can convey all sorts of different emotions, depending on the context. For example: 'Janice asked, "Do you still love me?" Jason looked away, silent.'

5. Use setting to convey character emotion. The way your character perceives the setting around him can suggest your character's mood or the emotions your character is experiencing. Your character might be experiencing a sunny day, but, while in a foul mood, all he notices are the clouds that linger. Or your character might be experiencing a grey and rainy day, but decide to go dance in the rain or be thinking about how nourishing the rain will be for the flowers in his garden.

There are numerous ways to portray your character's emotions without resorting to simply telling your readers what those emotions are. And if your readers are able to feel those emotions alongside your characters because you have engaged the five senses, used dialogue, body language and setting to help convey those emotions, your readers will be more invested in your story and in your characters.

Day Twelve: Taking a Break from Writing to Refuel Your Muse #BYBin30

By now, you have been planning, researching and writing your book for twelve days. You might be beginning to find your motivation waning or the idea for writing starting to fail you. Now is a good time to take a short break from writing your book. Taking a short break is not going to kill your manuscript or your momentum. In many instances, it is just what you need to fuel even more ideas and to prevent writer's block from creeping in and damaging your productivity.

Taking a day off from writing might cause you to fall behind on your preferred word count, but it is only a day's worth of writing that you will fall behind on and, with your creativity and motivation renewed by a day of rest, it will be a simple matter to catch up on that missed day of writing in the days ahead.

Taking a day off from writing doesn't mean that you only take a break from writing; it also means you take a break from other writing-related tasks, such as researching your book, working on the plot structure or outline of your book and even planning the next scene in your head. A day off from writing means taking a complete break from your book.

Use the day off to experience things away from your desk or computer. Go on a picnic with your family. Go see a movie that you've been wanting to see. Go out to dinner with your significant other or a good friend. Spend a day cooking up some of your favorite dishes. Go on a hike somewhere pretty and lush with nature. Go volunteer at a shelter, soup kitchen or food bank for the day. Take your kids to the aquarium or spend a day at the beach with family and friends. Go swimming. Spend time working out at the gym. Read a book you've been wanting to read for ages. Take a luxurious bubble bath. Go for a massage or spend the day at a health spa.

Spend the day refreshing your mind, relaxing and pampering yourself. Feel yourself living in the moment. Then, a day later, when you get back to your writing and working on your book, the ideas will flow and your creative muse will be just as refreshed as the rest of you.

Day 11: Writing a Series Book #BYBin30

When people discuss series books, they very rarely are referring to non-fiction books, but, in the non-fiction context, a series book can be several books on different aspects or subsets of one more general topic. A good example of this is the writing books by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Currently, they have three books which all fall within the same topic, but are more specifically targeted. Their series of writing books, "The Emotions Thesaurus," "The Negative Trait Thesaurus" and "The Positive Trait Thesaurus" are all thesauruses written for writers, but they each address a different sub-topic within the writing paradigm.

More commonly, when people reffer to series books, they are referring to fiction books.

A stand-alone novel is one that can be read on its own. It does not continue in a later book and every issue or conflict introduced in the book is successfully resolved by the end of the book. These books can be long or short but must always resolve the conflict within the one book.

A trilogy is, essentially, a much longer stand-alone book that has been divided into three separate books. Trilogies must resolve all of the conflicts and issues that are introduced within all three books by no later than the final book in the trilogy. Some trilogies work like series books in that they have an over-arching conflict that doesn't resolve until the final book, but also have smaller conflicts that are individual to each book that are resolved within that specific book. Other trilogies leave major cliffhangers at the end of each book, waiting for the final book to resolve the cliffhangers from the previous two books.

Series books usually differ from stand-alone books but not always. Occasionally, series books function as stand-alone books but have the same characters dealing with different conflicts in each subsequent book. The Nancy Drew series is a good example of this. Each book is about a different mystery that the main character, Nancy, solves, but each book can also be read as a stand-alone book because each mystery is introduced at the beginning of the same book that it is resolved in by the end. And there is no over-arching conflict or mystery that remains unanswered from book to book.

More often, series books differ from stand-alone books because of an over-arching theme or conflict that carries over from one book to the next, usually not getting resolved until the final book in a series. These books usually have a sub-conflict which each particular book deals with, successfully resolving towards the end, while still keeping the main conflict unresolved. Each book continues with the same characters and, normally, the same setting. They tend to be plot-driven, but, because they can cover a long span of time, they often have characters who grow and change throughout the story.

A good example of series books is The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. The books deal with the same characters and they happen in the same world, but each story is self-contained, while at the same time leaving something to be resolved by the next book. The over-arching theme sometimes changes after being resolved in a previous book, but, though it changes, there is always one that carries over to future books.

Series books are usually not overly long books, but there are some series books which have successfully overcome that trend. A good example of a series of books that has very long books for each book in the series is the Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin. The first book in the series is over 800 pages long and has won several awards.

One thing to consider when writing a series book is foreshadowing. In foreshadowing, you lay the seeds for future events in the book early on in the storyline. In series books, these seeds can be laid down to sprout within the storyline several books later.

Some series authors choose not to resolve any of the conflicts introduced in the first books, and sometimes not even in the second or third books in the series. They leave major cliffhangers at the end of each book. For some authors, this can work as a device to keep the reader interested and wanting to read more. But there is a significant number of people who do not like reading books with this type of cliffhanger ending within a series book. Writers need to keep that in mind that with a book that doesn't resolve anything; they might be alienating some of their readers.

Day Eight: Writing memorable dialogue #BYBin30

Every fiction novel needs to have well written dialogue. If your dialogue is stilted or forced, it won't help move your story along, and it can even turn away your readers.

Some things to avoid doing when writing dialogue:

1. Telling instead of showing. The dialogue will have a part in your story, but it shouldn't be the whole story. Your characters should also show the message they are imparting through body language and more subtle means.

2. Providing too much information at once. Using dialogue for large chunks of exposition sounds forced. Don't try to skip over a crucial element of the story by having a character explain it all. That's lazy writing and will not engage your reader.

3. Don't use superfluous adverbs. For example, '"I won't do it," Jessica shouted angrily.' Look for those words ending in "-ly" and get rid of them.

4. Using too many dialogue tags. The only tags you should ever need to use are "said," "asked" and maybe, once in a while, "answered" or "replied." Many children are taught to use as many different dialogue tags as they can think up, but this is because it helps them to learn vocabulary; it's not the correct way to write dialogue in a story.

5. Using your characters names too often during dialogue. In most instances, you should have already made it clear who is speaking. And in realistic speech, most of the time people don't say each other's names while speaking to them. Your characters do not need to address each other by name, unless, for example, there is a specific incidence where someone is giving individual directions to a group of people.

Some things that are okay to do while writing dialogue:

1. Use silence instead of words. Sometimes what your character is not saying is as powerful and meaningful as what they are saying. For example, if one character asks another character who is at fault for some mistake that has occurred, the character's silence instead of answering speaks volumes.

2. Use different speech patterns for different characters. A teenager living on the streets is going to sound different from an elderly grandmother enjoying a cup of tea while sitting on her porch. However, you need to be careful not to over-do the differences. Try not to have every character sound like you. Re-read what you've written, and if the speech patterns sound forced or unnatural for your character, then you know you need to rewrite it.

3. Use actions of your characters to punctuate their dialogue. This is a way to bring the scene into the dialogue and also a way to show the story rather than tell the story. For example, if your character is pacing, this shows some tension or worry behind their words, which might not be as easily conveyed through words alone.

4. Skip some of the more mundane dialogue. You can skip your characters saying "hello" and "goodbye" to everyone in the room. A neat trick for this is to skip the beginning of the conversation and the very end and just write the meat of the dialogue, the middle.

5. Break up the dialogue. Large chunks of dialogue can be too wordy and tend to lack some of the emotion that can be shown through your characters actions. A great way to show emotion in dialogue is for your character to have stumbles and restarts, maybe even some fumbling of his or her words.

An important step to take when writing dialogue:

Read the dialogue you have written out loud. This is the easiest way to see where the dialogue is not working.

***** 

This week, the prize that will be drawn from the signed-up Blog Your Book in 30 Days members who are actively participating is a Novel Under Construction mug. The drawing will be done by a random number generator on April 14th at noon and will be announced at the end of that day's blog post.

Day Five: Supporting topics/Supporting characters #BYBin30

In non-fiction books, supporting topics can be useful to help give credence to your topic or to enhance it in some way. These topics should, of course, have a strong connection to your main topic. For example, if you are writing about how to grow a container garden, it can be helpful to also let your readers know about the benefits of eating fresh produce free from chemicals and hormones or about the environmental benefits gained from growing your own produce.  Or if you are writing a book with instructions for weight lifting properly, it can be good to also write about how a healthy diet can enhance fitness levels or about the way our modern lifestyles have changed the way we commence exercise since the days of homesteading in the 1800s.

In fiction novels, supporting characters can be anyone. A supporting character can be a parent, a friend, a sibling, an aunt or uncle, a cousin, a neighbor, a pet or even someone brought into your protagonists life through the events of the story. The supporting character can have a personality and traits that are similar to your main character, but it usually works best when their traits are different. Those personality and physical traits can compliment your protagonist though.

Supporting characters are an important way to show off more of your main character. Through dialogue and interactions between your protagonist and your story's supporting characters, the reader can learn more about your protagonist and find even more reasons to become invested in the outcome of the novel. The way your protagonist interacts with the supporting characters and reacts to their actions becomes a way to display more of his or her personality, strengths and weaknesses.

Your novel's supporting characters can help to move the plot along. For example, in one of my stories, the main character has a best friend who is trying to help her survive the threats from one of the antagonists in the story, but, when the protagonist thinks she might have found a solution, the antagonist turns his evil intentions toward the protagonist's best friend. In this way, the tension is increased and the task before the protagonist becomes even more treacherous for her to navigate. Another example of a supporting character helping to move the plot along can be when the protagonist is an amateur detective and his or her friend or parent is a police officer. The police officer can impart information that is vital to your protagonist's investigation.

When naming your supporting characters, it is best to begin their names with a different letter than the one with which your main character's name begins. You don't want similar sounding names, because this can sometimes be confusing to the reader. I once read a story that had three characters with names that began with the letter A. They all had the same syllables within their names too. The book had many characters, and I found it difficult to keep track of which one I was reading about whenever one of their names turned up in the book.

Normally, it is not a good idea to write too many supporting characters into your novel, unless your novel is an epic fantasy that will progress over many years and several books. As in the problem with naming character,s this is because it can become confusing to your readers. Sometimes, the reader won't know whether to get invested in a certain supporting character or not when there are too many supporting characters.