The characters that we create with our fiction are meant to be treated with the consistent notion that they all have something to say. That they all have certain motivations, needs and wants, flaws and problems, of their own. At least that’s how I always think of them in my head as I position them in different situations throughout my own stories. Now, it would be impossible, or at the very least...incredibly distracting, for a writer to go through each and every single character and write out their entire life stories for everyone to get attached to while still sticking to the full main story that you’re trying to build from scratch. Even attempting to do so will leave you with a giant heap of useless prose that neither deepens or progresses the plot in any way and dilutes the focus of what’s supposed to be directly in your spotlight. So why is it there? Get rid of it, unless it has some unseen impact on the story in the future chapters before it comes to an end. But...just because you haven’t made any efforts to add these details to the story, doesn’t mean they don’t still need to be there somehow. But only if it’s necessary.

Hehehe, Let me explain...

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the term, ‘one trick pony’, right? It’s like...you advertise this amazing pony, a wonder among wonders, and smarter than all of the other animals like him. And people get there to see this magnificent creature, you say “Stamp your foot three times!”, and the pony does it. Amazing! What else can he do? “What do you mean what else can he do? That’s it. That’s the trick. Thanks for coming out, have a good night, folks!” Hehehe, wouldn’t you feel a bit cheated? One trick, and not one that’s all that mind-blowing to be honest. I have read stories, seen movies and TV shows, where some of their characters definitely fit into this category, and it comes from one of those mistakes that authors make from time to time. Exchanging the personality and humanity of an actual character for the practice of simply using them as a plot device to fill in the little holes in your storytelling that you need to tell in order to keep things moving.

You may think that most readers won’t be able to tell the difference...but I assure you that they most definitely can. So don’t make it one of those bad habits that you train yourself to find comfort in. More often than not, it doesn’t work. And it ends up taking points away from a really cool story if you lean too heavily on it. I’ve done it myself in the past, and now that I look back and see it so clearly, it really does bug me. Ugh!

Think of it this way...if you have a character in your story that provides a decent amount of comic relief to the rest of the story...ask yourself if that’s a character trait or a plot device? What’s the difference? One is an actual person with a humorous streak in them, and the other is something the story uses as a tool every time they feel the current situation needs a touch of levity to combat and control the readers’ attention. If you engage in pulling off the latter throughout the entire story, you’ve succeeded in taking a living, breathing, human being...and draining all the life out of them until they’re just a tool written in for the story’s sake. No more animate or ‘alive’ than a hammer or a screwdriver. You take it out when you need it, put it back in the drawer, and don’t think about it until you need it again. What this does is eat away at the very purpose of having this character exist anywhere in your story at all. Any one of your more well developed characters can tell a joke or two, but if you created an entire fictional entity to act as a vessel for that one particular trait, then you have to support their existence with something that isn’t quite as flimsy.

Like I said, I’ve definitely written characters like this in the past and I’ve learned to avoid doing it if at all possible. It was all about how I was feeling about the story as a whole first, and then telling myself that this is what I needed to carry the story from beginning to end. What that led to was me building characters that were flat and not really interesting at all beyond their usefulness of the context of the story itself. I found myself thinking in terms of, “He can be the best friend, she can be the angry one, this guy can be the smart one...” Etc. Well, what does that mean in terms of them being a character? Smart about what? Best friend to who? And why? Angry because of what? These are all questions that I should have been asking myself when I thought them up. People who ‘felt’ as though they had a life and a reason for living outside of this one plotted story. I think it’s important to make the distinction between characters and plot devices to keep your story on track and eliminate wasteful writing on people who, ultimately, don’t matter in this world you’ve built. Meaning that the readers won’t care, and it’s just blank space being filled up with the echoes of a better story and more important characters. Keep that in mind at all times.

I was watching a horror movie some months ago, where the main character was a photographer who was following the murderous deeds of a killer on a local subway system. He was checking his pictures, searching for patterns, trying to figure out what was going on, sharing his discoveries with local authorities, being completely affected by everything that was going on. He was the driving force of the story, and what I was most intrigued by apart from the actual killer himself. It turned out to be a pretty cool movie in the end. But then...he had a wife at home. And honestly, it kind of sucked a lot of the enjoyment out of the rest of the movie for me. Why? Because she was just sort of...there. You know? Like...she didn’t really enhance the plot in any way, she didn’t have any level of expertise or connections to help him solve the mystery, she wasn’t in any danger that she needed ‘saving’ from, she didn’t team up with her husband to look for clues or give him any ideas...she was just there. He would come home, and she was cooking something and said, “Hi, honey. Love you.” when he came back home, occasionally adding, “You look tired.” or a “This is taking a toll on you.” And that was it. And it began to annoy me after a while, because if she’s going to be a part of this movie and written into the plot...give her something to DO! Why is she here, other than to slow down the pacing and distract me from the main plot while I’m expecting her to be the key to...SOMETHING in the grand scheme of things. But nope. She was just there to be a wife and act as a exposition plot device to tell the audience that his obsession was changing him and that he should slow down. It was the quintessential underwritten character, and if she hadn’t been in the story at all, and the protagonist had just been a bachelor with a manic fascination with a deadly hunter on the subway, I think it could have made for a much better story. This is why underwritten characters have such little use in the stories we write. They fill such a tiny spot in the bigger picture that it’s often better to just erase them altogether and let the rest of story jut glide right over it.

A great example? Lois Lane! Anybody who’s a fan of Superman knows who Lois Lane is and why she’s important. You feel like you know her. She’s got spunk, and wit, and she’s smart. And she’s a reporter, so if she’s in harm’s way, it’s often because she put herself there following he passion for investigative reporting. Lois Lane is an AWESOME character, and much more than a plot device to give Superman a familiar damsel in distress to save every week. You get a feeling that she exists outside of whatever story she happens to be a part of at that time. She has a backstory and a future. The character can stand on its own and you believe it because there are other facets to her personality that have nothing to do with that one twenty page comic book issue, you know?

Now...who can tell us who Batman’s girlfriend was without going back to watch the movie? Don’t worry...I’ll wait.

Vicki Vale. Fun fact...Vicki Vale was originally added to the Batman comic books, especially after adopting ‘Robin’ to be his sidekick, because everyone was worried that Batman might look too ‘gay’ for the market. That was basically her only reason for being there. No ambition, no real motivation, nothing in the way of helping Batman out or even hindering him by searching for his secret identity. Nope. She was just there to keep him from looking gay. There’s nothing to say about her at all. Nothing memorable or impactful. She’s just Batman’s girlfriend. His one trick pony. And nothing else.

Whenever you’re writing your own stories, do everything that you can to create or give ANY attention that you can to your one note, underwritten, characters so that they shine a little bit and can add something to the mix. Or, quite simply...lose them. Send them all packing. You’ll thank me for it later, and your story will seem so much tighter and on point if you just avoid the fluff.

I have stories where it’s obvious that my characters have other friends outside of the plot. They have teachers, some of them have jobs, all of them one or two parents or guardians at home...and I might mention them every now and then to the point where readers are aware of their existence...but that’s pretty much the beginning and the end of it. Why take the time to treat them like an actual character when they’re not serving as anything more than a cardboard cutout for the background. I have some stories where the parents are an actual part of the plot and have an important role to play in the development of my protagonist...but if they’re just going to be standing around doing nothing the whole time, then why bother? It’s a plot device that serves no purpose. Underwritten characters may have a function...but no purpose. And the story would be more focused without having to deal with them at all.

Alrighty then...underwritten characters. Are you guilty of leaning on them yourselves? Let us know your thoughts down below. And I hope this article helps you out whenever you need it! Have a good time, you guys! And I’ll seezya soon!