I recently revisited The Dorset Museum in lovely Dorchester with editing colleagues from The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading. We were visiting a Thomas Hardy exhibition and it was fascinating.
The best light works do not lay their themes on with the proverbial trowel. As you read the marvellous prose and get behind those characters, you will pick up the themes almost by osmosis. There is no lecturing. You are left to follow the characters on their journey.
Supporting characters in stories have much the same role as supporting actors do. Without them, the story is incomplete. They add richness and depth to a story too, especially if they are involved in the sub-plots in novellas and novels. But their task is to either help or hinder the lead characters in their task. They don’t overshadow the leading character either.
For a villainous character, their supporting character can help increase the difficulties faced by the hero/heroine. That in turn increases the tension in the story and the risks of failure for the hero/heroine. For a more noble character, their supporting characters can help them achieve their objective quicker and limit the risks faced by the lead and increase their chances of success.
One of the joys of going away is getting to see different landscapes of course. I’ve recently returned from a week in the far north of Scotland and my trip there gives me a deeper appreciation of cartography as an art form. Why? [Read more…] about Maps in Fiction and History
