Worldbuilding 101: How to Write Side-Characters

Reading time: 15 Min

Worldbuilding for fantasy is a fun but frustrating experience. Every writer wants their world to be engaging, intriguing, and immersive—they want their readers’ imaginations to run wild and for people to daydream about the world that’s only ever existed inside the writer’s bubble of a mind.

I previously wrote a checklist on how to fix a flat scene, but one element has been missing that has interested me lately.

Have you ever wondered what makes fantasy worlds such as Harry Potter, The Vampire Diaries, Star Wars or any impactful book so enchanting for the reader?

I certainly did.

And I came across a pattern, a hidden secret that’s been right under out noses.

Side characters.

Why are side characters important?

While it’s easy to get caught up in love affairs, grand plots and complex magical systems: how the writer utilises side-characters can make or break a book. They could be the difference between a world we yearn for, and a world we forget.

Here’s the problem: Many side characters are forgettable, lack depth, or exist only as cardboard plot devices with the personality and flavour of brick walls. And this is a colossal waste.

Side characters make your readers develop a deep connection to your fantasy world that stretches outside your main character’s story. They set the world in motion, enrich every setting and reveal far more than you may have realised.

In this post, we’ll explore the art of writing side-characters that matter.

You’ll learn:

• How to replace dry info-dumping with engaging side-characters.
• How to ensure every character, no matter how small, serves a purpose
• How to use side-characters to become a better worldbuilder
• How to use side-characters to contrast, reveal and highlight your MC’s motivations, fear, drives and attitudes
• How to make every single location in your world memorable

By the end of this post, you’ll understand how to craft side-characters who are more than just filler. You’ll learn how to breathe life into your story and to make it absolutely unforgettable. So, let’s get started!

Stop Infodumping: People don’t care about places and concepts: They care about people. 

Which method is most engaging?

A story that tells you: This world is scary and dangerous, and it’s people are paranoid.

Or a story that shows you: The MC is lost, and needs to ask for directions. They ask a side-character: a hooded figure, whose movements are sharp, twitchy – eyes wide and constantly shifting. Instead of answering the question, the side-character shakes their head, shrinks into themselves and hurries away.

What story makes us care more?

The story tells you: The government is corrupt, and that there’s greed in every position of power. Some businessmen replaced expensive but safe chemicals with cheap, toxic ones in production for profit, causing workers at these companies with terminal illnesses.

A story that shows you: Person A works at a posh restaurant, and tries to keep their anger under control as they slowly pour wine into businessman A’s glass. Businessmen C and D praise and flirt with B on how virtuous and valiant they are for using the money to pay for their child’s expensive birthday gift (like a car). The politicians don’t know that A’s child works in one of their factories. A factory that refused to use safe chemicals in their products because the toxic ones were cheaper, and now A’s child has a fatal disease from handling the toxic chemicals.

Check out my post on Worldbuilding 101: How does power work to get more inspiration for how to worldbuild power distribution (through culture, information/knowledge, ideology, reasources and problem solving).

Show your world through people.

We don’t care about concepts, places and things. We care about people – so show your world through people.

Not “some people out there” but this person, right here.

Side-characters can reveal information in an interesting, engaging way that makes us feel something. The next time you need to reveal information, consider taking a chunk from the infodump and ask yourself; 

How can I make this information matter to my character right now?

How can I show this information, instead of just telling it? 

Why does this work? Because people care about people and the stories they show us, not places. 

What are some practical examples of this?

• Imagine if Hagrid never existed in Harry Potter. Would we still feel as warm, special and welcomed through Harry into the Wizarding World without this warm, special and welcoming character? Imagine if Draco Malfoy never existed to reveal pureblood supremacy (and instead someone just told Harry what the world thought of muggleborns).
• What if we removed Rose’s fiancé from the Titanic – and just settled for a vague, abstract concept of her feeling trapped without grounding it in a character that embodied said entrapment and the mindset she was trying to escape? Would we care as much about her freedom?
• (Code-words to avoid spoiling for Stranger Things Season 4) Would we be so frightened for Max if we never introduced Vecna’s powers through Chrissy?

How to Write Immersive Worlds: Give Every Location a Face

Jk Rowling Disclaimer

Considering the controversy surrounding JK Rowling and her books, I feel compelled to say Hearthsiders is a safe place for everyone.

Cancel culture is problematic, and I hesitate to condemn someone I’ve never met. Whether you believe JK Rowling’s statements are misconstrued by the media or not is up to you – you will still be welcomed here. I can’t speak for her.

What I can do is stress that I firmly stand for equality and respect for everyone, regardless of their background, identity, beliefs, or preferences. I value freedom of expression in all its forms – including gender identity.

One subject of interest for me has been figuring out what makes the Wizarding World of Harry Potter so compelling for so many of us.

And after some consideration in which I compared my own creative projects and the Wizarding World; I noticed something curious about the Wizarding world: every single location has a face. 

You don’t simply go to the potions classroom, you go to Professor Snape. 

You don’t simply go wand-shopping, you go to Ollivander. 

You don’t simply go to the Girl’s bathroom, you go to Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom. 

Even the Graveyard in the Goblet of Fire is directly associated with Voldemort’s father’s grave. 

You get the concept. 

Every single memorable location in the Wizarding world has a memorable face. It makes the story come alive because it’s interactive and ever-changing. No location is empty; and there is a sense that you can travel between locations, and the main story wouldn’t stop because the locations and characters breathing life into those locations are there, continuously moving outside the realm of your main character. 

Make your world memorable, interactive and alive by giving every location a memorable, interesting and interactive character. 

Examples From Other Stories: 

✅Vampire Diaries: All memorable locations are either someone’s home (Salvatore boarding house, Gilbert’s house, Mikaelson’s compound), someone’s domain (The tomb where Kathrine was thought to be, Mystic Grill where Matt Donovan works, The history classroom where Alaric works). 

✅Pirates of the Caribbean: Think of one place, boat, or island in the Pirates of the Caribbean that doesn’t direct physical or emotional significance to at least one character. 

✅Friends. We don’t just go to “a coffee shop”. We go to the coffee shop where Gunther (and also Rachel for a time) works. The Coffee Shop wouldn’t be as alive if we had a nameless/faceless waiter. 

Practical Advice: 

✅Give every important location a face. People don’t care about places; they care about people, and the stories they tell within those locations. 

✅Return to Locations, and have people we recognize work or live there. Don’t just order a drink from “the bartender”. Give the bartender a purpose in the story, a name and something memorable to make the location feel more alive. 

The Setting Directly Influences the Characters – Making them perfect means of revealing information in an engaging way. 

The setting changes the characters. And if you have strong enough characters that they would alter the entire plot of another setting, and a strong enough setting that it would alter the personality of any character who enters it – you have a perfect recipe for an amazing story. 

So instead of adding random, generic side-characters to your stories – fill them with purpose. Reveal something about their culture, their world, the norms and customs, the tone and theme of your world – instead of going on a lengthy info-dump tangent. 

Product of their environment: If you’re writing about a small town: Write small town side characters. 

Representing the theme: If you’re writing about greed: Write greedy side characters. 

Representing the tone: If you’re writing a happy scene: Write happy side characters. 

Exploring How Characters Influence And Are Influenced By Their Enviroment: A Thought Experiment.

✅How would the Harry Potter Side-Characters (ex Albus Dumbledore or Snape) be rewritten if they were written in Game Of Thrones?

✅How would the Alice In Wonderland Characters be rewritten if the story took place in a 1950’s psychiatric hospital? 

✅How would the Dead Poets Society characters be rewritten if the setting was the Wizarding world? 

✅How would the Marvel Characters be rewritten if their setting was in the DC-universe? 

How to Use Side-Characters To Introduce Your Main Character (MC).

Side Characters that contrasts or reveals something about your MC:

Write characters who embody the theme—or a belief, trait, or concept. This allows your MC to show rather than tell us how they feel about said theme, belief, trait or concept.

The side-characters allows your MC to externalise and project their internal thoughts, feelings and beliefs onto another person – instead of the author having to just say it.

Examples:

✅Our Working-class hero interacts with the waiter of a posh restaurant for a job interview. How the waiter interacts with her represents how this new culture/world will treat the MC, and how the MC reacts to the waiter represents how she feels about this culture, and upper-class, or her class. (Is she anxious? Does she reject this new culture’s social norms or try to conform? Does she feel scrutinised or welcomed?)

✅An artist shows us how he feels about the corporate music industry through how he interacts with an agent or record-dealer. Is the artist anxious to appease the industry, (think A Star Is Born (2018) or does the artist reject the record deal for the sake of their art (think Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). 

✅Our famous character shows us how they feel about their fame by interacting with a fan side-character. Are they comfortable with it or not? Does it make them feel honored, proud, invaded or annoyed? Does this change throughout the story? 

If you’re seeking inspiration for how to write realistic, interesting and unique depictions of a character under stress, check out my post Do this if you want characters that stand out. There, I break down some known and less known copying mechanisms and how you could use it for characterization in stories.

Foil Characters: Characters that highlights your MC’s Traits by contrasting them.

A foil character is a character that contrasts your main character. 

✅If you want to write a carefree MC: Have them interact briefly with a serious side character to highlight this trait. 

✅If you want to write a brave MC: Have them interact with a cowardly side character to highlight this trait. 

✅If you want to write a broody/withered MC: Write an innocent or lighthearted side-character to highlight this trait. 

The Two-Shot Story Technique

To Show How The Narrative’s Changed the World:

Don’t search for the term anywhere else, because I bullshitted this one from thin air – but it’s a common, and effective technique that I see utilized often in both books and movies.

It’s essentially when you create a side character to show them twice in contrasting situations.

Example: The world was whimsical and light at the beginning of our story, but is now dulled and beaten by a war. To show how the narrative’s changed the world, we create a whimsical and light-hearted character to interact with in the beginning of the story, and show them again later, but now they are dulled and hurt like the world around them. 

Practical Examples: 

✅Mulan (1998). Shot 1: Mulan retrieves a textile doll from two kids that’s stolen it from a little girl in Mulan’s village, showing the audience Mulan’s kindness. Shot 2: After the final musical montage, when the story’s tone shifts from light to dark – Mulan discovers the same doll in the ashes of a town the Huns have attacked. 

✅Harry Potter. In the first movie, we meet the whimsical Ollivander in the whimsical and childlike wandshop in Diagon Alley. In later films, we see Ollivander once more – bruised and beaten from having been kidnapped by Voldemort and tortured for information – showing how the world is changing due to the war.

To Show how the Narrative has Changed the Character. 

One way to show how our main character has changed due to the narrative is to have them interact with characters who remained stagnant; and make a different choice than they did the first time. 

Examples of This: 

✅Stardust (2007). The MC is a small-town, boyish guy who wants to impress his crush (who is engaged) by retrieving a star for her. His crush is shallow and small minded, as well as her financé – representing the tone and norms of their small town. First shot: Before the plot, our main character is intimidated by his crush’s financé and believes him to be better than him. Second Shot: After our MC’s big adventure, he views both his crush and her fiancé as silly, childlike and small-minded, and he effortlessly soars above his taunts. This shows us how the main character has grown due to his adventure. 

✅Joker (2019) Murray represents his attitude toward seeking validation, comfort, and acceptance in a world that abuses him. In the beginning, he imagines being embraced and praised by his idol. In the end, we show a negative character arc when he kills him, killing the dream of ever being fairly treated in an unfair system.

Key Takeaways and Summary:

Never write Redundant Characters: Every Character, no matter how small, can serve a purpose. 

What purpose does your side character serve? 

• Thematic purpose. Their worldview matters to the story’s message, or they represent something thematically.
• Functional Purpose. Their presence impacts the story. This could be as simple as giving your MC a cigarette, or guiding your character from the entrance to the meeting room.
• Plot/Narrative purpose. We show the side character in a two-shot story to reveal how either the world, or the MC, has changed due to the plot. 
• Emotional purpose. They cause an emotional reaction in the audience, or in our characters. (Humor, cringe, anger, injustice, cuteness, dislike, disgust, admiration, fear). These are the characters that offer a tone shift or enhancement.
• Worldbuilding purpose (they reveal something about the world). They represent an aspect of the world, and put a face to it. Therefore, you don’t need any long exposition. Because the placeholder characters are revealing the world through their characterization. 
• Character Building Purpose. How the MC interacts with the SC reveals something about your MC’s motivations, fears, traits, strengths, weaknesses or beliefs about the world. 

Side-Characters can be used for: 

✅Setting the tone

✅Revealing social norms and customs

✅Showing/embodying the story’s themes 

✅Showing how the world’s changed due to the narrative (contrast) 

✅Showing how the character’s changed due to the narrative (contrast) 

✅Work as a foil character that highlights who your MC is by contrasting them 

✅Work as a foil character that highlights the customs of the world they live in by being a contrast to it. 

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF THE NEXT TIME YOU WRITE A SIDE CHARACTER:

• Does this character represent something about the world?
• Do they contrast the MC in a meaningful way?
• Would the story feel different if they were removed?
• Does every location have a face (or something to replace a face to make it interactive)?
• Is there any way you could MERGE side characters to make them more impactful, and make the world feel like it’s alive and consistent (like ollivanders is the only wand shop, if you go there, you can expect to find thease characters – it just feels more ALIVE)?

Thank you for Reading.

Side characters have more impact on the plot than many of us realise. What are some of your favourite side characters and why? Is there a side character in your current creative project that you can use to create a more engaging and immersive world?

Leave your thoughts in the comments, or join my socials listed in the sidebar!

There are so many other interesting methods that adds depth to a story, and I’m excited to explore more of them in the future through this blog. If you would like to come back for similar content, don’t hesitate to sign up for the newsletter to get a notification whenever there’s a new post.

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