We Should Love Secondary Characters

It’s just terrible! Look up the definition of a Secondary Character and you’ll find something like this:

Also known as two-dimensional characters or flat characters, they do not grow or change.

Don’t let secondary characters take on too much importance. The story has to revolve, almost totally, around the hero and heroine.

Well, phooey. I don’t agree. In romance novels, heroes and heroines are pretty flat. Obsessed with each other, they crave sexual fulfillment because their bodies are swamped with those “love” chemicals: dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine. Intellectual bores, they jaw on endlessly about each other, garble, stutter, stumble, blush, sweat, and make a thousand wrong decisions before hitting on the right (obvious) one. Why? Because love has struck them dumb.

So, who can we rely on for a bit of humour, clear thinking, or danger? Secondary Characters. Even Jane Austen’s, Pride and Prejudice, would be dull stuff if we didn’t have the foolish Mrs. Bennet and her silly younger daughters. Would Darcy seem so wonderful without the plotting, lying George Wickham, or the self-righteous, pompous clergyman, William Collins? So let’s demand secondary characters. Let’s create them. And let’s love them.

Come meet one of my own Secondary Characters:

Fast-talking door-to-door salesman Don Ried, electric blue suit, spiffy tie, spit-shined shoes, a snappy joke ready and waiting on his curled lip: “You hear the one about the nympho and the bus driver?” Every weekday, hitting the streets in hick towns north and south, be it rain or shine, blizzard or flood. Natty briefcase in one hand, glossy showroom catalogue snug inside; in the other, the sample box with its miniature sofas, credenzas, tables, armchairs, all with the company logo stamped into them.

Ringing doorbells, bringing luxury and dreams into a housewife’s dull day, brightening an hour or two for them, he’s a fantasy man to women stuck at home cleaning, braising, stewing, raising their brats, and wondering if that’s all there is to life, if romance boils down to this only. Why, he convinces the ladies he’s doing them a favor, introducing wares that might change everything, demonstrating pull-out drawers, nifty storage space.

Words for Patty Jo https://books2read.com/PattyJo