Writing Tips and Reviews

Background Characters

You want to know what I hate? "You can't just spit out ocs" screw the person who told me this. Now, I'll mostly be talking about the conversation Hendrik and I had, but I have to bring this up. Poor baby, there's more than two characters in the story, you just have to insult the writer and whine about it. Poor thing can't handle more than two characters and you have to put down the writer for being better at making characters than you, because "no flaws" is all you can handle. Okay that's out of my system, Reddit is currently having a ball with that story.

Well, what are background characters? They're characters meant to fill the world and make it less empty. We Kingdom Hearts fans know the first game has the emptiest worlds known to games and it's so boring. KH3 has NPCs, they walk around, they talk and they do nothing most of the time. But what's better for a world?

Making a massive character cast isn't really needed, the ones who have names and are fully developed don't need to be in the hundreds to thousands in numbers. That's too much for a singular Tales game. So, what's stopping you from making side characters? Background characters? And those who don't serve a purpose to the story?

Each time I want to propose a new character to a story I get "make sure they have a purpose." Well, what if I don't want them to have a purpose? What if I want them to sit around and do literally nothing? As useless and unneeded that sounds, it's better than nothing in the room. You'll see in my quotes that I make a huge cast for the sake of world development. If the entire world has three characters because "you can't spit out ocs, I'm offended by anyone doing something I don't personally like," then, it's boring and I don't want to read a story where only three characters exist in the world unless it's post apocalyptic.

You don't have to develop them with the same effort as you do with the main cast. The main cast deserves more time and effort than some background character who walks around the bar and has a few lines to not make it an empty room.

Background characters exist to make the world feel real, they can tell a story of their own, they can have side quests, but in the long run, if every single character in the world was massively important to the story, then good luck. There's a reason games limit the party to about 10-20. I've never seen a game where the entire world all fight the last boss. They can provide support, but they're not the ones the game focuses on.

Not every character you add needs to be massively important or have a purpose at all. They can just sit there and watch the sky. Like in real life, you walk by people all the time who have nothing to do with your life. Would they need to disappear just because they don't serve a purpose in your life?

This is basically summary of what the quotes say; if I've missed any detail the quotes will fill it in. They're optional to read and only prove my point further.

-Quote Time-

"So they're present to tell the world from their perspective?"
-Hendrik

"No, they're around to make the world seem less empty.

Scenario one: the character walks into an empty room. This is on the basis of characters who have a purpose can stay. Kingdom Hearts 1, it's boring, especially when it's like that all the time.

Scenario two: the character walks into the room with a bunch of others sitting at tables and talking. They overhear conversations and have to walk around the people.

What's more interesting to the reader? Absolutely nothing? Or a crowd of people?"

"In real life, say, everyone who had nothing to do in your life weren't there anymore. All that was left were the people who had a purpose in your life. In my life, that's less than a hundred. As introverted as I am, I think I'd be more scared to walk through empty streets and buildings than walking through a crowd of people. It's like the zombie apocalypse where everyone is gone and you can feel the shaking fear of "where is everyone?" In Tales of Zestiria, one scene has Sorey come home to his friends and family. While none of them really matter to the story, they're still around because it would be sad to see Sorey, Mikleo, Alisha and Zenrus in a big village. And it's just them.

In Serpheria, the other guilds and members to those guilds are all pretty useless, they're said to do their jobs but it's never shown because the characters don't care. Riko could go to any one of them and talk to them like any RPG. But they don't matter. The guild base is full of guild members from so many guilds, and they're all pretty useless. But, if you walked into a guild base that was said to the base of hundreds of guilds with its own bar and place to do requests, would you not expect people to be there?"

"Making a purpose isn't exactly easy when they're not meant to be anything but a background character to fill space. The ones I show here usually are in the major character section. Either protagonist or antagonist. This new set is the only minor characters I've mentioned having. They're completely inconsequential to the story and don't even have to be introduced and the story won't change one bit. They're fun, the side story they tell sort of connects to the main plot, but doesn't do anything to it, and the only gain is items and weapons. Like regular side stories."

"I don't really have the need to delete any characters. With how big my series is, each character has their role, even if it's to hang around, and they don't get replaced. A character type that's in any guild is the one who sits at a desk and gives the characters quests. They're basically useless when replaced by others when their shift is done, or machines are their place. But you can still find them hanging out.

I have one character who's the main one taking care of orders in Serpheria, and when she's not doing that, she's hanging around and sometimes walks in circles. She's basically useless and is easily replaceable, but her purpose could be literally someone to talk to in the dining room. I think the more useless characters hanging around the more the world feels real. Walking through KH3 with literal useless NPCs who could be removed without consequence is still really fun. You hear them talking and it feels like people live there and you're not the only one there."
-Me