Secondary Venn

I love my best friend. We finish each other's sentences. Sometimes, a conversation will resemble, "Did you see the new . . .?" "Yeah . . . can you . . .?" "I know, I'm stunned." I'm not kidding. Conversation is sometimes completely unnecessary. In fact, display a photo of Tom Cruise (mutually loathe him), George Clooney as Batman (love Clooney, but he's no Batman), or any one of hundreds of things, and we can just look at each other and think, "Yeah. I know." But much as we "get" each other on a soul level, she still has a whole life separate from me.

My kids are the same way. They have their lives as they intersect with me, and their lives separate from me. As they get older, the intersecting part gets smaller--no less intense and full of love--but smaller. And that's the order of things.

So it should be with secondary characters. Their whole PURPOSE is to show their intersection with your main character to help define your character, to advance the plot, to be an adversary to your main character, whatever. Do these characters have whole lives separate from that? Of course, just like real people. But that doesn't belong in the book. That intersecting part belongs there. If that part takes over, or if the non-intersecting stuff bleeds into your plot, it's time for that very painful process known as "Kill your darlings."

The ever-brilliant JVZ, who visits this blog, and I were discussing this--but not in these terms--the other day. There's something really audacious I want to include in the Magickeepers. Something that happened before my hero's time. An accident of his birth, so to speak. And JVZ said I could simply imply it and never answer it, because it turned out the world's most famous elder wizard was gay, after all, and that never really made it into a certain literary monster series. The Venn intersection allowed for hints, but no more.

Now, don't get me wrong. In The Magickeepers, for instance, I know the whole tragic history of every single magician in the entire clan. I know their heartaches, the things they hope for, their motivations. But only ONE magician is the real main character, and he happens to be 13 years old. So the rest of it will have to settle for being Venn intersections.

Thoughts?