Gossip Girl and Private Practice

I’ll start by saying it’s been a busy week that has included my mother-in-law coming to visit. She usually makes the trip once a year and we love to see her. Her visit felt too short, though, and we’ll be sorry to see her leave this afternoon. While she was here, she taught my daughter how to knit and got her started knitting a cell phone case. LOL! If I can get a good picture of it, I’ll post it here. While my MIL was here, I was also able to give her a copy of my first book. She told me that she sat down to read for a few minutes, lost track of time and ended up reading for an hour and a half. Having a reader get lost in a story is just about the best compliment an author could hope for and when it comes from someone you love, it's gold!

This week I’ve watched the second episode of Gossip Girl and the premiere of The Practice. Before seeing either show I had expected to like The Practice and feel so-so about Gossip Girl. Turns out, it’s the exact opposite. Gossip Girl characters had me hooked within fifteen minutes.

After I watched The Practice last night, it didn’t take me long to figure out why I wasn’t drawn in. I liked the scenes with the psychiatrist and her patient-they were emotional and felt believable to me-but Addison still seems like a secondary character from Grey’s Anatomy. On Monday I blogged about secondary characters. I hadn't thought about it until now, but I think Addison needed to be a better-developed secondary character before becoming a heroine.

She is a self-described world-class neonatal surgeon, and yet she gives up that career and moves to a different city and a very different job. Why? Well, no matter what she says, it seems she did it because Alex said he wasn’t her boyfriend (or she wasn’t his girlfriend), and because Pete kissed her in the elevator. She’d already accepted that her relationship with McDreamy was over, she had to know there was no future with McSteamy, and she couldn’t possibly have believed she’d make head surgeon. So Alex’s brush-off just didn’t seem pivotal enough to have precipitated this, and I think the writers could have found a way to way to give Addison a stronger and more believable motivation for such drastic life changes.

So I think the writers rushed Addison’s transition from a secondary character to being the hero of her own story. In The Practice, they’ve given her a cast of quirky secondary characters—with the exception of the surfer boy/midwife, I had a hard time buying that—but Addison is still a secondary character too. She didn't seem strong enough to outshine everyone else. Can the writers redeem her in the next few episodes? Can Addison become the hero of her own story? I’m curious enough to watch a few more episodes and to see if they can.

Note to self: The Office and Grey’s premiere tonight! Also set VCR to record Ugly Betty and Big Shots.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

Lee

Those Seemingly Insignificant People

I adore secondary characters. In books, films and television, they play such an important role. So what’s the trick to creating successful secondary characters? I think it’s knowing how to push the envelope, but not push it too far.

Many readers have told me they love Aunt Margaret in my first book, The Man for Maggie. The interesting thing to me is that Aunt Margaret doesn’t really exist. She’s either a ghost or she’s Maggie’s conscience, and no one, not even me, has been able to figure out which. I do know there was no conscious effort on my part to create Aunt Margaret but when she appeared, she was essential to the story.

So how do we write significant secondary characters? Again, I look to the people who do it so well—scriptwriters.

In Gilmore Girls, Lorelei and Rory are sympathetic characters we can relate to. Luke is as steady as they come. Rory’s friend Lane is the girl next door. Then we have Paris, Kirk, Babette. Oh my. Sally Struthers as Babette. Wasn’t she wonderful? Many of the secondary characters in this show were delightfully over the top and that worked because they fit the story and made it richer.

Look at Men in Trees. Honestly, I can’t say enough wonderful things about this show’s outstanding writing. Of course we relate to Marin and Jack as the main characters, yet the cast of secondary characters is extensive and brilliantly woven into Marin’s and Jack’s story arcs. Patrick and his family mosaic. NYC editor Jane and Elmo plow guy Sam. The bar patrons. The hairdresser. The minister. The pregnant ex-girlfriend. The way-too-attractive guy who shows up to renovate Marin’s house. The show wouldn’t be complete and Jack and Marin’s story wouldn’t be nearly as interesting and without all those endearingly offbeat people.

One of my favorite secondary characters of all time is Dr. Larry Fleinhardt on NUMB3RS. Brilliant physicist. Homeless and living in his car. Astronaut. Not your average resume, to be sure!

So what have I learned? Secondary characters are integral to a story. To be effective, they should be as three-dimensional as the story’s hero and heroine. They can’t be mentioned in passing. They can’t be glossed over. They should be fleshed out and they can even have a story arc of their own, no matter how small that arc might be.

Secondary characters can be much quirkier than our heroes and heroines because the oddball provides such an excellent foil, making the main character appear normal by comparison :)

An easy thing to write? Maybe, maybe not, but do stay tuned. I’ll explore this some more throughout this TV season.

Meanwhile, I’d love to know who your favorite secondary characters are, and why.

Till tomorrow,
Lee