: Re: How Much Focus to Give a Supporting Character? I've been working on my pet project a lot over the last six months, and I thought I had most of the kinks worked out- but I think I found

@Gonzalez219

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I think a story can work fine this way. Cinderella is helped by a fairy godmother at her crisis point in the story, that pretty much appears once in the story.

Many mystery / adventure / mission stories are instigated by characters in this way, the people bringing the case are introductory props never seen until the end when they act as amazed props for our fine hero to explain what happened.

Sometimes, not even that: The story ends in a life and death struggle for the hero in which the definitely bad villain is dropped screaming into an industrial cheese shredder.

Think of 007, his boss gives him a case (he would not have had otherwise) and the show ends with a dead villain and a roll in the hay for the successful 007.

It might help matters along if your introductory prop is clearly incapable of joining in the mission themselves. A Not Their Job situation, as in 007, or a PI tale, or a princess or elderly priest for a Knight's quest, an old dying man confessing his sins to the young and vigorous hero, a distraught mother of a kidnapped child. The hero's daughter kidnapped (Taken). Most of Die Hard does not show the hero's motivating characters from the beginning.

In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington is a retired CIA operative motivated to kill a few dozen mobsters by his protective feelings for a young prostitute that gets beaten severely by her bosses. She appears in Act I, and for a few minutes at the end of the film when Denzel delivers her freedom.

I think you can make this work, it is really just your mechanics of motivation to work on. Give the readers a good reason to expect the motivating character is not going to be appearing on this quest and adventure, because they are not adventurers, detectives, or fearless warriors. Or they are aged, sickly, disabled, or even already dead for some reason (the quest is due to their last wishes to set something right, or stop an evil they could not stop themselves, OR they get killed early on, like luke skywalkers mentor, Obi Wan Kenobe).

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