TV series and Marvel movies have lied to you. No one cares about a minor character. Your main character is your star and that star expects the best lines and most screen time, or in this case, page time.
A successful novel needs a POV in all meanings of the term. Your world needs an entrance point through a character, as well as the novelist having a voice of their own to make their writing stand out.
Putting aside linked short story collections, the sure sign of a weak novel is too many characters, diffuse action, and a wandering eye. This applies whether it’s a literary novel or a genre book and please know I speak from the experience of having written a 500-page historical novel with eight goddamn individual POVs. At the time I thought I wrote a “brilliant ensemble piece” but the truth is I wrote a novel without committing to who the book was really about.
But let’s look at someone who continues to get away with it… Agatha Christie. Don’t even think of the movies, because every adaptation cuts or amalgamates two or three characters from the novels. You can’t call any of her supporting characters deeply written, but they are acutely described and do the job of fulfilling a type. The real stars are always her detectives, whether that’s Miss Marple or Monsieur Poirot.
So how do you find who your star is and how do you treat them?
