The Minor Character Adoption Society

[veronica_rich]

As a writer, have you ever adopted a minor character from someone else's canon for the express purpose of giving them a story? Or six?

I've done it three times, or should say, feel like I'm in the process of doing it a third time whether I want to or not: Reg Barclay from Star Trek: TNG, Prissy from POTC (she didn't even have a name - the fat woman from the first movie, who rubs up against Will in the tavern), and now it seems my brain wants to take home Hillary from the Tomb Raider movies and feed him little doughnuts (whoops - no, that's me who wants those, sorry) and transcribe his history and minor adventures. Just last night I came up with ideas for two more stories.

(I have other stories I need to finish! I have other characters in the brain already. *weeps*)

What is it about minor characters? Is it because they present such a blank canvas? Is it the mystery of trying to piece together a past or expand upon something glimpsed in canon but not much addressed? I know for a fact some of you have taken someone who had two lines in a movie and given them a better history than screenwriters gave the major characters.

I didn't invent these characters. I don't make money off of them, and I don't feel like I should. But I get excited about their histories in a way I don't always about my own original characters (or, I should say, I can come up with the history and ideas, but I find it easier to WRITE the history of someone else's minor character). It can't be laziness, or I wouldn't do any of it. What IS it?

Comments

[crevette.livejournal.com]

I recall the Figwit phemon during LotR-Fellowship. That one unnamed elf in the background in Rivendell that everyone gasped in the middle of saying "Frodo is..GAH Who is that?" Hence the name.

[beckyblack]

I never quite understood that. I mean that guy was fairly cute, but not that cute. Of course just near to that point in the movie I had my own version which was "Yay, here's Sean Bean, I love Sean... wait, who's this?!" And it wasn't when Gimli appeared... :D

I swear the moment Orlando Bloom first appeared on the screen I heard knicker elastic snapping all through the auditorium.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I thought Orlando looked OK in LOTR, but he never excited me very much. It wasn't until Will Turner that I thought it was an acceptable pastime to stare at him for three hours at a time.

[beckyblack]

Legolas has the edge on Will for me becase of the hair. I have a weakness for blonde guys. :D