Which Story, Which Hero

“Every character is the hero of their own story” is a writing truism that is usually quoted at people in regard to minor characters, as a way of making them more realistic or more rounded. It’s particularly useful to remember when one is writing a single-viewpoint story, as a reminder that all of the non-viewpoint characters have lives and problems that will make them more real if the writer hints at them from the viewpoint character’s perspective. But it can also play out in multiple other ways, some of which can cause problems if the writer isn’t aware of them.

For instance, it is perilously easy for a single POV character to drag a multiple-viewpoint novel off track. It’s particularly common when the writer of a huge, sprawling, multiple-viewpoint series has a scene they want to dramatize, but none of the current viewpoint characters are on site to see what happens.

So the writer picks a character from that scene to be the viewpoint … and that character immediately begins telling his/her story. Unless the writer is very careful to keep the new POV’s story focused on the dramatic moment, other things start creeping in: the child who has gone missing in the confusion, the love interest who is swept into the flood in front of the POV, the relative whose deliberate sacrifice allows the POV to survive (at least for the moment). Unless the writer kills off the POV at the end of the scene, all these things become new loose ends that usually aren’t related to the central storyline of the rest of the book. (Sometimes, even killing off the POV at the end of the scene doesn’t work, because whoever shows up next rescues the not-quite-mortally-injured POV.)

Even in a single-viewpoint story, a secondary character with a sufficiently strong personal story can drag things off course if the writer identifies with it too closely. A secondary character with a strong personal story is a great recipe for a subplot … but it can also be a great recipe for a spin-off novel about that character. This can go wrong in two ways:

1.  The writer can abandon the current work in order to write up this cool new novel idea (which can then get sidetracked by a new minor character with another cool potential story, repeat until the author has the first ten chapters of sixteen different novels, each with a different main character and plot, none of which are finished.
2.  The writer tries to develop the new idea fully within the current story, which can muddle things up seriously. Suddenly there are two central plotlines and protagonists of equal weight (or the new plot takes over completely, so that the first half of the manuscript no longer fits). This can work if the new idea occurs close enough to the start of the story, such that the writer can turn the previous story into a braided novel, but even then it’s not easy.

A writer who is sufficiently taken with the Shiny New Plot/Subplot may not even notice that things are out of whack until a beta reader or editor says, “Um, weren’t they supposed to be figuring out who stole the emerald necklace? Are they ever going to get back to that?”

There are four ways of dealing with this sort of problem, if one notices it in time.

First, remove the Shiny New Subplot from the current work completely; make the secondary character the protagonist of the next book, in which the subplot can become the central storyline.

Second, rewrite the first X-many chapters of the current book to either switch things to the new protagonist/plot, or else turn the story into a braided or multi-viewpoint work that follows both characters and both plotlines. This method is particularly useful when it is the “villain’s” story that has turned out to be more interesting (yes, “every character is the hero of his/her own story” means every character, including villains).

Third, reduce the presence of the subplot in the current work to hints, with the intention of making it the central plotline of the sequel. This allows the writer to finish up the current work in a way that is (one hopes) satisfying for the readers, while dropping breadcrumbs that will get readers interested in the next book.

Fourth, firmly squish the Shiny New Idea back into a subplot. Yes, the writer can see all sorts of cool things that could be done with it, but this is not that story. That is Secondary Character’s story, which is important in this book only so far as it impinges on the Protagonist’s story.