NPC

By writing background sketches for all my characters, I’ve tried to avoid creating NPCs. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s a video gaming term referring to non-player characters, or NPCs. In other words, the people in the crowd on the sidewalk, or the passengers on the subway car you’re riding in. Characters with no personality - they’re just there to make the virtual world realistic.

That’s exactly the kind of character I don’t want to inhabit my book. Even if the character is only in the novel for a page or two, I want them to have their own personality. I was thinking of this because my edits yesterday were to give a character more of a individuality and maybe even a little redemption by the end. The character is a Federal agent, and let’s just say it’d be way too easy to make him out of a stereotype.

I think I’d given him a distinct personality but by adding a few lines of dialogue here and there plus an additional scene where he intervenes on behalf of the main character, I was able to add depth. He wasn’t a NPC before the changes, but now he’s definitely not. If a character could thank me for making him better, I’m sure this one would.