by Christina Miller, @CLMillerbooks

Have you noticed that secondary characters sometimes serve little purpose beyond being props in the scene? While we don’t develop walk-on characters, we can use secondary characters to help form the main character’s journey. A common secondary character is the heroine’s best friend. However, we don’t always give the friend much to do beyond letting the heroine vent to her. Here are four ways to improve the fictional best friend.

1. First, get to know the friend by writing a mini-characterization for her and use that information on the page. She can encourage the heroine in her goals, or she can think the goals are wrong and thwart them (for the heroine’s own good, of course.) The friend’s characterization could reveal: 
   1. How and why they think alike (and how and why they think differently)
   2. How and why they developed similar (or different) values
   3. How and why their individual childhood situations (home life, finances, morals, parenting methods, family spirituality) shaped them alike or differently
   4. How their common (or different) goals led them to become even closer (or caused a disruption in the friendship) 
   5. What they fought about in the past and how that led them to break off the friendship temporarily

Adding conversations about these details also helps us avoid the dreaded information dump because the friends can have natural conversations about the issues.

2. Your heroine’s best friend often knows things about her that the heroine doesn’t know. This could be: 
   1. Her blind spot
   2. An event in her past that she’s forgotten and needs to remember
   3. A good (or bad) habit she needs to embrace (or change). 

Find a time in the story when the heroine needs her best friend’s inside information about her. Incorporate it to add depth and richness to the story.

3. Because they know each other so well, the best friend can discern the reasons behind the heroine’s decisions. During the story’s black moment and its aftermath, the friend can:
   1. Ask a key question
   2. Confront her about the lie she believes
   3. Impart wisdom 
   4. Share words of truth and faith
   5. Call her out on her behavior when she starts acting the way she always has in situations like this. 

The friend can do this because she knows the heroine in ways no one else does.

4. Give the best friend a role in the story. She could be:
   1. The “voice of reason” because her early life experiences gave her exceptional insight 
   2. The “historian” who remembers every detail of the heroine’s past romances because she never had a romance of her own 
   3. The “counselor” because she’s been happily married since the day after high school graduation, so she feels qualified to dispense romance advice
   4. The “fixer” because she came from an unstable home and worked to meet all her younger siblings’ needs

Giving the best friend (and all other secondary characters) a role also helps to prevent the characters from sounding alike.

Most important, think of all the ways your best friend has been there for you through the years, and use them in your book. My best friend and I stuck together through infertility (me), a disabled husband (her, and he did recover), a move that turned our relationship long-distance (her), ministry woes (me), and secrets, secrets, secrets.

When writing your heroine’s best friend, how can you add yours to your story?

---

Embracing His Past

Stunned to learn he has an adult son, widower Harrison Mitchell’s eager to track him down and build a relationship. But when he uproots his life and moves to Natchez, Mississippi, he’s hit with another surprise: his new boss, Anise Armstrong, is his son’s adoptive mother. Now he must win her trust to prove he deserves to be a father and grandfather … and possibly a husband.\

Author Christina Miller’s idea of a perfect day involves a southern beach, a stack of books, and a glass of sweet tea. Years ago, she left her job as an RN to work in the church her husband pastors. She also became a writer—and sometimes she gets to write on the beach. Christina is a Love Inspired author, Bethany Global University (Bloomington, Minnesota) graduate with degrees in theology and missiology, church secretary, worship leader, and children’s ministry teacher. She has owned and operated Mentor’s Pen Editorial Services (mentorspen@gmail.com) for the past fourteen years, specializing in fiction editing. When she doesn’t have her nose in a book or her toes in the sand, you might catch her visiting an antebellum mansion, opening her early-American home for Dinner Church, or teaching at a women’s conference. Christina lives on her family farm with her husband of thirty-four years.