Like every main character, the romance hero and heroine don’t exist in a void; they have family, friends, and colleagues. Secondary characters are equally important to your love story, and they help to drive the plot forward and highlight the traits of the main characters. You need to pay attention to them, though they won't occupy much space in the story, and create real secondary characters that make your story world real and compelling. In this article, we discuss five ways to make your secondary characters look real.

1. Give Them Roles

Every secondary character plays a specific role in the plot, and you need to keep their roles in mind when crafting and writing about them. Some characters exist to evoke the setting of the story world. With their names, voices, and behavior, you remind readers of when and where the action occurs. They may exist parallel to or in contrast to the main characters and their relationships. An introverted hero may have a loud, outgoing friend. Your heroine's sister may have gone through or is going through a similar relationship drama with the heroine's, and they both come out victorious. A secondary character can be a model or a cautionary tale for your hero and heroine.

Also, secondary characters can help move your story forward. A villain or a romantic rival helps intensify the conflict between the hero and the heroine. And a mentor can help guide the heroine toward making the right choice in her relationship. They can help provide backstory and other handy information through dialogue; their dialogue with the main characters can also explain the thoughts and feelings of the hero and heroine.

2. Avoid Cliches and Stereotypes

You can craft secondary characters after a character archetype, but they should not be stereotypical. It is easy to enter the pitfall of creating secondary characters that are cliched. They could easily become another overprotective brother or supportive best friend. In following an archetype in creating secondary characters, try to give them a unique spin that makes them appear like real individuals.

3. Pay Attention To Naming Them

Choose appropriate names for your characters. A character in medieval times should not have a 21st-century name. Some names are popular among certain ethnicities and generations, and the name a character has tells a lot about who they are, when, where, and to whom they were born. You should not take the task of naming your secondary character lightly, and you should use this process to evoke some elements in your story. Be creative and intentional, and try not to use many similar names or surnames or names that start with the same letter. Don't confuse your readers with the names of secondary characters, and try to keep track of their names.

4. Give Them Unique Voices

The voice of a character plays a crucial role in romance narratives. Your secondary characters need a unique voice that makes them sound like real individuals and enables readers to quickly and easily identify them. An older character probably speaks with more formality than a character in their thirties or a teenager with many pop slangs. And a southerner's accent and manner of speech differ from that of a New Yorker or a British foreigner. Don’t let your speech pattern and vocabulary be the same with every character, so your characters don't sound the same so much that they won’t seem real.

5. Give a Little More Attention To a Future Relevant Secondary Character

There may be a sequel to your current romance novel that focuses on a secondary character. You can focus on that character a little more in your current narrative to raise questions about them that your sequel expands upon. In the process, try not to get carried away by spending so much time on them; they should not compete for readers' attention in a story that is not theirs. Also, if possible, avoid including the perspective of a secondary character in your romance narrative; it can be distracting.