The Cameo That Steals the Show: Writing Minor Characters That Leave Major Impressions

Write Minor Characters Readers Remember Long After They Leave the Page

Some characters appear for a single scene and stay with you for years, like the woman in the diner who says, "I'll have what she's having." In this session I show you how to write cameos like that on purpose, in three steps: give them one memorable trait, write the line that delivers their purpose, and get them off the page fast.

What You'll Learn

• How to use a walk-on character to make an unfamiliar world feel lived in, whether it's a fantasy kingdom, a historical village, or a suburb your readers have never seen
• Techniques for using minor characters to add menace, break the tension with humor, or plant a clue readers won't notice until later
• How to use a brief appearance to echo your protagonist's view of the world, or to contradict it
• Methods for choosing which real people from your past can play cameo roles in memoir, starting from the book's theme
• A three-step method for writing a cameo: one singular trait, one line that delivers the punch, and a quick exit
• Guidelines for keeping a bit character in the present moment, with no backstory and no character arc on the page

Through this comprehensive approach, you'll see that a minor character's success has nothing to do with time on the page and everything to do with impact. I start with the jobs these characters do in every genre, from an alien gardener griping about spider mites to a caretaker who tells a nervous couple not to worry about the creaking. Then we look at cameos that work: the earwax-obsessed tenant in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Loophole," Zathras in Babylon 5, the "button fiend" Nicholas Losseff in Rex Stout's The Mother Hunt, and a muddy dog named Bouncer in Georgette Heyer's The Reluctant Widow. We meet Irene Adler, who appears in a single Sherlock Holmes story and stays in his mind for good, and Mrs. Flowers, who offers young Maya a lifeline in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I share how Agatha Christie, Robert B. Parker, and Stephen King each change a scene in a few lines, from the guard in The Judas Goat who leaves Spenser standing in the drizzle to Delbert Grady in The Shining, and I close with Estelle Reiner's one line in When Harry Met Sally... and the three steps you can use to write cameos of your own.

Perfect for:

• Novelists who want the waiter, the clerk, or the witness to be someone readers remember
• Fantasy, science fiction, and historical writers who want their world to feel lived in without pages of description
• Memoirists deciding which people from their past belong in the story, and how much room to give them
• Series writers with a recurring cast of neighbors, rivals, and shopkeepers who need to stay vivid from book to book

This workshop equips you with techniques that work in any genre. The examples run from television to the movies, from Regency romance to horror, and from a classic mystery to a memoir, and the same three steps apply to all of them. Whether you're drafting a new scene or revising a finished manuscript, you can look at any walk-on and ask two questions: what job is this character doing, and have they stayed too long?

Whether you write cozies, thrillers, romance, or memoir, one well-placed cameo can change how readers feel about a scene, and sometimes about your protagonist. Charlie Bright started as a cameo in Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series and now has a book of her own.

Rent the replay to get my full guidance on writing minor characters, including a live Q&A where I answer questions on bringing a bit character back across a series without explaining them again, how many cameos one story can hold, how much backstory you need to know about a walk-on, when a minor character deserves a name, whether an animal can play the part, what to do when a minor character starts taking over your book, and how cameos affect pacing.