Writers really do that. We weep over our characters. We are saddened sometimes for days when we say goodbye to a world or a character. They do become our best friends. I've probably spent more time with them over the past 22, 24 years than I have spent with most of the real members of my family.
When you are writing, you have to love all your characters. If you're writing something from a minor character's point of view, you really need to stop and say the purpose of this character isn't to be somebody's sidekick or to come in and put the horse in the stable. The purpose of this character is you're getting a little window into that character's life and that character's day. You have to write them as if they're not a minor character, because they do have their own things going on.
Well,the fun part of being a writer is that it's like making a wonderful film, with no limit on my budget. I can design the sets, the costume, the lightings, I write the script, and then I get to perform all the roles as I step into each character's skin, zip up, and adopt that point of view. So, to me, they are all compelling and fascinating.
Everybody has felt at one time or another that everyone else in the world had a better shot than they did, so when you engage that, you engage the reader, and I think you create a character that brings the reader more fully into the story.
To be honest, I don't think of any of my characters as minor characters - they're all the main characters in a story that I don't necessarily get to tell.
Every writer knows a lot more about their characters and story than actually makes it onto the page.
