Strong Supporting Characters Crime Fiction Novels Can't Live Without

Writing a thriller, especially a crime fiction thriller, is challenging and very demanding. There are so many things that you need to be aware of throughout the story, like pacing, twists and turns, and maybe a surprise ending. It's almost like you need a checklist to tick off every time you make it through one of the harrowing scenes. I don't just mean on paper either. It usually feels like you've lived the scene a hundred times before you tweak a chapter just right.

One of the most important aspects that I find in creating a proposed page-turner is you need strong supporting characters for your protagonist and antagonist to interact with in order to move the plot along. This is one of my favorite parts of writing a novel. I love to incorporate a character that brings out many different emotions for the hero(ine).

In my second novel Dead Game , I created the charming, but annoying, know-it-all Jordan Smith that really kept my heroine Emily Stone on her toes. I like creating characters readers can either relate to, or know someone just like them.

In my most recent novel Silent Partner , one of the supporting characters just happens to be a four-legged, black Labrador retriever named Keno. Not only is he a dog, but a police dog as well. For this crime thriller, I wanted to add another dimension to the twisted chase of good guys and really, really bad guys. Don't be fooled, this isn't a warm and fuzzy dog story by any means, it's a down to the second chase to apprehend a serial killer.

My characters aren't modeled after "real" people, they are a combination of people and of course my imagination. However, Keno's character was in fact my own Labrador named Trucker. We trained with the local police K9 and I couldn't think of a better dog to back up Deputy Jack Davis.

On an extremely sad note, as I was writing Silent Partner , Trucker was stricken with an aggressive cancer and three days later I had to put him down. It was an extremely emotional time for me and this book almost didn't get written. But, life goes on and I thought what better way to keep his memory alive and share all of his wonderful traits with readers in my new thriller Silent Partner.


Jennifer Chase
Award Winning Author & Criminologist

Blog: www.authorjenniferchase.blogspot.com
Website: www.jenniferchase.vpweb.com
Crime Watch: www.emilystonecrimewatch.blogspot.com
Book & Crime Talk: www.blogtalkradio.com/jennifer-chase