Spent 4 hours on a character backstory that never made it into the story

I was working on a fantasy novel last week and got totally sucked into building this elaborate history for a minor village elder. Wrote 12 pages about his childhood, his lost love, why he limps. Then I realized the scene where he appears is maybe 200 words total. Does anyone else go way too deep on side characters or am I just wasting my writing time?

2 comments

2 Comments

morgan.joseph13d ago

Wasting" is the wrong word here! All that work still shaped how you wrote him, even if the reader only sees a tiny piece.

william32013d ago

Yeah, isn't it funny how all that invisible work still matters in the end?