There’s a very cheap way to show what your protagonist is like: put someone next to them. Someone very different, so the difference shows. Or someone very similar who chooses something else, so the choice shows.
The first is a foil. The second is a mirror. They get mixed up a lot, because both let you look at your protagonist from the outside. But they do different jobs, and it helps to know which one you’re using.
The foil: the opposite, so it shows
A foil is different in exactly the thing that matters. Not in everything: in the trait you want readers to notice. Next to theirs, your protagonist’s stands out like an ink stain on a white tablecloth.
In Wanted: One Dragon, Olivia, the mayor, has been in Valdrago all her life and uses it as a weapon. Mara arrived a year ago and suffers for not being from there. Every time they share a scene, the novel’s question (what does it mean to belong somewhere?) asks itself, without anyone saying it.
The classics are full of foils:
- In Pride and Prejudice, Jane thinks well of everyone. Elizabeth judges quickly and wittily. The two sisters in the same room make Elizabeth’s prejudice visible long before she knows about it.
- In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson is an ordinary man, brave and sensible. That’s why, when Holmes sees what Watson doesn’t, we realize how far Holmes can go. Without Watson, he’d be just another clever man.
- In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Basil and Lord Henry pull Dorian in opposite directions: one wants him good, the other wants him interesting. Dorian is caught in the middle, and his fall is measured by which one he listens to.
Notice that a foil isn’t an enemy. Jane loves Elizabeth, Watson admires Holmes. A foil can be the best friend, the partner, the sister. What makes them a foil is the difference, not the conflict.
Tip
Pick a trait of your protagonist’s that you want readers to see (distrust, hurry, pride) and ask yourself who in your cast has it the other way round. If nobody does, you may have just found the character you’re missing.
The mirror: the same thing, chosen differently
A mirror character resembles your protagonist in something deep: the same wound, the same situation, the same temptation. And chooses differently. Looking at them is seeing where your protagonist could go.
In Wanted: One Dragon, the mirror is Bruno, the baker. He does things on his own too: he hid the egg in his oven because it was warm, and told no one. But he does it to protect someone else, not himself. Mara looks at Bruno and sees another way of doing what she always does.
A mirror can show two roads:
- The scary one. In A Christmas Carol, Marley is Scrooge a few years on: just as greedy, only already dead and loaded with chains. Nobody needs to explain to Scrooge where he’s headed. It’s right in front of him, dragging cash-boxes.
- The hopeful one. In Frankenstein, Walton has the same ambition as Victor: to get where nobody has been, whatever it costs. His ship stuck in the ice is the same question on a small scale. Victor chose badly. Walton, in the end, turns back.
And sometimes the mirror shows both at once. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth, and she says no. A few days later he proposes to Charlotte, her friend, and Charlotte says yes: she wants a home and doesn’t expect more. Same proposal, same man, two answers. What Elizabeth has at stake becomes clear by looking at Charlotte.
Tip
Write down the lie your protagonist believes and look for someone in your cast who believes the same one. Then decide what that person does with it. If they do the same as your protagonist, they’re not a mirror yet: they’re an echo.
How to tell them apart
| Foil | Mirror | |
|---|---|---|
| How they resemble your protagonist | In almost nothing that matters | In something deep: the wound, the situation, the temptation |
| How they differ | In one trait, in plain sight | In the choice |
| What they let you see | What your protagonist is like | What they could become |
| The question they leave | See how different they are? | What if they’d chosen like that? |
Put more briefly: a foil lights up a trait; a mirror lights up a decision.
One character can be both
These aren’t sealed boxes. The same character can be a foil on the outside and a mirror on the inside.
Darcy and Elizabeth look like opposites: he’s rich, curt and stiff; she has no money and is quick and likeable. But they go wrong for the same reason. He has pride and prejudice; so does she. That’s why they work: on the surface they clash, and underneath they recognize each other.
It often happens with whoever changes them. What draws your protagonist to that person is how different they are. What changes them is finding out the other person has the same fear and carries it differently.
The most common mistakes
The cardboard foil. If the foil is the opposite in everything, they stop being a person and become a sign: the good one and the bad one, the clever one and the fool. One different trait is enough. For the rest, let them have their own life, their own wants and their bad days.
The mirror that preaches. A mirror shows, it doesn’t explain. If Marley gave Scrooge a talk about generosity, he wouldn’t scare anyone. He’s frightening because you can see the weight of the chains. Let the mirror’s choice speak for itself, and let your protagonist draw their own conclusions (or not, which is also a story).
The mirror that doesn’t choose. A character with the same wound and the same response teaches your protagonist nothing. It’s a duplicate. Try merging them into one, or changing their decision.
Too many. One or two mirrors and a couple of foils are enough for a whole novel. If every supporting character reflects someone, the novel starts to feel like a fitting room with mirrors on every wall.
When to think about it
You don’t have to decide this before you start. It often turns up while planning: a character you added to deliver a clue turns out to have the same wound as your protagonist, and suddenly they’re good for much more.
So it’s worth asking once the cast exists and someone feels flat. Before cutting them, see whether they could be someone’s mirror or foil. If they can’t be either, aren’t the one who changes them, and don’t want anything that rubs against anyone, maybe they’re surplus (more in Supporting characters aren’t furniture).
In Sunday Plot, every character has a card in your story bible, with “Who they are”, what they want, their wound and what they believe, so it’s easy to put them side by side. In the Relationships tab you can write down “mirror of” or “foil of” like any other relationship and see it on the map. And in Wanted: One Dragon you have Mara, Bruno and Olivia to look at together.