
Jennifer Ehle & Susannah Harker, Pride & Prejudice, BBC, 1995
Literature is full of many great characters; heroes and heroines that I’ve loved. What I find though, when these books and characters are written about, it is the main characters that get most of the attention. There are so many supporting characters that are not talked about half as much as they should be.
With so many to choose from, I had a hard time trying to decide which ‘sidekicks’ were my favourites. This list could change tomorrow but for now, these are my favourite supporting characters in literature.
Jane Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennett is the type of girl that you want for a friend. She is kind and fiercely loyal and knows her mind. I believe though that Jane is sometimes over looked for the more popular Lizzie (do not take this for Lizzie hate. I love her.)
Jane is the quiet Bennett sister. She’s seen as the bestest bet in terms of making a good marriage and is seen as beautiful but I feel there is so much more to her than beauty and prospects. Unlike Lizzie, Jane sees the good in everyone and in every situation and is always keen to seek out the positive.

Rupurt Grint (Ron Weasley,) Warner Bros/JK Rowling
We all know Harry Potter. I adore this series of books. These are the books I go to when I am having a bad time and want something comforting. We all know of the main character of course. Harry Potter is one of the most recognisable fictional heroes but I want to take a moment to admire Ron Weasley. Hermione is also a great character but I think Ron is my favourite.
It must be hard to be in the shadow of his friend and yet he rises above and is always there for Harry with his loyalty and humour. Harry would be nothing without his friends. Ron can be hilarious but he can do the serious thing. Plus, I want to visit the Burrow. It sounds so amazing.
Speaking of loyal friends, I couldn’t have a list like this and not mention Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings.
If you need a friend, Sam is the one you want to have. Frodo fell at the last moment and it was Sam who helped him get the ring to where it needed to be in order to destroy it. Sam is why they succeeded in my opinion. Had he not carried Frodo that last bit up the hill, then it would have all been for nothing. Sam doesn’t want much in life. He wants love and the people around him. He never had an adventurous side like Frodo and yet he followed him.
Tuesday 28th February 2017: Off on a Tangent.
For our writing exercise today, I thought we could go back to generating ideas.
Find an A4 piece of paper and draw a box in the middle of the page.
Pick up the book that is closest to you. Open it and write down the first word you see in the box you’ve just drawn.
Use that word as a starting point. What does that word make you think of. Write an arrow out from the box and write it down. Does the first word inspire anything else? Use each word you write down as inspiration for the next.
Friday 24th February 2017: Fictional Best Friend
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt involves a fictional best friend.
Out of all the fictional characters you like (or don’t like,) which one would you like to hang out with for the day?
What sort of things would you get up to? Where would you go?
Build a short story around these ideas. Begin with the sentence, ‘we left at 9am.’
I am super pleased and excited to be welcoming Rachel Abbott back to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her fabulous new novel, The Sixth Window.
Eighteen months after Natalie Gray loses her husband Bernie in a horrific hit and run accident, she finds love with his best friend, Ed Cooper, and moves into his home with her teenage daughter Scarlett. But she begins to suspect Ed has a dark side –and even darker intentions.
Natalie has to get her troubled child to a safer place, but when Scarlett starts to hear voices coming from the empty apartment next door it seems she has unwittingly moved them into the heart of danger.
DCI Tom Douglas is also chasing the truth. As his investigation into the suicide of a teenage girl draws him ever closer to Natalie and Scarlett, will he be too late to protect them from the threat they face, or from the truths that will tear their lives apart?
For this blog tour we have something special and a little bit different. Rachel and I have co-written a little micro thriller. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Greetings one and all. How has everyone’s week gone? It’s hard to keep the smiles going when there is so much negativity going on in the news and bad weather going around isn’t it?
I just wanted a catch up this week. It’s been a little bit of a quiet one. I’ve managed a little work toward the novel and hope to start writing on 1st March.
As we race toward the end of February, I am looking back on this month and finding that it went by in a bit of a blur.
My weeks tend to be like that if I am with the day job especially when I am working more night than day shifts. Night shifts are a curious thing. It makes you feel as though you have permanent jetlag (I call night shift me, ‘zombie Laura,) but there is something lovely about being awake in the early hours. It’s always so quiet.
When work does get in the way (or other commitments,) it’s easy for me to fall out of any routine I have begun to build up.
I will have my days off, start to develop routines and habits and then the work days will come and the motivation will waver. I am not sure why this happens. It’s not all the time but it’s frustrating all the same. Tiredness is such a productivity killer.