What About Carol?

So I’ve been working on copyedits of Tap & Gown, and feeling all nostalgic about the series coming to an end. Sniff, sniff. The big challenge for this book was making sure I finished up all the loose threads of secondary character stories. Where were they going, what were they doing, etc. And as I was looking over my character lists, I came across someone who perhaps hasn’t gotten her fair share of the limelight:

Carol.

Wait, cry readers of the secret society girl series. Who is Carol? I don’t remember a Carol!

When you’re looking at a series like mine, with a cast of thousands, you have to make sure you keep your character count under control. Not only do I have Amy, her love interests, her fellow society members, her barbarian friends, and her enemies (occasionally these groups overlap: but you also have all the little parts: her professors, her deans, her librarians, the guy who hands her her coffee on page 76.

And then there’s Carol, who Rebeccas her way through the series, always being mentioned, always being ready to provide an example, but never actually showing up. See, before Amy was tapped into Rose & Grave, she had a full life. She had a ton of friends and a busy social calendar. But since i was about to introduce a dozen society members, I couldn’t really show that. Instead, I winnowed down Amy’s list of barbarian friends to two: Lydia, her roommate and best friend; and Brandon, her would-be boyfriend. Carol, whom both Lydia and Amy bring up in conversation from time to time, is a stand in for all of those other people Amy is friends with who don’t interact with her society life enough to make it into the scope of the novels.

But what happens to Carol? She’s an actress. Does she go off for an MFA in drama? Does she go to New York and start getting walk on parts in soap operas, L&O, and pharmaceutical commercials? What about Carol?