Thinking Through Minor Characters

You are an old and powerful fae (fairy) with lots of human money and your own retainers.  You discover a artifact of incredible magic, and others want to kill you and take it.  Do you...

1.  Hire fae warriors to protect you the moment you realize you are in trouble?

2. Contact other powerful and friendly fae for help to get you to your own protected domain?

3. A long time after you find the artifact, leave a message on the answering machine of a half-fae private detective who has neither the power nor the skill to protect you, and you don’t bother to tell her who is after you or why even though the assassins have just broken in the door, but you ask her to solve your murder?

Unfortunately, in a novel I’ve recently read, the author chose 3.  She obviously had’t given any thought to the background, skills, and options of her murder victim so she created this whooper of a ridiculous storyline.  

If she’d wanted a victim who had no means of protection or power, she could have created someone to fit the bill.  

Creating a believable story requires not only a good viewpoint character with her strengths and weakness fitting the storyline; it also requires the same careful thought about minor characters who influence her and the storyline.