User blog comment:TDIwriter/TDIwriter wants your help./@comment-1874924-20110924165813

Although you didn't explicitly say so, I presume that you only want current-story characters who have not only been eliminated, but won't be returning.

Although I have no characters to submit, this sounds like a good idea. I do have two cautions for you, though. First, be sure you don't put in any references that are both important to your story and can't be understood without having read the story that the "guest" character comes from. An example comes from the Gilbert & Sullivan operas: Gilbert loved to flaunt his knowledge of nautical terminology, so nautical terms appear in several of the G&S operas, but they were never important to the plot. (Not even in H.M.S. Pinafore.) The nautical lingo was what you could call "bonus material" for people in the know, but most of the audience would just let it roll over their heads without taking much notice of it.

It sounds like you're planning to bring in guest characters every chapter, or nearly so. That could certainly work, but it does have pitfalls. The most obvious danger is that the guest characters could collectively end up overshadowing the TD:PI contestants, especially if the new host doesn't turn out to have what it takes to keep things running smoothly. This is a big reason why the guest stars on TV shows tend to play antagonists.