How do you differentiate main characters from supporting characters?

Answer 1

Supporting characters are the ones the 'main character' only kind of knows. Like, do you have any frenemies? they might be supporting characters. They're not your best friends but you don't hate them, right? The main characters come up alot during the story, or at least most of the time, and the supporting characters only come up once or twice, like, you know them, but they're not extremely important.

Main characters are basically the story's purpose. They are the subject of the story. They have the problem. They need a solution, and THEY need to find it, not the supporting characters...

Thanks for reading my answer....