CHARACTER BUILDING: Back Story
Happy Monday, dear Reader. I hope you had a lovely weekend. I've decided to post on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the weeks when it's my turn to write a 6 Degrees of Kool Books post, and Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on the weeks I have off. Don't forget to pop over to DJ's blog tomorrow to see who he's come up with from either my post last week, or J.L. Mbewe's post. I'm looking forward to it!
Today I'm continuing on with the "building character" series I started last Thursday. The best way to get to know your characters is to spend some time on their back story. You can do this before you write them into your story, or while you're writing your story, it doesn't really matter. But back story is very important to a character's development.
My new story relies heavily on the back stories of two specific characters. That back story will not be revealed at all until book 2, and probably won't ever be revealed in full in any of the actual books. But the back story is so important to the series, that I actually sat down and wrote a 15-page short story chronicling the events of that back-story, and then even edited and revised it quite a bit. That sort of polishing isn't always necessary, but sometimes it is useful.
I write fantasy and sci-fi, so I generally have to think up some sort of "how the world began" scenario for my entire universe. It's not always necessary, and it may not always make it into the book in any fashion, but it's useful for me, as the author, to know. The same is true of characters. Their back story may never come into the book you're writing, but it is important for you to know that story. Even more important than a creation myth for your fantasy or sci-fi world, is where your characters came from. Do they have parents? Did something important happen to them before this story began? Where did they grow up? What sorts of activities do they enjoy? If you were to go over to their house, what things would you see on their walls, in their fridge, etc? This doesn't have to be novel-length, or even arranged in complete sentences, but it is important to have it written down - because over the course of a 300-400 page book, you may find yourself forgetting little details about these things, and it's nice to be able to glance over at... whatever method you've used to jot these ideas down... to refresh your memory and keep your writing flow going.
Another important thing you might want to jot down about your characters: what do they look like? How do they dress? Is there a particular article of clothing or accessory that they prefer? This is something your audience will want to know, and they will notice if a character's eyes are blue at the beginning of the book, and brown or green at the end. Even when I can perfectly visualize my characters, I still make a point to scribble down these notes so that in chapter 22, if I mention that tears filled a character's eyes.... I can easily check without breaking stride to make sure that I remember what color that character's eyes actually are.
What are some characters you can think of that have a rich back story that isn't explicitly described or laid out in the actual book that character appears in?
Next time we'll talk a little about heroes... and then villains!