Journal/Blog

10-14-22

Character backgrounds - these were brought up recently on the newsfeed. The question there was how can we tie our characters back to their childhoods. My comment was about how some characters can have a behavior that is in direct defiance of a childhood fear, for example being a skydiving instructor when they used to be afraid of heights.

I think one of my epitomes a long time ago when I first contemplated wanting to write and eventually be published was that all characters must have flaws in order to make them feel real to the reader. I was fairly young at the time and as silly as it may sound, that had not occurred to me. I mean the good guy is supposed to be all good, right? Wrong.

Heroes/Heroines that never have doubts are two-dimensional, they fall flat for us and the reader. It does strike me funny that it doesn't necessarily work the other way. We hardly expect to see any good in a villain. However, I can say that some of the more realistic ones are those that are shown to have a 'normal' family life and they are bad guys for a living. Here they are with a wife or husband and some little kids and then they are this horrible person as well, but the family doesn't know that.

I do feel that there is a line that can be crossed with heroes/heroines where even something they are just considering, but never actually do, would wreck them in the eyes of the author and the reader. So, wrapping this around to background stories (wow, I am tired tonight).

Fleshing out a character's background can help us know their flaws, weaknesses and doubts. These can help predict how they might react to a situation or another character. We shouldn't be afraid to have our protagonists show weakness because this gives us a plot point for them to come back from and makes them feel more real.

I never seem to have trouble coming up with background stories. In fact, I feel like I could get lost just writing them. I remember reading somewhere that Robert Jordan had whole notebooks filled with the entire life stories of his characters. It made them more real to him to write their history and it was a hard copy reference for him while writing his books.

As I am struggling to keep my eyes open and brain cells firing tonight, I will bring this entry to a wrap.