Characters with a Past

Characters with a bumpy past or emotional baggage are more complex, interesting and realistic. Readers will pull for them more (if you also make them empathetic). Every real person has had negative things happen in their past. Readers understand and connect to this. We are a product of our past, and in some cases the past has greatly affected us and how we deal with people or situations. The past often motivates us in the present. The important events of a character’s past, the ones that shaped them most, are called backstory events. If you can give your character one or two big backstory events that are still affecting him or her today, you are one step closer to creating a complex, believable, real character.


The backstory events I’m talking about are generally bad, negative or painful things that happened to the character in the past. It could’ve happened last month, last year or when he was five. It could’ve lasted five minutes or ten years. A bad thing could be a traumatic event or something that caused them emotional pain. Someone tried to kill him. His brother was murdered. She was raped. A curse was placed on him. She was kidnapped. He was abused as a child. She was left orphaned and penniless, then raised in a string of foster homes. He was in a car accident that left him with a major injury and the person riding with him was killed. Her father gambled away the fortune. It could be almost anything that would negatively affect your character for a long time, and this event still haunts him. He is not yet healed from this life-changing event. This is his emotional baggage. This is when you bring memories and repercussions from the past event into the current story. She doesn’t trust men (or the hero) because she was raped. She wants a family more than anything because she never had one. He grew up in poverty and this is what drives him to be the wealthiest business owner in town.

The character’s GMC often comes from their past, especially their motivations. Motivation is the “why?” Why does the hero work so hard to be the best cop he can be? Because his father was killed in the line of duty fifteen years ago? Because the hero’s little sister was killed by a drug dealer ten years ago? Why does the heroine not trust men? Because she saw how her father abused and cheated on her mother? Because all the men close to her in the past treated her like dirt? These are the deep issues that trouble your characters. And the problems they have to work through usually come from seeds planted in the past.
Backstory events don’t have to be traumatic and extremely painful, especially if your book is lighter, like a comedy. Or if your story is very short. (You may not have time or space to work through traumatic events.) You could use lighter-weight backstory events. Did he quit high school and now he’s determined to be incredibly successful anyway? Did the other kids in school tease her about her braces, her excessive height, or her hair? Is he/she divorced? Were her parents extremely strict? Too lenient? The point is that any story and any character can benefit from backstory events that still affect him/ her now in some way, even in minor ways. This doesn’t mean you have to have a backstory event or that you need one, but if you do it’s a plus. And the darker and more dramatic your story, the more your characters will benefit from backstory events.

Backstory events, once revealed, will show the reader why the character believes a certain thing about others or about himself. Why he acts as he does. How he expects others to behave. Backstory events bring out a character’s personality, values, and attitudes about specific things.

In my recent release, Laird of Darkness, the hero, Duncan, has two types of negative backstory events. One is that because he is half Fae and has no magical weapon of protection, monsters or demons from Otherworld torture him physically if he goes to sleep at night. This has happened to him since he was a child, so naturally he tries to stay awake at night. Another backstory event is that his father abused him. Using his Fae powers he was able to escape most of this abuse but it was always clear his father never loved him. Another important backstory event happened when Duncan was seventeen. His father died, and Duncan became chief of his clan. Enemy clans in the area thought he would be weak because he was so young, and they invaded. With the help of his Fae powers, Duncan led his clan to victory. The violence and paranormal occurrences during this event led to Duncan’s infamous and legendary reputation as the Laird of Darkness.

This month I’m teaching my workshop, Instinctive Characterization. In it I cover backstory event and lots of other elements and methods writers can use when developing characters. You can still register if you want. Just click here to learn more.

Thanks!

Nicole

http://www.nicolenorth.com/

Where Do You Like To Be Touched?

First, on this fine Sunday afternoon, let me just say that I appreciate the notes of concern I've gotten about Leonidas. After PJ (Pericles, Jr.) disappeared, I wasn't sure if he'd recover, but he seems fine, for a spider. He might have even eaten PJ, but I didn't see any evidence of it in his web, because if I had, I would have definitely given him the tongue lashing of his little spider life (No eating your friends, do you hear me!?! What will the neighbors think?). I just think PJ decided to move on to bigger and better bathroom sinks. His timing sucks, though. We are now into the "plague of the ladybugs" time of year, and he's missing the opportunity of a lifetime.
Anyway, back to touching. I like it. I like it a lot, so subsequently my characters fondle, feel, caress, stroke, etc., quite a bit. However, that kind of touching is not what I'm blogging about today. No, I want to know how you like to be touched as a reader. How do you want that book you paid good money for to make you feel after you've finished it? What part of you do you want to vibrate with satisfaction?
I ask this because I've been helping a friend out reading manuscripts, and to do this, I have to be very aware of what a reader might want to get out of reading the words and what the story I'm reading actually offers. Readers read for a variety of reasons. Some read to be entertained. Some read to feel a depth of emotion. Some readers desire that cathartic experience one can only enjoy safely by living vicariously through the exploits of non-existent people. Some want a combination of these, which is why we have a variety of genres available. Sometimes readers want a writer to touch their hearts, or their minds, or their souls, or their, er, well, let's just say other body parts.I know when I am looking for a book, I search for the kind that will feed my need at the time, and that varies. For example, I've had the urge to read something in the science fiction genre--probably a hormonal thing--but I have little to no time to read, so I needed something short and powerful. I picked Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which I've read before, to satisfy the urge. So far it's doing a nice job...with benefits.The benefits are just the same as those derived from reading the manuscripts I've been assigned--I always learn something about my own writing by reading the words of others, whether published or unpublished. I've made a list below of a few things I will try to remember as I continue to write.

1. I don't ever want to put my reader in the position of reading to the end of the story just to find out how it ends, of having to plow through useless verbiage out of morbid curiosity to see how the story winds up. I want my readers to want to keep reading because they like the characters and the story, not just because they're determined to "get through" the book because they paid for it, and, darnit, they're going to finish it!

2. I want to make sure I start with something happening, even in my alternate universe-type stories. Reading paragraph after paragraph describing the liquid crystal city and the frog people who live there without some kind of conflict or action can be a turn off to the reader, and as an erotica writer, my job is to turn them on. Heh heh.

3. I want the promise I make at the beginning of the story to be the one I keep at the end. If I promise campy, vampy fun, I shouldn't change into something dramatic and literary in the middle somewhere. If I promise literary, intellectual read, I shouldn't let it turn into a melodramatic glitzy fluff, especially if it's my fault the story runs out of literary steam.

4. I don't want my sex scenes to become stale from lack of research. Um, I just put that in there in case my husband, who is currently crawling around under our house, reads this. Hint, hint. :)
I've learned much, much more, but I'd rather hear from readers. Where do you like to be touched when you read? Mind? Heart? Soul? Parts south of the waistline? All of the above? Or does it vary according to the phases of the moon? lol

Happy Reading!

My Closet Muse

A long time ago, someone brought up the discussion of muses on one of the lists. Silly, I thought. I deal in reality. Right…with my vampire, werewolf, fae, and--you name it-- stories….reality. So why does a writer who loves fantasy and the paranormal not have a muse? Because I’m the one who works hard to think this stuff up. No way am I going to give credit to some fantastical entity. No way.

And then one day one of my critique partners asked our group about everyone’s muse. She’d been to an RWA workshop, and felt like I did. She didn’t have a muse, didn’t want to think about it. Silly. But she really got into it, described her muse, and had a lot of fun doing it.

So for the first time, I began to think of my muse. She’s my height, same coloration, beautiful--just like me--only she’s thinner, younger, wears fairy-like clothes and hides in the closet.

And that’s why I don’t have a muse. What good is a closet muse? About that time I was having one of those, I refuse to call it writer’s block, but you know, something like that…when the words just won’t jump out of my fingers onto the keys and appear on the paper. I’m usually really annoyed with myself when I have this…this frustratingly annoying non-creative, non-productive period. Until I latched onto that muse and realized the problem. It was all her fault! She refused to come out of the closet.

I also had to blame my critique partner, because if she hadn’t introduced me to my muse, I wouldn’t have ever blamed anyone but myself for not getting back to my writing.

The good news is I’m busily at work again, despite the fact I have a closet muse. So remember, whether you have a muse or not, writing is an important part of a writer’s life and nothing should stop that natural drive, even if it has to be given a nudge every once in a while.

Sometimes I go months without thinking about my muse. It just happens. The idea comes to me, the words get written, the story is completed. I’m a writer. Other times, I have to drag the words out of the gray matter, hash and rehash the words on paper, and finally, with a great deal of effort, finish the story. I’m still a writer. Does my muse help?

You’d have to ask her. She won’t come out of the closet to speak to me.

What about you? Do you have a troublesome muse? What is she or he like?

A Picture--Worth A Thousand Words? Or more???

When I was writing my ghost western time travel, I was looking for western pictures to inspire me. Great picture, don't you think?

What does it make you think of? I wonder what he's thinking about? Is he just off a cattle drive? Does he need a back scrub? :)

And this guy?
A Selkie? Caught changing into his human form? Does he need help getting cleaned up??? See where my mind is this morning!

Well, visual stimulation does help me write some of my scenes, from pictures of scenery to get the vegetation right, to photos of people to give me an idea how to describe new characters in the story.

What about you? Do you find pictures stir your imagination?



Terry Spear
Heart of the Wolf
http://www.terryspear.com/