Tag: character

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Writing a Character Backstory, But Enjoying It This Time

This entry is a spiritual sequel to a post from two years ago about a character from a game of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).

When I mention D&D, there will likely be some readers who immediately switch off mentally. However, I promise this entry will not go too deeply into the game mechanics, and will instead focus on characters and storylines, so I invite you to stick with me.

I’ve been playing for the last few years in different groups. The most recent game has also been my longest, with sessions roughly every fortnight over the previous 18 months or so.

Every D&D game has a Dungeon Master (DM) who controls the general setting and what happens there, as well as acting as the voice of any secondary characters encountered.

When I began that game, I let the DM choose the attributes of my character. Many players consider this the most enjoyable part, but in my other games, I’d always found it a chore. My input was limited to giving my character a name – Max Wellhouse – and writing a placeholder backstory, with a view to expanding it in the future. D&D characters always work as a team, so the backstory typically explains how each character met the others.

Then I happened to watch this video from professional player Ginny Di, titled 5 backstory bad habits that drive your DM nuts. During the first section – Not having a catalyst – I began thinking about the placeholder backstory from months previously, and the pieces began to fall into place one by one. I’d written a background for Max Wellhouse, but not a backstory. It lacked a clear motivation for him to join the other characters.

You know how I said earlier that I’d found character creation a chore? Within two days of Ginny posting that video, I’d written paragraphs of backstory and motivation, comprising one main thread and two minor arcs, and what’s more, I enjoyed the process. I won’t reveal the content here, since it hasn’t yet been revealed to the other players.

Separately from this, I met up last weekend with one of my past D&D groups. The game halted a few months ago after we lost our former DM, and we’ve now decided to reform with an amended line-up. I was granted permission from the new DM to transplant my previous Captain Coconuts – from two previous games and rewrite his backstory from scratch. Again, I was inspired enough to write that up within 24 hours.

In the new backstory, Coconuts owned a ship and would seek out sea-based jobs and opportunities. On one job, he was accused of selling substandard copper to a powerful merchant. He sailed away as fast as he could with the merchant chasing him. Although Coconuts made his escape, it was at the cost of his ship smashing into rocks and sinking, leaving him on dry land with the few clothes and items he could salvage. Bonus points if you spotted the veiled reference to Ea-nāṣir in there.

Once again, I really enjoyed writing that, even if the character was pre-made with the assistance of the previous DM. I think that’s because I was doing it in the wrong direction.

Before this, I’d always tried to create a character, and then formed a backstory that would fit into the world. I think a better approach is to establish the world first of all, then have everything follow from there.

At the weekend, for example, the DM told me the world would be dark and serious. If I didn’t have Coconuts already made, I could then work on a backstory that might suit such a setting, then figure out what type of character might end up in that situation.

Unless something goes horribly wrong in either game, I expect it’ll be a while before I need to create another character, but I will make an effort to enjoy the process this time.

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Following Suits

Every writer who creates multiple characters has to balance up two factors.

On the one hand, both characters are inherently part of the author, and their words and actions are dictated by what is written. Yet the voices of these two characters must also be sufficiently different from each other so a reader can accept both as individuals. This is not always an easy balance to achieve, and sometimes even the professionals don’t succeed.

English: Gabriel Macht in March 2009.
English: Gabriel Macht from Suits in March 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve recently been watching legal drama Suits. Generally speaking, the dialogue is of a high standard, and pared back to lend a speedy pace. But the standard, I’ve noticed, begins to slip around Season 4. The first observation was that every character – main, minor and recurring – swears in an similar manner. Had this attribute been confined to one character, perhaps two, I would have accepted it as a personal quirk; it works for Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, for instance.

Suits also relies upon the line What are you talking about? and its variations. Used sparingly, this technique can be a near-invisible way to clarify information for the viewer, but its constant use becomes obvious and lessens its effect. Writing in The Guardian, playwright Lucy Prebble even warns that If ever a character asks another character, “What do you mean?”, the scene needs a rewrite.

Suits is not the only drama affected by such similarity. A couple of weeks ago, I watched Collateral Beauty. Among its other flaws, it seemed that each character held a spiritual belief and would often speak to the others in similar platitudes. Yet even if the writer did want to evoke a spiritual tone, it might have helped if someone had questioned or challenged these beliefs.

So how can we, as writers, avoid the trap of carbon-copy dialogue?

A good starting point is to reduce the number of characters where possible. In Moby Dick, the narrator Ishmael is on a whaling ship with dozens of other men, but Herman Melville tells their stories by illustrating only a few. He focuses, for instance, on the overbearing and egotistical Captain Ahab who who could not be confused with Queequeg and his strange customs.

For those who survive the cull, it’s worthwhile letting them live in your head and allowing them space to forge their own identities, perhaps even to construct their own back stories. It should be possible for the reader to follow two characters having a short conversation by looking at their individual speech, mannerisms and attitude rather than he said or she said tags.

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Further character reference.

Regular readers will know I’m a big advocate of walking to help with thinking through plot problems or generating story ideas, and those who tuned in to the last entry will have seen my discussion about character.

Yesterday, and the week before that, I went to a couple of car boot sales. This isn’t an unusual thing for me to do on a Sunday, even if the weather is rarely so warm, but I’d never before considered what a rich place it is for character study.

English: Car boot sale at Apsley.
“How much for this?” “That’s a pound, love. Never been used.” “I’ll give you 50p for it.”  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have a look at what’s laid out and make up a back story about the reason for the sale. If a stallholder has a lot of mismatched crockery, is it from a house move? Perhaps there are a lot of records because someone has grown out of them? Then you can begin to extrapolate further, especially if you have a chance to listen in on part of their conversation.

For example, let’s say someone has a lot of signs containing inspirational quotes and is bragging about her children”s exam results. Perhaps she has so many that the time has come to sell any duplicates. Perhaps she compulsively collects them because she has low self-esteem. Perhaps she has low self-esteem because she’s always been told she’s a failure, and now relies on her children’s achievements to make her feel worthwhile. And bingo: you have a character.

I’ll also give you a real-life example of a man who sold wooden objects such as tables and bird boxes. His craftsmanship was excellent, but he would finish each one with a horrible orange-brown paint, ruining the aesthetic. Perhaps he does this because his eyesight is beginning to fail and he thinks the colour looks fine? Perhaps he’s in denial and won’t see an optician? Perhaps he constantly bumps into people and blames the other party for not paying attention? And bingo: another character.

From there, we have a story. Perhaps our craftsman bumps into the woman with low self-esteem at a car boot sale and blames her for not looking where she’s going? Maybe they start talking and find out they both love gardening? Could the story end with them moving in together on condition that he changes the colour of his creations?