I was talking about the importance of names last time. Now I want to talk about the importance of back-story. How it creates conflict, and emotion and moves the story forward.
I placed pictures of
Audrey Hepburn here because One: I adore her, Two: I admire her. She was amazing in an all her movies. The real women was a humanitarian and advocate for basic human rights. My main character starts a non-profit to help other women so they have a place to turn too in any situation. Why did she start her non-profit? Well that is her back-story. So it is important because it gives us the answers to questions and fills in holes, and gaps, with action, emotion, laughs, and conflict. All these are needed to propel story forward. I can relate to Audrey in her movies because she is so genuine. If she was superficial or a snob I would not enjoy watching her films. I have tossed books because of that fact, non-relate-able characters, non-realistic motives. I am a firm believer in Plausible reality. This story can happen in any realm, universe, alien nation. Only if I can relate to that character and why they are there. What they are going through. This were back-story comes in. The who, what, why, and where's.
I have several favorite movies of hers,
Roman Holiday ,
My Fair Lady, Sabrina and Funny Face to name a few One particular movie especially;
Breakfast at Tiffany's. What a wonderful name
Holly Golightly light an bubbly, flirty, it is perfect for this character. She is trained by O. J. Berman, to be in essence sophisticated
call girl or prostitute. She adores jewels and men, parties, drinking and no commitment. If this was
her only story it would not be very interesting, it would be dull, an I personally would have no interest in it. However
her back-story is what makes her the women she is now. She wanted to make a better life for her an her younger brother, everything she does is for Fred, every sacrifice she makes is for Fred, she sells herself just so she can take care of Fred. I can relate to her, because I am a big sister and I would do anything to protect my brother or sisters. If she was not a big sister, or working to provide for her brother. I would have nothing to relate to. I have never been to New York, never bought jewelry from Tiffany's, etc.
When he dies she is overcome with grief. We were sad with her. Her past in the country, her previous marriage,wanting to get away from poverty, and farm life.This desire to change gave us the emotional reason to follow her and root for her success. It is the emotional conflict that pushes the story forward. Whenever you give a character a back-story it gives them more layers to play with, more characters to introduce and for readers to enjoy. As I was adding to my cast, I was created characters and people from my girls past, people from my guys past. It was amazing how much you can add with just one person from the past. Below is an example of some to the questions you can ask you Character.
Several of my teachers in college suggested a Character profile, and a series of questions to ask them. One teacher explained. "It is as if you were on an interview for the newspaper." I love this idea because I used to be a newspaper editor in high school. So think of questions you'd ask a nanny for you children, or questions someone woul ask you in a job interview? These are important because this is person you trust your children with, or someone you would hire. This is also where Character traits can come into play. Choosing a
good balance between
positive and negative traits makes it much easier for conflict to occur. For example: His temper, quick to flair. Her stubbornness, she will not compromise. I can see an argument right here!
Also its what adds depth and personality the one dimension becomes two, or three , or four dimension's. Like
Holly Golightly she is described as: the naïve, eccentric, café, society girl. Even in that description she is so much more than that. She was a women trying to make a better life for herself and her brother. Yet all most people saw was a pretty face, or arm candy they could hire. All these things are additions to her story and her character.They can be created individually or can come from past experiences adding another layer to your character. It is so interesting adding layers. In our society today though it is appalling to me how women are labeled and judged by their face, or their weight. Kelly Clarkson is always being hammered about her weight, or Jennifer Garner being accused of being pregnant because she doesn't have a perfect plastic surgery tummy. It is just awful that women have to be criticized like this. So hopefully your characters are not plastic surgery perfect, they have flaws, freckles, frizzy hair etc. They are real. Because real women read romantic fiction.
Above quote is one of my faves of hers. I truly believe she speaks the truth. True beauty comes from within, and how you treat others. A cool few facts about the beautiful
Audrey Hepburn the real women not Holly.
Audrey Hepburn was the granddaughter of a baron, the daughter of a Nazi sympathizer, spent her childhood and teens doing ballet to secretly raise money for the dutch resistance against the Nazis, and spent her post film career as a goodwill ambassador of UNICEF, winning the presidential metal of freedom for her efforts...And history remembers her as pretty...Let's change attitudes and challenge preconceived notions. Let's evolve! Join the cause.Quoted from Actor and Director Rose McGowan's Facebook page.
We all carry baggage, so the fictional characters have to have baggage as well. Rapunzel? Talk about baggage, her mother for example is so obsessed with beauty and kidnaps Rapunzel so she can have it all to herself. Rapunzel always has this feeling of not good enough, and she can't do anything thanks to her mothers obsessive tendencies they have contributed to Rapunzel and her views, like everything in the outside world is evil and they all want to kill her for her magic hair. Talk about paranoia right?
Rapunzel however is not timid, she is determined to see her lanterns and have an adventure even if this means going out into that evil world, and disobeying her mother. Heck she trusts a criminal with her care? If she was not afraid, if her mother had not said no their would be no story. She is fierce and loyal and has a mean right hook with a cast iron pan.Yet she also has that innocence and sadness. She has many layers even as a Disney princess. Her desire to accomplish this birthday goal is what propels the story forward. She gets the guy, and a real family in the end too which is awesome.
All of these conflicts are things that happened before our story begins. We as writers should have a clear picture of that back-story before we start. In a perfect world that would be the case lol. In mine however this book has been a process of years so the back-story has come and be added as I go. The chapters have changed from my original outline. When you are working on a lengthy book it is normal that this happens. I thought I was weird or unprepared. I have read and heard I am just like every other writer trying to figure all this stuff out as I go. That is also why I say all the time. Writing is a learning process its constantly changing as we are, and as our characters are.
In conclusion; I never understood how important a back-story was to my readers. When I finished my fourth draft, and had others read it. I had left out important back-story thinking it was taking away from my story. What it did was leave my story with all these holes, and questions, and it gave my readers no association with my heroine. That is
the key to any story your reader has
to identify with her. She has to root for her, want her to succeed and get her happy ending. I understood the happy ending part. I didn't thoroughly understand how conflict, emotion, and back-story propel that character forward. Now I do. So it is an exciting prospect to me that I have again learned something new about writing, and story development. So do your research and add your layers it makes the story so much more. Add those
negative traits as well as
positive ones, because we are all not perfect. They shouldn't be perfect either there is nothing to shot for then.
In my next blog, I will go into more detail on how different conflicts emotional, psychological, and suspense, created from back-story we are writing now to add dimension to the story. Three great books to check out for more information on character development:
Creating Characters;How to build story people, by Dwight V. Swain, Breathing life into your characters;How to give your characters emotional and psychological depth, by Rachel Ballon, PH.D., Writing a Romance Novel;For Dummies, By Leslie Wainer, Writers digest has tons of articles to on each and every aspect of writing characters.
Here's a link to one of the back-story articles:
http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/write-first-chapter-get-started/weave-in-backstory-to-reveal-character
~Life is a work in progress as writing is...Until next time readers, and hopeful writers. Jess =)
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