Thursday 2 August 2012

Character Back-story


The back-story are those incidents in the far flung or near past that determine your character’s personality, position now and influence his/her decision making process. Creating a back-story is like creating a Eulogy for your character. If your beloved character dies what would you say as their father/mother. The ‘eulogy’ will include details on his/her

a)      Statistics – name, year of birth, place of birth, community of birth and any way it influenced the character
b)      Parents – names, careers, character traits, relationship to one another, parenting ideologies, any vices or virtues that influenced your character,
c)      Siblings – names, character traits, past relationship with the character (competitive/supportive), current relationship
d)      Relevant relatives – any extended relative who significantly influenced him/her e.g. grandfather, uncle etc.
e)      Schooling – where (elementary, middle, high and vocational/college), performance in school work, performance in school activities, relationship with other students, relationship with teachers, best friend, any issues that affected character when he was in each stage of schooling.
f)       Past Relationships i.e. The one that got away – name(s), type of relationship, reason for break up, where are they now? 
g)      Ideologies – politics, religion, sexuality, money
h)      Spouse – name, where they met, character traits, past relationship, current relationship
i)        Children – name(s), age, past relationship, character traits, current relationship
j)        Friends – best friend, character traits, how they met
k)      Work life – career, evolution of career, their feelings on their job, relationship with boss and coworkers, ideologies on work
l)        Life changing events – when did they happen? Why did they happen? Effect on the character.  

As you write fragments of the back story are revealed in parts of the story.

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