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 Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:54 am
Even the devil may cry when he looks around
hell and realized that he's there alone.
-Acheron 
I don't know about anyone else, but I have backstory and unknown facts in my stories that aren't really important to the story.
For instance, in Willing Captive, the man who is holding girl captive is a married Police Officer which is why he is always gone hours and hours at a time.
Share.
Cowards aren't the only ones who die a thousand
deaths. Sometimes heroes do too.
-Sin
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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:35 am
Yes, I figure out back stories as the first thing I do to get grips with my characters. But I always use them as I believe it is all a build up as I do the whole 'fate' routine.
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DesertRoseFallen Vice Captain
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Psychotic Maniacal Sanity Crew
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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 9:06 am
I have backstories for all of my characters, but there are also little facts throughout the stories that I keep to myself that aren't in their backstories as well. A good example is a dilemma I have at the moment: One of my characters will become pregnant. She is the MC's lover and the child is somebody else's (the MC is a female, so this is pretty unexpected). The pregnant character commits suicide after a rather difficult time anyway, and I'm undecided whether to ever let the readers and my MC know about the baby. XD It would add to the plot, but I think Ellette would have kept it very secret. She wouldn't have really written a letter about it, or told the father, so I have no way of letting my MC know about the child. =S
But, yeah (ramble over) that could well be one of those said little details that people don't know. XD
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:19 pm
I always have backstory to major, and some minor, characters. It helps me come up with accents or other little mannerisms that aid in 'fleshing them out'.
One of my most recent however involves my MC's name. In his culture, most names, and words, end in a vowel sound because of the language. However, his name ends in a consinent. So... bit of a plot hole... until you realize that the name the reader knows him as isn't his real name. Then, we have two things: plothole filled and the title takes on new meaning!
However, whether or not I tell the reader his real name is uncertain at the moment... how do you make a name ending in a vowel masculine?
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Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 4:05 pm
A lot of the back story for most of my characters makes it to the canon (even if it is slightly mentioned), but there a few things that I keep to myself.
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 11:58 pm
I always know more about my background, setting, and characters than any reader would need to know. I think it helps with making the writer write the world better. I would prefer to know too much than to know too little, and have a gaping plot hole that can't be filled in, or a species/hybrid that exists that I can't explain aside from "it's there, believe it." I try to use what's necessary, but I know that my character's birthdays don't matter, but I still know them. Never know when something stupid could be used, or could come into play, in a story. Some people call it over planning, but I call it knowing my characters. Or world, or hybrid, or species, or setting, or the background information.
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Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:49 am
Back stories might be one of my favorite parts. I write them far easier than I do the actual story, which is weird. But yeah, even trivial things that have no relevance to the story are important to me. I'll often just sort of brush over them, like for instance, when I talk about my new character, Kolya, I'll mention how many brothers or sisters he has, or I'll talk about how he came down from working with his brother, et cetera et cetera. Things that don't matter right now but help shaped his life, you know? Because sometimes trivial things change you.
Like the person who posted before me, I like to know my characters. Why bother writing about somebody you don't know? And don't think it takes away from the process; just because you know what somebody has done doesn't mean you'll always know what they'll do.
More than once, when explaining a character to a friend, people who don't know me will comment about how I talk like they're real people XD My friends make fun of me because of it, calling me crazy and then I come back with, "I'm a writer!" and they're like, "Same thing..."
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Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 6:39 pm
I do know a lot of the back story, although I think it's really important not to have an info dump and pour it all out in the beginning. The best back stories, imho, are little tidbits thrown in here and there for the reader to pick up on along the way. smile
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The Mysterious Gunslinger
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:47 pm
I have backstories for all my characters, and with that, a few useless facts to go along with it. Like with my character Zuzumi, she has a tattoo on her right arm saying: "Rock You" and on her ankle it's "Break Free". Her revolvers are called "Careless Rhapsody" and "Reassurance."
Rock you, break free and the rhapsody part are all references to her favorite band, which is Queen, who was the first thing she saw when she somehow got switched to our world in a time loop.
She saw them live and stayed in the crowd and loved them ever since-- and that's mainly why she is messing with radios. She tries to see if she can get reception to our world and hear a few songs.
It's not important, but it explains things about her character and explains why she does a lot of odd things with technology and such. There's some more for my other characters, but this the main one I remember.
I'd love to be her if my first interaction with this world was to see Queen, live, argh. I think I'd kill to go back in time and see them, live, probably get arrested for trying to kidnap Freddie Mercury, too.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 5:23 am
Gunslinger, do you add those facts into the story (about the Queen concert), or is that a piece of information for you to know only.
An example of this is: I know all my character's political beliefs. However, that's never mentioned in my story at all, lol.
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DesertRoseFallen Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 6:24 am
Hmmm I must say I know a lot more about the way my characters feel and how they would react to situations than anything else. My backstories are always important to the story yet one of my main ones, who isn't in it an awful much yet, is still a bit closed about his past.
I always let them decide on their pasts, see how they react and why it would cause that to happen. I wait until my second draft to bulk it out with other things.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:54 pm
SugarRos Gunslinger, do you add those facts into the story (about the Queen concert), or is that a piece of information for you to know only.
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The Mysterious Gunslinger
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Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:00 am
I think backstories and unknown facts are good. They give you a little more information about your character. Like, it can help you know why a character acts a certain way or why they do what they do, etc. I've started writing backstories and facts about my characters. Though, they're fanfictions, and I use real people, I make them my own characters.
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Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 6:55 pm
I prefer not to know that much about my characters. Not at first, anyway. I may plan out a few basic details, but in terms of their entire lives, I'd rather be kept in the dark. It leaves a bit of mystery for me--it's something I want to find out, but then I have to write it in order to do so.
Shameless self-motivation!
When the story is finished, I'll know everything there is to know about the character. Then I'm left with a greater sense of accomplishment.
So, when I first create a character, I don't bother with a backstory. I'd rather let the character play him or herself out and see where I'm taken. Who they are, how they act, what they do, they all shape the backstory rather than the backstory shaping the character.
The reader, of course, would see it the other way, as the backstory being the reason for shaping the character.
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Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 7:20 pm
Of course I have backstories. I spend so much time mulling over my story in my head, I come up with all sorts of extra 'stuff' that wouldn't fit into the actual story.
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