Taking Notes: Put Your Behind in the Past

Once upon a time there was a terrible bad guy who wanted to do terrible bad guy things. There was only one thing standing in his way: he had no clue why he wanted to do bad things.

There is nothing worse than getting knee-deep into a story and finding out you have no idea why the villain is doing things. This glaring problem stopped my writing progress for months. I had a great story idea, and awesome characters to go with it, but I could not figure out what was motivating my villain to want to destroy the world. Without that piece I couldn't make any progress on my story.

Who even is this guy?

In the years that I'd been working on this story, I had neglected to think about what happened to all of my characters before they are introduced. Those experiences (still yet undiscovered) played a major role in the characters' decision making. This was glaringly obvious when it came to my villain. I needed him to want to destroy the world. That was the crux of my whole story. All of the other characters were responding to this threat of world destruction. But no one knew why, not even the villain himself. 

To solve this problem I knew that I had to go further back in my story and live the life of my villain, before he was the villain. I had to learn what happened in his past to make him want to destroy the world. 

I am a plotter, an outliner, a follow-the-yellow-brick-road-that-I-planned-out-for-a-decade-er. I do not do well with discovery writing (or pantsing, whatever you crazy people call it). My characters don't just go on side quests and journey willy-nilly through my story deciding they want a life different than what I planned. I know exactly where they need to go and have planned how they are going to get there, and they fall in line (or I rewrite them until they do).

My normal method did not work for this exercise. I had to go against every tendency I had to just discover this character. To learn how he thought and why he chose to do things. I would write something for him, and then delete it because I could just tell that it wasn't authentic to him. 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

Thirty pages later I knew my villain, and discovered that his tragic origins that would make any sane person make the same choices he did. He wasn't sane anymore, of course, but now his choices made sense. 

Once I learned what I needed to, I stopped writing his story. I will probably finish it someday, but having his story fully written isn't why I wrote his backstory. I wrote because I needed to know his "why". That giant motivator that nothing could sway. Once I learned why he was trying to destroy the world, my main story was ready to move forward. 

Why a Backstory Matters

When you are finding that, no matter what you do, your story isn't going anywhere, take a look at your characters. Really look at them. Are they a unique character that makes choices that feel real? Does their reaction to things make sense for the life they've lived? Are there stakes in your story that your characters can't just walk away from without any consequences? 

If you aren't sure of your answers to those questions, dive into their past. Write a little bit of the story that got them to where they are now. I can promise that your current work will only improve when you get a fuller understanding of the characters you are writing about.

Once upon a time there was a terrible bad guy, who wanted revenge on the monsters that created him. He hated the life he was forced to live, but would do anything in his power to avoid dying, even if it meant burning the world to ash.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pocket Stories: The Dark One

Image
Use the following items in a story: Six-pointed star, egg (opening action of some sort), Pendant/Necklace/Amulet, Crown (male version) Sparklies glittered everywhere the Dark One looked. Each nook and cranny of the interior of the giant oak tree held a priceless treasure. Each treasure stolen from those who did not see the worth of what they had. The Dark One would give each piece the attention it deserved. The golden, six-pointed star shown in the fading light from the entryway. “Sheriff” was printed on the front. The Dark One snatched it from the molding body of a fallen officer of the law, took it, in the dark of the night, hours before the body was found by the townspeople. It held a place of honor, the center of the stash. Stacked neatly on the tippy top of the teetering tower of tokens.  The star was held up by a silver crown that once graced the head of nobility passing through the Dark One’s territory on their way to somewhere grand and glorious. The noble was mu...
Read more

Knight-Time Adventures: The tale of Sir Gabriel and Sir Jerry episode 1

Image
Once upon a time there were two knights, Sir Gabriel and Sir Jerry. They were knights of honor, always willing to assist a town in distress. One day they were riding on their horses through the countryside, enjoying the scenery and the gentle breeze that cooled off their heavy sets of armor.  From over the next hill, they heard a ruckus. Several people were yelling and crying, their actual words unintelligible. They rode over to investigate. What they found broke their very hearts. A town was in splinters. Every house was shattered, the wooden boards scattered across the square. People were injured and children were crying. Two young lad saw the gallant knights and ran up to them. "Help us, Sir Knights! Help us!" The knights looked at each other before responding. "What is it we can do for you?" asked Sir Gabriel. The lads turned towards their broken town. "A dragon has come and destroyed our town. It's taken off with all our precious things, and left us wi...
Read more

Pocket Stories: Ghosted

Image
Prompt: Write about a person who meets with the ghost of an old friend for tea every so often. Shep hiked his rucksack further up his back and started the five mile walk to the abandoned cabin, set deep in the Briscoln Wood. He couldn't remember when he'd first come upon the cabin, which was more like a glorified shack, held together by sheer force of nature. He did remember how shocked he'd felt when he'd found out it was haunted though. He reached his destination just as the sun sunk below the tree line, giving the cabin a foreboding air. He wasn't worried though. The cabin may have been haunted, but he knew the haunter and how much they disliked the "others" disturbing their guests. The cabin was in shambles and squirrels darted out of their hidey-holes as Shep made himself comfortable. The only set of furniture that was usable was a little table with two rickety chairs. He busied himself with setting the table with the battered tea set from his rucksac...
Read more