In this post, I am going to be focusing on how to give your character a background. This week's reading does this particularly well, and we almost get a sense that the main character is (or wants to be) living in the past. Her memories and sense of how things were give her character depth and we feel that she is a real person who has memories and desires.
When you first start writing, you might wonder how to do this without making your writing seem clunky. You don't want to start a story as such:
Alice is a sixteen year old girl. She lives in Surrey. She likes horses and meeting her friends for coffee at the weekend.
This level of writing is very basic and unengaging. Your aim is to give background to your character without your audience even realising it. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to do this.
1. Memories.
Using memories is a great way to give depth to your character. Some stories are written entirely in the past, but most stories just show us brief glimpses into the past of its characters.
For example, in the retelling of Little Red Riding Hood I am writing at the moment, my main character is presented with a scene on entering her Grandma's kitchen. Her Grandma has dementia and had laid out two plates of dinner, having forgotten that her husband died a few years before. The main character then sees a living memory of them in the kitchen how they used to be when they were still together. This not only gives my main character background and depth, but it also personifies the Grandmother who, by this point, is dead.
Your notebook should be filled with small memories that you associate with certain sights or smells. Use these to give your character a story of their own.
2. Set your event in the past.
By setting the main event of your story in the past, you could give your character time to reflect on what has happened: how they felt before, during and after the event. This also works if you play out the event in the story, of course depending on how long the piece is.
It is human nature to have a changing opinion. Maybe your character commits an act they think is right but they end up regretting it - no matter how trivial or important the act is. If your character's views change, your audience is more likely to empathise with them and also engage with whether they thought the act was right or wrong.
**This is not a formula, just a suggestion. In this week's reading, the event happens at the end, and it is the other characters' opinions who change. Play around with these ideas: invert them and make them your own - that's what creative writing is all about!
3. Utilise the internal voice.
Whilst being similar to dialogue, your character's internal voice is different because it is a more true reflection of them, allowing a space for them to think what they might not be able to say aloud. For example, your character could be having a perfectly polite/normal conversation whilst thinking something completely different. What are they going to have for dinner; do they secretly hate the person they are talking to; do they have a dark secret consuming their thoughts?
Your character might have a different internal and external voice - think someone with a mental illness like a serial killer. They might be completely charming and collected on the outside, but what is happening on the inside? This is what your audience really want to know.
Try setting your stories in multiple perspectives. Maybe there is an event at which point your main character becomes a minor character and it's more interesting to hear someone else's perspective. You can even replay the event multiple times from each perspective - maybe your story is set in a twenty minute window of time but from three or four different perspectives.
Happy writing!
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