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mary rosenblum
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Hi, all!
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. I've published seven novels and
more than 60 short stories and will do my best to answer any questions you
have. If you're new here, remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a
Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to the red question mark at the top
of the screen in order to ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't
reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your question into the regular send
bar if that works better for you..
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mary rosenblum
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I hope you all are having a
good holiday season ...
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mary rosenblum
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and not too frazzled by the
rush-around-and-buy syndrome!
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mary rosenblum
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Next Friday being Christmas
Eve, I don't think I'll do a formal Forum, but rather we'll just have an
open 'salon' in the auditorium...
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mary rosenblum
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rather than doing the Q &
A thing from up here on the stage.
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mary rosenblum
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A lot of folk will be busy,
but if you're not, drop by.
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mary rosenblum
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Before I start talking about
character backstory...
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mary rosenblum
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I did want to mention a really
nice LR success story...
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mary rosenblum
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a student of mine named
Melanie Snyder. She graduated about a year ago...
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mary rosenblum
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and started the problem with
the aspiration to make writing her career...doing mostly nonficiton.
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mary rosenblum
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She was my guest last April,
right after she had started selling.
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mary rosenblum
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Well she has now, in the last
year, sold 68 pieces and is getting regular sales...
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mary rosenblum
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not quite ready to quit her
day job, but headed firmly in that direction.
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mary rosenblum
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You really CAN do it if you
are willing to learn and work and do what the market needs.
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roe
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super
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mary rosenblum
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It is. She works hard and pays
attention to what editors want.
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mary rosenblum
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I'll probably have her back
here as a guest to talk about pursuing that goal in reality.
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dbamarsha
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That's fantastic!
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patchworkcat
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Please extend congratulations
from all of us!
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mary rosenblum
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I will. And what made her
succeed, in my opinion...
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mary rosenblum
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is that from the beginning,
she was willing to look at a magazine and ask herself what that editor was
publishing...
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mary rosenblum
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and then suggest an article to
suit.
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mary rosenblum
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Believe me, once editors
realize you're a dependable writer, you get work. And better pay. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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And she is willing to do the
hard work of struggling to break in, writing for poor pay, amassing clips,
and slowly moving up the ladder of magazines from small to larger.
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mary rosenblum
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So take heart! It IS doable!
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mary rosenblum
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So let's talk about character.
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mary rosenblum
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And why backstory matters.
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mary rosenblum
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A lot of novice writers tend
to evolve a character as the story unfolds...
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mary rosenblum
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By the end of the story, they
know who their character is...but in all likelihood...
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mary rosenblum
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their character has acted
inconsistantly at various times, only they miss it...
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mary rosenblum
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because those actions are what
the plot demands...so they fit the PLOT...
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mary rosenblum
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but a reader is going to find
that this person behaves unrealistically.
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mary rosenblum
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Each of us has a backstory.
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mary rosenblum
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And that backstory determines
how we behave in various situations.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor talking about character backstory.
I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my
best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that
you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next
to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a
question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and
type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..
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mary rosenblum
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I think the best way to do
this is to give a character two different backstories and see how that
changes the character's behavior.
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mary rosenblum
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someone want to volunteer a
quick character for us?
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shayon-joseph
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a young girl named Jazzmin is
molested by her mother's boyfriend, she grows up, marries her high school
sweet heart but treats him like dirt, and is unfaithful.
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mary rosenblum
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This is a good one, Shayon and
comes complete with backstory.
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mary rosenblum
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And it's a nice example of why
backstory matters.
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mary rosenblum
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Let's say we started with
Jazzmin. The story starts with her marrying her sweetheart...and then she's
awful.
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mary rosenblum
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She has affairs, maybe does
pills or drinks, and has affairs.
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mary rosenblum
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How do your readers react?
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mary rosenblum
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Well, if she has a backstory
of molestation, our readers will probably be able to see the wounded girl
inside the socially unacceptable woman and end up...
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mary rosenblum
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at least sympathizing with her
if not outright liking her.
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mary rosenblum
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But if she had a middle class
upbringing, well off parents, and pretty much everything she needed, we are
probably going to dislike her.
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mary rosenblum
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She has no excuse that we can
understand for her behavior.
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shayon-joseph
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Reader, hates her, yet at the
same time is understanding because of her past
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mary rosenblum
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Exactly. And if you're
skillfull, you can create enough reader identificiation that we CAN"T
hate her.
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ejamortizer
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They want to know more about her
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bud
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I'd wonder why she did these
things
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mary rosenblum
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Yep, exactly.
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mary rosenblum
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And the backstory determines
our feelings about this young woman.
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mary rosenblum
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Is it excusable behavior, can
we understand it? Or is she just a spoiled brat?
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eddie
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so a characters behavior must be
in context to thier past
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mary rosenblum
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Exactly, eddie. YOUR behavior
is in context to your past every day. So is mine. If we don't do that, our
characters are paper plot puppets, not real people.
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wyrde
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so it isn't enough to have a
backstory in your mind for your own purposes, you must also communicate the
backstory to the reader
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mary rosenblum
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Aha...there's the catch!
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mary rosenblum
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While character IS an iceberg
and 80% is invisible to the reader, some of it must be visible...
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mary rosenblum
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if we don't know about that
molestation, we'll think she's a spoiled brat, even in you know.
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mary rosenblum
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You can reveal that
information later in the book and force us to reevaluate our feelings about
the MC>
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mary rosenblum
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and that might be part of your
purpose.
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mary rosenblum
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But if we don't know, we'll
assume whatever we choose to assume and that is likely to be that she is
just a spoiled brat.
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shayon-joseph
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But, reality dictates, WE have
the power to overcome our past. There are no excuses for ill-behavior.
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mary rosenblum
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Well, we do, shayon, but not
all people manage to do that. Believe me, I know many who never do!
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mary rosenblum
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And that is what fictional
characters...the good ones...really are.
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mary rosenblum
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They are a mirror that lets us
catch unexpected glimpses of ourselves .
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mary rosenblum
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Sometimes those glimpses are
flattering (we love heroes!)...
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mary rosenblum
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and sometimes they are not
flattering.
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eddie
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background revelations can
change our opinions about them
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mary rosenblum
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Yes, indeed, eddie. And using
reader automatic assumptions is one tool to do that...
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mary rosenblum
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suppose we meet our young
woman and she seems like a pampered young wife...
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mary rosenblum
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who is nasty and out of line
for no reason...
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mary rosenblum
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and we don't like her because
her behavior is inexcusable.
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mary rosenblum
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But somewhere in the story, we
have an intense scene, perhaps at a family gathering...
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mary rosenblum
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and we suddenly realize...uh
oh...this girl has some really ugly past behind her...
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mary rosenblum
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and now we have to suddenly
rethink our 'she's a brat' assumption.
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mary rosenblum
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And now we have to really LOOK
at her.
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shayon-joseph
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yes but is that not cliche
"oh, Mr. X struggles to give his kids everything, because his father
was never around when he was a child" ......I see a savvy reader being
very bored with that.
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mary rosenblum
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You do need to go beyond the
cliche, shayon...
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mary rosenblum
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but you know how to do that?
You make the characters real.
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mary rosenblum
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Then it is NOT a cliche, even
if the situation is the same as the cliche.
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mary rosenblum
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Cliche's are two
dimensional...they're a way of saying to the reader...
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mary rosenblum
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I don't want to take the time
to create this situation, so I'll just drop in this template and we'll
consider it good.
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mary rosenblum
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Only it's NOT good.
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mary rosenblum
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If your characters are real,
with depth, it's never a cliche. Even if it's the old boy-meets-girl thing.
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eddie
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almost like a conflict template
without depth
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mary rosenblum
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Yep, exactly.
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mary rosenblum
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You can find plot formulas
that tell you how many conflicts you should have in a short story, how many
positive and negative scenes...
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mary rosenblum
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sort of like paint by number.
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mary rosenblum
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Do they make a sound story?
Sure.
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mary rosenblum
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Do they make a good story?
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mary rosenblum
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Not unless your characters are
real and the interactions are real.
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wyrde
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in a sense, isn't cliche a
dependable learned response on the part of the reader, that can be taken as
a shortcut to a deeper dilemna, or used as a twist to shock the reader with
an expected outcome of a classic cliche?
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mary rosenblum
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That's the right way to use
cliche, or as I tend to call those...'reader assumptions'...
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mary rosenblum
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If we see pretty little girl
with blue eyes, blonde hair, most readers go 'aaahhh.'.
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mary rosenblum
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That's an automatic
assumption.
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mary rosenblum
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'she's sweet'/.
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mary rosenblum
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YOu can use those to shortcut
a lot of detail OR...
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mary rosenblum
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as you said, wyrde, you can
turn them back on the reader to not only surprise them when they find their
assumptions are wrong...
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mary rosenblum
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but make them AWARE of those
assumptions.
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catydorr
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as the author we can incorporate
bits and pieces of our character as we go along so that eventually the
reader gleams the whole thing right?
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mary rosenblum
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Yep.
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mary rosenblum
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One of the most common
beginner mistakes is to try and cram the entire backstory into the first
page.
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mary rosenblum
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Makes for a very boring start
and a lot of telling.
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mary rosenblum
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We are good at catching clues
and we are fairly patient..
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mary rosenblum
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if you keep feeding us clues
we sort of hold that character 'open'...
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mary rosenblum
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we know he/she isn't finished
yet and we keep adding those puzzle piece clues to the picture of the
character we're building.
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mary rosenblum
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In the novel I just finished
critiqueing for Alexis Latner a hard SF writer, one of her MCs definitely
has a major traumatic event in her past...
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mary rosenblum
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and we KNOW that it's
affecting her, but we don't get enough clues to figure out the whole story
until half way through the book.
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mary rosenblum
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That's fine. We know we don't
know everything.
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mary rosenblum
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But Alexis knew it, so her
behavior is consistant with what we find out later.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor talking about character backstory.
I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my
best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that you
need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next to
the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a question.
Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and type your
question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..
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mary rosenblum
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Let's try a character with no
backstory and give her a couple of different pasts now.
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speckledorf
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How about an older woman...a
village wise woman...
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mary rosenblum
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Okay, that's a nice blank
slate.
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mary rosenblum
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Let's create past number One.
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mary rosenblum
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She was apprentice healer to a
very good healer, learned a lot, was the village healer until she got too
old for the late night treks...
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mary rosenblum
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in the snow, but is still
consulted on tough cases...
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mary rosenblum
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She has a past without a lot
of personal trauma. But she had a husband she loved very much...
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mary rosenblum
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and who died young. So she has
a definite soft spot for young men of his age at his death...
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mary rosenblum
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and perhaps is willing to take
on a new apprentice who doesn't seem all that gifted, but looks like her
dead husband...
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mary rosenblum
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and she might not even be
aware of her own feelings.
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mary rosenblum
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But she is also very exacting
about the perfection of her craft...
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mary rosenblum
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and therefore, the poor kid
has a terrible time because he just doesn't have enough healing gift to do
what he needs to, and she's never happy with him.
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mary rosenblum
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Her past has created this
character conflict.
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mary rosenblum
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Okay, past number two.
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mary rosenblum
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No dead husband, or not one
with such a profound influence on her.
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mary rosenblum
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So when the apprentices apply.
Guess what. She doens't pick our young, not gifted youth. Why should she?
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mary rosenblum
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There are better candidates
and she wants perfection.
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mary rosenblum
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So if your plot demands that
she pick this kid, you'd better give her that first backstory!
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shayon-joseph
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she got her wisdom from her
great grand mother before she died, great granny told her "she had the
gift" but no one else believed
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mary rosenblum
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Aha, now there's a backstory
that might also allow her to pick our not-so-gifted youth, shayon.
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mary rosenblum
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But in this case, that memory
of what it felt like to be told she didn't have that gift might make her
less critical of the kid who doesn't seem to do this very well..
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mary rosenblum
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She's willing to give him the
chance others didn't give her.
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speckledorf
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And if there was in her past...a
case she should have been able to cure, such as a child, the guilt would be
a driving force in who she chooses also.
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mary rosenblum
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And that might make her again,
not choose the kid.
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mary rosenblum
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If she failed to cure this
person and still bears the guilt, will she choose an apprentice who is less
gifted than others?
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mary rosenblum
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She owes it to the villagers
not to let another healer fail as she did...
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mary rosenblum
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so she passes him over.
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mary rosenblum
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Again...it's all in the
backstory. And the backstory determines that choice.
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mary rosenblum
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And if you want REAL conflict,
then you put the last two backstories together!
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mary rosenblum
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She wants to give this kid the
chance she was denied, but on the other hand, what if he fails and someone
pays the price for it?
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mary rosenblum
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You've just created intense
internal conflict within her if she does choose him.
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wyrde
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it seems apparent that making a
backstory to cover the needs of your character's actions isn't difficult,
so presumably, going back over a story and correcting that would not be
difficult, I'm guessing that this would be easily missed in the editting
process?
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mary rosenblum
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Of course you can go back and
create the backstory that explains that action you need, wyrde...
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mary rosenblum
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I do it all the time...in
fact, I'm doing it to a SF story I'm working on right now. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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BUT...it's not as simple as
simply going back and planting a conversation, a flashback, or a scene.
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mary rosenblum
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Because when you create that
new backstory and plant it, you have now CHANGED your character.
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mary rosenblum
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It is going to require subtle
changes in the way that character deals with every event and every
person...
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mary rosenblum
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and you need to revise the
story with the backstory firmly in mind...
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mary rosenblum
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Okay, I now know this about my
character. Would she really say this here? Would she do this? Or would she
do that?
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wyrde
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yes, and when you write, you are
not writing as your character, because you don't "know" your
character... has permutations that permeate the entire work
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mary rosenblum
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spreak for yourself, wyrde.
:-) By the time I write a story, I AM writing as my character. ..
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mary rosenblum
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that's why most of my
'writing' goes on in my head.
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mary rosenblum
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I have found over the years,
that I get a much stronger story if I do know my character from the start.
If I feel that I don't know the character completely, I simply stop and
wait until I do.
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mary rosenblum
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Most of my stories go five to
ten pages, then stop for days or weeks while I let the characters grow...
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mary rosenblum
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and then I revise the first
few pages and continue.
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mary rosenblum
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It saves me a LOT of revision
and makes for a story that is consistant characterwise.
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mary rosenblum
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This is one of the reasons
that working on more than one project at a time is a good thing.
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mary rosenblum
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It's hard not to go ahead when
this is the only piece you're working on.
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mary rosenblum
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But I"m lazy...and the
least revision I can get away with is my aim. :-)
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wyrde
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even more than one novel?
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mary rosenblum
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Oh yes. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Takes me a bit more
'backtracking' to get myself settled in that larger world, but works well
for me.
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mary rosenblum
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I can't say often enough that
characters are the key to powerful writing in fiction.
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mary rosenblum
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Plots are a dime a dozen and
so are settings. The thing that makes the difference is reader engagement
with the characters...
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mary rosenblum
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those are the stories that
sell, that move readers, that reviewers praise.
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speckledorf
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What is the best way to plant
the backstory that the reader needs to know? Dialogue?
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mary rosenblum
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Why not jump into the deep
end, Wyrde? That's what I did. :-) You have to learn to swim REALLY fast
that way!
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mary rosenblum
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Well, speck, dialogue is one
way. If it's real dialogue and not just 'let's tell the reader about the
backstory' dialouge...
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mary rosenblum
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and showing us clues is a good
way, too.
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mary rosenblum
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Let's look at our spoiled
brat/molested woman.
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mary rosenblum
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We could take her home for
Christmas and watch her get tense and nervous...
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mary rosenblum
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and peek in on a scene in the
kitchen where Boyfriend gets her in a corner. We watch this twenty five
year old woman turn into a frightened eleven year old in front of our
eyes...
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mary rosenblum
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and we know what went on.
Nobody has to say a word about it.
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mary rosenblum
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And all of a sudden this is a
different character.
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mary rosenblum
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In this particular case,
people are not likely to talk about it.
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speckledorf
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Ahhhh....the old "show
don't tell" the backstory trick.
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mary rosenblum
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Yep. always my method of
choice when possible. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Remember...readers are pretty
good at picking up those scattered breadcrumbs of clues.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor talking about character backstory.
I've published seven novels and more than 60 short stories and will do my
best to answer any questions you have. If you're new here, remember that
you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word bubble' next
to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to ask a
question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask and
type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for you..
|
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mary rosenblum
|
Let's do another
character...here's another blank slate.
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mimswriting
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a homeless woman, Melody
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mary rosenblum
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Backstory anyone ?
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shayon-joseph
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has a PHD in science but is
schizo
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mary rosenblum
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Okay, here's one.
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mary rosenblum
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And these are going to be
lovely examples of the 'branching path' of backstory...
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mary rosenblum
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in otherwords, even answer
leads to more questions, LOL.
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mary rosenblum
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Has a PhD..in chemistry, say,
and is a schizophrenic out on the street. Good and interesting past.
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mary rosenblum
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OK...now the branching path
that you will need to follow...
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mary rosenblum
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When did the illness strike,
no friends?, how did she end up homeless, what about family?, what did she
do to lose her job, how did she lose her house?, what was her homelife
like, how did she go off meds?
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speckledorf
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Nursing home nurse that got
fired
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mary rosenblum
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Again, a nice step down that
branching path. How and why fired? Friends and family? How did she end up
so alone that she's now on the street...
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mary rosenblum
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And so forth. In both these
cases we are working backward...
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mary rosenblum
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starting with a point that we
WANT...the homeless woman...
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mary rosenblum
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and creating a past that
allows her to realistically exist.
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mary rosenblum
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If you START with the past,
the person you create may not work in your story.
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mary rosenblum
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If you start with the
character you want for your story and work back to create the backstory...
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mary rosenblum
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you get the character you
want, and that vast backstory allows that character to be consistent
throughout the story.
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wyrde
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she started making her own meds
and messed it up
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mary rosenblum
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could work...you could step
into the fantasy or SF realm there.
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mary rosenblum
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Peter Beagle did something
like that.
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forest elf
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I've read about people with
schizo that end up like that ... they refuse to take meds and can't be made
to by family
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mary rosenblum
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Yep...but if you're going to
use this character in a story...
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mary rosenblum
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you need to backtrack to find
out the exact steps this woman took to end up on that corner.
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mary rosenblum
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There are many routes, but
each route makes her a slightly different character who will react
differntly to events and people...
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mary rosenblum
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as the story progresses.
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info
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homeless by choice
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mary rosenblum
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This is an interesting starting
point because most people can't imaging wanting to be homeless...
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mary rosenblum
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so you need to creat the past
that makes this woman comfortable only while without the comforts that we
consider necessary.
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shayon-joseph
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Mary you've used the word
"consistent" a lot. I understand what you're meaning by that (a
character's actions are dictated by who and what they are) but, how do I do
that, without boring my reader?
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mary rosenblum
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You're not going to bore your
reader, shayon, unless your character is so simple that every reader can
guess what he/she will do before he/she does it.
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mary rosenblum
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What that consistancy does is
give you permission to shock and suprise your reader..without sacrificing
your real character.
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mary rosenblum
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People do surprising and even
shocking things every day. Read the newspapers lately?
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mary rosenblum
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They are real people. Their
behavior is very consistant.
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mary rosenblum
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If we read about them in the
paper, we don't know their backstory, so we assume they're real and the
reporter didn't make 'em up...
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mary rosenblum
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(not always a safe thing to
assume these days! LOL)
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mary rosenblum
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YOU know way more about that
character than your reader...
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mary rosenblum
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so you can see that your
character is going to blow up and get violent on page 25.
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mary rosenblum
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You don't let your reader see
it coming, of course, but after the fact...
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mary rosenblum
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the reader looks back and
thinks, 'yep, I should have seen that coming'.
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mary rosenblum
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Well, YOU didn't let reader
see it coming, but it makes sense after it happens.
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mary rosenblum
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Do you see what I mean?
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mary rosenblum
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Real, shocking behavior leaves
readers really affected.
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mary rosenblum
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Cardboard shocking behavior
does not.
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pan
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How does character change come
into play for a consistent character?
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mary rosenblum
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Usually, the character change
is connected to backstory pan.
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mary rosenblum
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We change every day...
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mary rosenblum
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But we're still affected by
our pasts... however, we can all change our point of view about something
or someone..
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mary rosenblum
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or realize that we have been
prejudiced, or learn that one of our life assumptions is maybe wrong...
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mary rosenblum
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tomorrow I will be a slightly
different person than I am today...
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mary rosenblum
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because every day I process
information and (hopefully) learn something.
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mary rosenblum
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The more past your character
has, the more you know about how he/she will react.
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mary rosenblum
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Remember...you don't have to
let your reader know before it happens...
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mary rosenblum
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as long as AFTER the action,
the reader says, 'oh yes, I should have seen that coming'.
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mary rosenblum
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It's the same principal you
use in mystery writing...
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mary rosenblum
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you are going to plant all the
clues the reader needs to solve the murder...
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mary rosenblum
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but you're going to do your
best to make sure Reader doesn't spot 'em.
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mary rosenblum
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AFTER the killer is revealed,
we all slap our foreheads and say, "I shoulda guessed that! '.
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wyrde
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however, you talk about
childhood experiences, but someone can be raised well, and turn out a
rotter, or under frightful conditions, and be highly honourable...
determinations of character have many factors
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mary rosenblum
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No kidding, wyrde. Doing
characters really well is sort of like taking a graduate level psych
course. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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You don't have to TAKE one to
do characters well...
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mary rosenblum
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but you have to look at the
underpinnings of something like 'raised well'.
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mary rosenblum
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Waht does that mean? Kid lived
in a nice house, never got in trouble, got As, was on the football
team...'.
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mary rosenblum
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What ELSE went on in that
family? YOu don't have to see bruises to get damage.
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wyrde
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I meant loving, not merely
advantaged
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mary rosenblum
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Well, realize, wyrde, that
often what is reported in the media is just the superficial appearance.
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mary rosenblum
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Don't believe everything you
read unless you yourself made it up. :-)
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wyrde
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husband died 8 years ago, she
owns her own house near grand central station, she adopts child runaways
and poses with them as a homeless family to increase the donations, the
bank wants to buy her property as the last piece on the block and erect a
skyscraper, willing to pay her an enormous sum, but she refuses
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mary rosenblum
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this is actually a really
interesting story idea, wryde, and I think you should write it. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Remember that you only have to
show the reader enough backstory so that the reader feels about the
character the way we want the reader to feel.
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mary rosenblum
|
In the case of our young
woman, we have to let the reader know about her past or reader will just
despise her.
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mary rosenblum
|
BUt if the past isn't needed
to directly explain/justfy the story, then it's there to give your
character consistancy.
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mary rosenblum
|
It's the big part of the
iceberg under the water.
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speckledorf
|
A loving family could have a
father that was a workaholic and was never home...that would affect kid..
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mary rosenblum
|
Or who was a secret alcoholic
and nobody admitted it, or who was very controlling and constantly
belittled the kid in private...
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mary rosenblum
|
or what have you.
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catydorr
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why does she refuse to sell the
property--she seems money oriented
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mary rosenblum
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There are some seeming
conflicts there...that's why it would be an interesting story.
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mary rosenblum
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Figuring out the whys would
keep me reading.
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mary rosenblum
|
And that's another good
example of the why of backstory.
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mary rosenblum
|
Without backstory, this is
apparently a complete contradiction ...or several of them...
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mary rosenblum
|
In this story, the backstory
would carry the story as we...
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mary rosenblum
|
unraveled the reasons for her
behavior.
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mary rosenblum
|
Without backstory, reader
reaction would be along the lines of caty's question... huh?
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wyrde
|
she is
"possession-oriented"
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mary rosenblum
|
House might be a huge metaphor
for her... begging can get you money to live on...
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mary rosenblum
|
dunno how the state let her
adopt, but maybe they're just street kids who moved in...
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mary rosenblum
|
You could explain it all if
you work at it...
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speckledorf
|
Home was her and hubby's...she
is a romantic at heart:-)
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mary rosenblum
|
Yep. You could make her a
harmless and rather entertaining crazy...
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mary rosenblum
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who is maybe not the best home
for those kids, but who might be their only home..
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mary rosenblum
|
And it's an excellent example
of why backstory matters, thanks!
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catydorr
|
she's done the math and makes
more money on the homeless kids
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roe
|
maybe she killed hubby and
buried him in the basement she'd be found out if she sold and they tore
down house
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wyrde
|
she is dirty and canny, but
twisted, experiments with mind-altering chemistry
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mary rosenblum
|
and these are all the 'dark
side' backstories.
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mary rosenblum
|
See how many different stories
we got just by playing wiht the backstory here?
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mary rosenblum
|
Well, this has been a fun
Oregon hour. :-)
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mary rosenblum
|
Take the time to think about
who your character has been for the past decades.
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mary rosenblum
|
It'll give you a much stronger
character.
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wyrde
|
what is an oregon hour?
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mary rosenblum
|
It's the hour and a half that
I do here...originally the Forums were only an hour long...
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mary rosenblum
|
but I started running longer,
since I usually couldn't answer all the questions in an hour...
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mary rosenblum
|
thus the 'Oregon hour'. (I
live in Oregon)
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wyrde
|
and hours are longer in oregon?
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mary rosenblum
|
ONly when it rains. :-)
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pan
|
Thanks, Mary, this really
helped.
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mary rosenblum
|
Good, pan. I'm glad.
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mary rosenblum
|
Really and truely, three
dimensional characters will take you right to the top of the slush pile in
fiction.
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mary rosenblum
|
They are very rare.
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mary rosenblum
|
It is the surest way to break
in. Work on your characters.
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mary rosenblum
|
Any editor will tell you this.
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shayon-joseph
|
THANKS MARY---I NEEDED THIS.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL
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mary rosenblum
|
Happy holidays, Shayon! Thanks
for the good questions.
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mary rosenblum
|
You all had a LOT of good
questions tonight! Keep me on my toes! :-)
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mary rosenblum
|
Have a good weekend, all.
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mary rosenblum
|
See you Sunday at our regular
casual chat...
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mary rosenblum
|
same time same place,
different day of the week!
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mary rosenblum
|
I'll post the transcript in
Writing Craft: Forum Transcripts.
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