Writing Tip: Character Biographies
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- 4/1/2008 |
- 10:00 am
Your characters obviously supply your story with most of its emotion, which means you're putting a lot of responsibility in their hands. The question is: Do you know your own characters that well? Here's a tip to help you understand not only what your characters look like, but what makes them tick...
When I host my writing workshops, I always spend a good amount of time talking about developing your story's characters. It doesn't matter if your readers love them, hate them, cry for them, cheer for them, or are simply curious about them...as long as they feel something.
This means that you'll want to put some thought into what is going on in your characters' lives. For years I have recommended to students that before they write their story, they should sit down and create a biography for each main character.
Why? Well, it's not simply about the hard facts. Yes, it's easy to create a bio that tells us how tall they are, how old they are, and where they live. But I want to know more about that character. If they're afraid of the dark, then WHY are they afraid? If they have a bad relationship with another character, WHY is this so? If they are always the last one to show up at a party, WHY are they always tardy?
This allows you to get inside the head of the people who will tell your tale. It will allow you to understand their motives, and this will often show up in your story. It also helps you stay true to your character throughout the work; you won't have them behaving as if they're five different people in five different scenes. Or, as I like to say, it helps to keep your characters in character.
Your biographies don't have to be long. For my Galahad book series (www.ClubGalahad.com) I wrote about one page for each primary character. Not all of this information made it into the books (at least so far), but I had a strong understanding of what each character was about, what they stood for, why they behaved as they did, and how they would interact with each other.
And, of course, you can always go back and edit your bios when you see a great opportunity. This is simply a good starting point. And, you might even find that you enjoy writing these as much you enjoy writing the story itself!
