Rounding Out the Backstory

[willow_25]

I wanted to get the opinions of some of you other authors, and others, on this:

I've found that while writing a story with a large cast, including many original characters, I've had to come up with some way of helping myself get into their heads.  I think giving each character a fully-rounded life makes the story itself better; and somehow that's mainly asserted itself for me in creating musical tastes for each of them.  I actually have 'favorite songs' playlists for most of my OC's on my iPod.  Any other tricks you guys can think of, to help flesh out a character and make them more real?  So far, the music is working for me, although it's not helping very much with the BTVS/AtS canon characters, most of whom seemed not really into music.  Favorite books, maybe?

Also, any thoughts on characters and their pets?  Somehow, I see Xander getting a snake, while he's all alone in Africa.  Maybe one of the newly mortal vampires gets a dog, to feel more connected to life; or heck, just for company?  New Slayers trying to move their pets across borders with them?

I should have been in bed an hour ago, so I'm just gonna go now...

Comments

On Writing

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I try to round out all my characters as much as possible, except for the very minor "message carriers". When I create a character I know not only their physical description, but their childhood, family members, religion, tastes in entertainment, childhood traumas, clothing choices, friends and enemies ...

I've found checklists in several books about writing, and I go through each for every new character. It's a lot of work, and most of it never finds itself into the story, but by the time I'm done they're no longer characters on the page to me -- they're people. I can see their mannerisms, hear them talk, and know how they'd react to any situation. And yes, pets are part of that.

As an example, my OC watcher Richard spent ten years as a teacher in the public schools, was a volunteer firefighter, grew up in rural Madison, Indiana, and always had German Shepherds as pets. He likes to read science fiction, loves history, plays chess, has a brown belt in martial arts, and loves prime rib. His wife died when their daughter was three years old.
Now, almost none of that made it into "Where Do We Go From Here?", which was supposed to be the only fanfiction I wrote, and he was a minor character -- but whenever I wrote him, he was real to me.

That's not so easy with other people's characters, of course, although I've found it often helps to keep pictures of them and "hear" their voices in your mind as you write. Some come very easily to me: Xander and Faith, for instance. Some *coughBuffycough* are hard work.

Also, a scorecard comes in handy. :-)

[mymagritte.livejournal.com]

once you're in your new place, you could do like lkh does and have post-its all around the walls with plot points and character traits