Author Beth Wiseman Talks About 3-D Characters

We’ve all read books with one or two-dimensional characters, those books that tell a great story but lack the motivations to support the actions, thus making it difficult to stay vested and care about the characters. Three-dimensional characters are layered, but the trick is not stuffing it all down the reader’s throat at one time. Motivations will be easier to digest if they are fed to your audience slowly in a precipitated way that keeps the book moving forward while allowing the reader to have a better understanding about what drives your characters.

For example: Suzie has blonde hair and blue eyes. She has a small scar on her chin. She’s tall and skinny. Suzie works as a paralegal at a law firm. One day she hopes to go to law school and become an attorney. She can’t have children. She sleeps with the light on.

Those little factoids should be sprinkled throughout your introduction to Suzie, but shouldn’t be the main focus of the story in the beginning. Use those supporting tidbits while driving the action.

The second layer should begin to enlighten the reader about what makes Suzie tick. Where did she get the scar on her chin? Why does she want to be an attorney? Why can’t she have children? And why does she sleep with the light on?

So, consider this: Suzie was assaulted when she was a teenager, thus the scar on her chin. She’s wanted to be an attorney since that horrible incident, which left her unable to have children. At this point, the reader assumes Suzie leaves the light on because she is afraid of the dark based on what happened to her. So, instead of driving that point home, let the reader go ahead and assume this for now.

More often than not, that is where a lot of books stop offering layers, which leaves us with a two-dimensional character. But let’s take the reader deeper into Suzie’s psyche in an effort to keep our reader totally vested, caring about Suzie and her outcome. Although, we are still feeding this information slowly.

Third dimension: Suzie doesn’t want to be an attorney in an effort to see justice prevailed. Instead, she is doing it to prove to her father that she can—a man who said she would never amount to anything and who said that she’d enticed the person who raped her. But Suzie helps her father financially just the same. This hints that Suzie came from a bad home life growing up, without force-feeding the information. It also tells the reader that no matter how awful her father might be, Suzie still wants him to be proud of her and she loves him, as shown by her financial support. And Suzie doesn’t sleep with the light on because she is afraid of the dark. She sleeps with the light on because she has a rare neurological condition that requires her to leave the light on.

And throughout the story, you can keep adding layers. Maybe Suzie’s father is so difficult because Suzie’s mother left them both when Suzie was a small child. Does Suzie look just like her mother? Is that why her father resents Suzie or has trouble having a relationship with her? Does Suzie long for a child or never really wanted to be a mother? What is it about Suzie that endears her to the reader? Does she love animals? Maybe so much so that she is constantly bringing home strays?

Then do the same thing for your male character if you’re writing a romance. But ‘Sam’ could be a janitor at the local school who is taking night classes. He has a great family, so he can’t understand why Suzie puts up with her father’s verbal abuse. Has Sam always wanted a houseful of children? Is he allergic to most animals? Take all that conflict, structure an interesting plot, and then let these two people see the essence in each other—the things that no one else sees—and challenge the reader to wonder how these two people will ever end up together.

Even if your story is not a romance, writing multi-layered characters facing insurmountable conflict keeps our readers interested past just the black and white mold of a person without depth.

This process was particularly important for my latest release—The Promise. How many women do you know who would travel to Pakistan, despite warnings from family, friends, and our U.S. State Department? I needed strong motivations for Mallory so that the reader found her actions plausible and wanted to be on the journey with her, rooting for her to achieve her goals. The Promise is inspired by actual events, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, so it was doubly important for the reader to understand what drove Mallory to such lengths.

People are complicated. Our characters should be too. Going the extra mile in a novel will keep your reader turning the pages. We want our readers to live the story, not to just be a spectator. Multi-layered characters are a way to make this happen.

Beth Wiseman is the best-selling author of the Daughters of the Promise series and the Land of

Canaan series.  Wiseman has a deep affection for the Amish and their simpler way of life, and while she plans to continue writing Amish love stories, she is also branching out into other areas. In her daring new novel, Wiseman jumps way outside the box. The Promise will take readers far away from Amish country and the small Texas towns of her previous releases to a dangerous place on the other side of the world. Inspired by actual events, Wiseman believes this is the book she’s been working toward for a long time.

Wiseman can be found at Fans of Beth Wiseman on Facebook where she interacts with readers. Learn more about the author and her books at bethwiseman.com and on Twitter (@bethwiseman).

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow, when you can enter to win a free copy of The Promise here on The Borrowed Book!

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What's the Deal with Backstory? by Author Ane Mulligan

Contrary to popular belief, backstory is a good thing. Now, before y'all call for a lynching party, let me tell you what it' good for and what it's not good for. After all, backstory helps you, the author know your character. What makes her tick? What formed her worldview? Why does he dislike women who have a good business head? 

Let's get the "not" out of the way first. The reader does not need to know the backstory of your characters to understand the plot—at least not in the beginning. A bit of mystery about the character is a good thing. It draws the reader onward to find out why this otherwise nice guy is so antagonistic to the heroine.

I always tell new writers to think of it this way. You're attending a party, and you host introduces you to a new neighbor. You start off the conversation by telling her your life history, and the new neighbor will be in jeopardy of whiplash, looking for the host to rescue her. 

Readers who are bombarded with backstory in the first few chapters of a novel with either ski over it or close the book for good. Either way, your time has been wasted by putting it in.

Now, let's look at what backstory is good for and how to discover it. First, I conduct a character interview (CI). Think of that as a journalist interviewing a subject for an article. In my CI, I dig and prod for the character's secrets and for his or her fears. What happened in their childhood that had a major effect of them?

After I've completed the CI, I write a stream of consciousness (SOC) backstory. This is where I go back two or more generations. People are the product of their ancestors' worldview. For example, let's say your great grandparents lived through the Great Depression. They probably could get more for a quarter than anyone you know. They taught your grandparents, who taught your parents. But did your parents continue that trait or did they, because of their more affluent status, break away from it?

It's within the SOC backstory where I discover so much about my character. Besides their worldview, I learn the lie they believe about themselves, and that lie will color their motivation, and that motivation will drive their plotline. 

In my debut novel, Chapel Springs Revival, my secondary lead, Patsy, comes from a loving home. Her mother is a well-known artist and her father a country doctor. She grew up without them around a lot. One might think her lie is that she's unloved, but that wasn't it. Patsy believes she's helpless – powerless to fix things. In her own life, she falls victim to it by ignoring problems. If she doesn't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist. 

Your characters will either fall victim to their lie or they will try to prove it wrong. Remember, the key is: Lie drives motivation drives plotline.

Much of what I learn never makes it into the manuscript, but if makes the characters come alive. They're three-dimensional and when they are real to you, the author, they become real to the reader. 

One of my beta readers said after reading Chapel Springs Revival, "I love the people. I want to find out more about their lives."

And that's the goal for backstory. 

While a large, floppy straw hat is her favorite, Ane has worn many different ones: hairdresser, legislative affairs director (that's a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director, multi-published playwright, humor columnist, and novelist. Her lifetime experience provides a plethora of fodder for her Southern-fried fiction (try saying that three times fast). She firmly believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. President of the award-winning literary site, Novel Rocket, Ane resides in Suwanee, GA, with her artist husband, her chef son, and two very large dogs. Her debut book, Chapel Springs Revival released Sept 8^th.

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Backstory 101 ~ Backstory Ascends Its Throne

August 24, 2010

If you'll remember from last week, we talked about how to hint at backstory (events that occur previous to chapter one) within your story. Today we will take that same example and build on it to show the importance of *knowing* your character's backstory before you begin writing. It adds depth to your character/s. Layers. Think onion.

LAST WEEK: A woman who has endured abuse in the past at the hands of her spouse is sitting at a table as he rants and raves. Remember, on paper, the reader knows nothing of this woman or of this man. They don't even know that she has been abused in the past. Yet. What we are going to do is SHOW through her actions and reactions to her spouse that she has endured violence at the hands of her husband before.

Mary focused on the vein in Larry's forehead. The one that always swelled in direct proportion to the build of Larry's anger. She gripped the edges of the kitchen chair with her hands and dared not stare down at the rough wood boards of the table.
"Listen to me!" he snapped and pounded the table.
Her spine stiffened and she purposely blanked her expression. Fear swam in the back of her throat, an oily taste that worked her gag reflex.
Larry jammed his face up next to hers. "That's the problem, you never listen to me."
He grabbed her upper arms with all the strength of a construction worker.

Today we'll add to this. Let's take one aspect of the woman's backstory, her job, and tell me how what she does for a living is going to affect her actions and reactions to yet another one of her husband's tantrums.

1)How would the woman's job as CEO of a company affect her reaction?

2)How would she react if her job was that of a janitor?

3)Same scenario, but she is a scientist?

4)What if she is unemployed?

Really give this some thought. What you're doing is seeing how one tiny aspect of a character's life, something the reader will not know about that person right off, can vary their action/reaction. Why is this, and how does it help deepen characterization?

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Backstory 101~Natural Learning Curve of Relationships

After a long weekend that included this:


Here I am back behind my desk waiting to wow you with all things related to backstory.

Hey, stop yawning!

Last week we explored the reasons why backstory doesn't work when used in paragraphs or, gasp, entire pages. 1) It slows the story pacing before the story ever gets off the ground and 2) It ain't natural-like.

Okay, so we didn't really explore the second one, but we are today. One of the reasons backstory is frowned upon within the first three chapters is it does not follow the normal learning curve of a relationship.

When you meet someone new, what do you know about them? Right. Nothing. Wouldn't it be odd for this stranger to sit down and begin telling your their entire life story? Most of us would beat it out of there real quick.

In the natural curve of relationships, only after a period of time do you start to pick up on little comments the person makes that hint at a rough upbringing, or a nasty divorce, or whatever. The point is, it takes you a while to realize your new acquaintance has rough edges and/or problems. This is one of the reasons why dropping hints about your character in those first chapters is much more natural than dumping paragraphs of backstory, it reflects how we interrelate with people.

Write your story in this manner. As if the person reading is seeing your character for the first time. Then, through a series of narrative, events, and interactions with other characters, begin revealing your character's problems and the conflicts they will have to face to reach their goal.

Oh, and before I forget, last weeks winner is. . .Amber S. I had to work hard to overlook her tendency toward weird baaaa-rnyard humor, but I persevered and have to admit that I was moo-ved by her in depth answer to my questi-oink. Great Job, girlfriend!

For those of you who didn't win anything but really want another chance. . .try and guess where the sunset picture was taken. If you're happen to nail it, I'll give you Lisa's car. No wait. Just kidding there. What I meant was, I'll give you. . .well. . .directions how to get there? Yeah, that's it!

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Barnyard Backstory 101

We interrupt the regularly scheduled lesson for a Barnyard Backstory moment. These moments are created by my friends, and meant to explain, with visual images, why backstory just ain't pretty.

"Peanut" will be your narrator. Say "hello" to Peanut!

Howdy, folks! Me and my buds are going to illustrate, as best as we know how, why that Backstory stuff ain't such a good idea.

First of all, backstory is about the hero's or heroine's (the protagonist's) journey. For the sake of this here lesson, the hero will be me. Ain't I handsome?

Now stick with me a moment while I get my helpers rounded up. Pamphyllius and Theophylus got purty names, but they're not the brightest steers. "Dumb Swiss" is what I heard the farmer call them. Me, I'm a Jersey, and that's purty smart in cow language.

Well, it looks like the dudes are getting into position, Theo on the left and Pamphyllius. . . well now, Pam just struck a beautiful pose. This exactly illustrates Back(side)story. Take a look at that, folks! The picture says it all. Backstory might as well be the backside of a cow. Any cow. No matter how you turn it, it ain't pretty.

MOO!

Now, what me and the boys are going to do here is show you how to use Backstory correctly. In one easy, visual.

Almost there.

And this is it, folks. Barnyard Backstory 101 at a glimpse. I represent the protagonist. You should see him (or her) up close and personal in that first chapter. Theo is in the middle and represents what is found out about the protagonist, not his Backstory, mind you, but little tidbits of his personality that shine through his interactions with other characters that only hint at his backstory. And Pam, there, he's the third layer and represents backstory. It's what you see the least of in this picture, and what the reader should see the least of in the book. Wasn't that fun? If it's alright with you, I'm gonna go back to eating. I'm hungry. Again. And no eating-like-a-cow-jokes either. You hear me?

Thank you, Peanut, Pam, and Theo, for illustrating Backside Story-er, Backstory. Pam, I'm sure my readers will remember that visual for a long time to come.

S. Dionne Moore is a slightly insane wife, mother, and writer. Okay, maybe more than slightly insane. I mean, who would think of using cows to illustrate Backstory? She is the author of six books, three zany cozy mysteries, of which one, Polly Dent Loses Grip, was just named a finalist in ACFW's Carol Awards. Her first historical romance, Promise of Tomorrow, released this month. Visit her at www.sdionnemoore.com. No cows are invited.

If you've read down this far and would like to be entered for a free copy of Polly Dent Loses Grip, leave a comment. Or cow humor. Whichever. :)

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Backstory 101

July 20, 2010

Backstory is everything that has happened to your character/s before chapter one.

The problem with backstory is simple. It slows down the story before it ever has a chance to get started. It tells too much about the character. It gives away too many elements of the character that are critical to the story.

Think of it. How often do you meet a person and automatically know everything about them? You don't. You learn who the person is very slowly over a period of days, months, and sometimes years. Your story is the same way. Allow the reader to get to know the character slowly, through snippets. Backstory should be woven throughout the manuscript. Peppered in to give the story some spice at just the right time.

So why is it so easy for a writer to fall into the backstory chasm? Many times it’s because, subconsciously, you are trying to get a handle on who your character is, where they came from, and what kind of upbringing they had. You see, what you’re really doing in those first chapters is a character sketch!

You could also be struggling with where to start the story. I’ve often heard editors encourage a writer to cut the first chapter, or even the first two chapters, because after those chapters comes the *real* story. In other words, those first chapters are filled with backstory that is unnecessary to the *real* story. The same solution is applicable. But don't throw those chapters away, cut and paste them into another document and keep it. You will need to refer back to it throughout the writing of your manuscript.

Remember, a reader wants to be swept up and carried away to a different world with different characters, and they don’t want to wait until chapter two to get there. This is why it is up to you, as the writer, to find the perfect place in which to begin your character's journey.

Let's look at some examples of backstory within the first paragraph of the first chapter:

Example 1:

Belinda froze in place. Ever since she was six she knew this would happen. Her father had always warned her she should be careful on the prairies during thunderstorms. Tornadoes could occur at any moment. And they could kill. Just like the wedge shaped one that had killed her mother when she was six. And that’ s when she’d had the premonition. The one that told her she, too, would be killed by a tornado.

Example 2:

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille. Garrett Thompson flicked on his turn signal and wished the tune coming from his radio was the song with the same line, instead of his reality. His Lucille, however, was really called Lucy. She would have hated being called Lucille.

Garrett eased into the right lane ahead of a Mac truck going far too fast. He kept his eyes on the vehicle until he knew it would slow. His mind sifted back over the events that led up to Lucy’s goodbye. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in the county, but she sure was the smartest and the kindest, though her tantrum twenty minutes ago sure supplied evidence to the contrary.

Example 3:

Thimblewyeth was a young woman of fourteen. She enjoyed listening to westerns and old-time radio, despite being a child of the twenty-second century. Even her mother, steeped in her own generation of 2182, couldn’t understand Thimblewyeth’s delight in stories over a century old. But her father understood. He was tall and had a pot belly, but he listened to Thimblewyeth talk of cowboys and range wars as he worked on his aircar or tinkered with the programming on their robutler, who could never seem to get the morning coffee quite to her father’s taste.

Three very different examples. Are these, in your opinion, good starting points for the story. Why or why not? Which of these examples relies too heavily on backstory? What would you do to change these pieces to make them acceptable?

S. Dionne Moore is a multipublished author of both cozy mystery and historical romance. Find out more about her and her books at http://www.sdionnemoore.com.

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