November 2006: History (cont.)

And that is what your main character needs . . . a history that relates directly to the struggle that will form his story. What has happened to your character before now that will frame his response to the story problem? If you are writing about a boy being bullied, has he ever been bullied before? Is he big for his age, but just not a fighter? Why doesn’t he want to fight? Or is he small and he’s tried to fight the bully before and always lost? Or is he perfectly capable of fighting, but he’s made a promise to his father that he won’t? Why has he made such a promise? What has happened in the past for his father to have asked him to make such a promise? Is your character afraid of his father, or is he afraid of disappointing him?

Keep asking questions until you understand exactly who your character is and how he is apt to react in the face of the story problem you have set up. The history you develop doing that will make your story rich and interesting. Knowing that history will also make it possible for you to keep writing once you begin.

You need to be filled up before you can pour yourself out in a story, and part of that filling up—an important part—is understanding who your characters are through their histories.

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