Character and Family

[Addison]

This is mostly a question of character background. I don't know what the deal is with my MC, or me, but his family keeps changing. In each variation he stills has a cute baby sister, a lazy, obnoxious older brother, a domineering, slave-driving....adult (his title in family is changing from step-father, fiance, guardian and mom's boyfriend and landlord) A mother and a possibly late father. Yea, it's crazy. The main problem is the parents. In the original version the mom is alive and the dad is dead. Dead-dead. But then when I looked at the character through the story the dead-father wasn't sitting well with his attitude, his personality. So that mother-father-child relationship has gone all over the place. From omitting the slave driver as an extra person to making it a complex mystery. Son thought dad was dead, dad thought son and wife were dead, both are still alive. Dad's alive but has amnesia. Dad left them to give them a better chance away from his life.

Any tips on getting this sorted will be greatly appreciated.

And before anyone asks, yes I've written down each scenario. I've written family background for my other characters.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Ok, here's a question for you... If the dad is alive but the son thinks he's dead, I'm assuming we meet him and that is what is causing your dilemma? And why is it important to have 2 paternal figures in your MC's life - one the biological father, and one the "slave-driver?" What plot points are you wrestling with to bring you to this?

 

[Penpilot]

Sounds like maybe you're not clear on what your character's wants are. Can you sum up in one sentence what your characters wants are plot wise and personally? If you know those two things clearly and simply, use them to shape background so it supports the character's wants.

Example Star Wars and Luke Skywalker.

Plot wants: Save the princess and destroy the Deathstar

Personal wants: To become a Jedi like his father.

Focusing in on personal wants, look how Luke's family situation is set up. Doesn't know his father. Has an over protective aunt and uncle that don't want him to leave the farm. This situation pushes him rebel an go off to find his greater destiny.

Now let's switch things up for Luke a bit. Let's say his aunt and uncle are supportive and even encouraging him to leave. Think about how much the story could have changed. Maybe Luke goes off to the Academy, so then he never encounters R2 and C3P0, and now the story takes a different path. He's no longer rebelling against those holding him back, but it can still lead him to the rebellion only by a different path. I don't think the Academy has been established as either on the Rebel or Empire's side, so imagine if it was a Empire Academy. Imagine this scenario, Luke goes to the academy and during his term there a special guest instructor come to teach them to fly and that instructor's name is Darth Vader. Vader takes a liking to him and wants him to be his apprentice. (Ok enough with the SW fanfiction) But you get the point. Back ground can push characters in different directions.

But a think to consider is this is sort of a chicken and the egg situation. You can start off with a character that is a certain way with a certain set of wants, and you can ask yourself how they became that way and shape the backstory to fit that. On the other end you can set up a backstory and grow the character out of that backstory, figuring out if a character has a certain backstory how would that effect what that character wants and who they are in the story?

An orphan may be on a quest for family of some sort. Or they may reject family, thinking it's something they've never had, so it's something they don't need. How does each piece of the back story puzzle shape your character?

 

[Addison]

Good points have been made.....but for whatever reason I'm still confused in my head about my character.
But taking your Plot-Personal Desire exercise I can say this:
Plot Desire: Vanquish the evil to save his friends and school.
That was easy. I know the plot backways.
Personal Desire: Discover who his family really is.
And this is where things get confusing. Mother is alive, still, but she's been lying to my MC for years so, when the truth comes out, he has no idea who she really is and has less idea of who he really is, where he comes from. It's the dad that's giving me a head ache. In one the dad is the slave-driver (alive). In the other he's dead. In the other the dad is alive but the mother told the son that he was dead and told the father the son is dead. In another the mother honestly thinks the dad is dead but he was really transported and transformed by a backfired spell. And finally the parents divorced either shortly after MC was born or before and father never knew the mother was pregnant.

Like I said, I have a head ache. And I apologize if I just gave all of you headaches.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Ooooooor.... MC was raised thinking the slave-driver is his biological father, but the truth is revealed that for unknown (to the MC) reason his father's real identity had been hidden all these years. How does that work?

 

[Honey_Badger]

This thread, I like this shit.

 

[Addison]

That is the direction I'm heading in Aelowan. The part I'm wrestling with now is the why? Something the dad did? The dad's family? Something that maybe the mom or fake dad did that they don't want real dad to know about? LOTS of possibilities.

Glad you like it Honey Badger. If you have more to say, go ahead. (Just watch the cuss words, there's a rule about that I think)

 

[Avi Love]

I don't know if this will be helpful or not, but I feel like past this point " In each variation he stills has a cute baby sister, a lazy, obnoxious older brother, a domineering, slave-driving....adult" you have no idea what's going on.

Now I know that's basically what you're feeling like too, but my curiosity is if you're trying to work out too much now. For me, I think things should appear in a story when they become necessary to the story. In other words, I don't think there's much of a point to outlining every tiny thing in a character's background before starting to write. I know some writers work that way, but it's not an approach I find particularly interesting.

I find it far more interesting to take what I know is absolutely necessary for the story that's running around in my head and start writing it. Then when I get up to a certain point, a detail I didn't know that wasn't apart of the concept will present itself either on a whim or out of necessity. I might get to an important scene in the relationship between two characters and suddenly realize one character needs to have another layer of feeling towards the other. Based on their relationship, that layer of feeling needs to be based on the mother's abandonment. So now, assuming the mother had never directly come into the story before, I know who the mother is and why.

The sort of mistake I feel a lot of writers make is thinking that the "why" is going to come from something obvious that you can logistically work out before the story happens. Really I think the "why" will come from elements discovered within the writing process (a major part of what makes it fun). In order to discover those elements though, you have to start out with only the essentials. So if everyone but the little sister and older brother are becoming a burden, get rid of all of them until they necessarily show up in the story you're writing. That might give you a much better idea of who they are and why they have to be that person.

 

[Addison]

I think I have the family worked out now. Here's a question though, because it's getting zero from it's original posting forum, what is the difference between posting your work in your portfolio opposed to the Showcase forum? One place is most likely to get read or something I bet.

 

[skip.knox]

Just in case others are interested in the OP, I've struggled with similar issues. It wasn't family but it was Eternally Shifting Backstory.

The only way I was able to nail it down was to write it down. I wrote out Backstory A. Then I wrote out Backstory B. And so on. It was a lot of writing and I had to keep telling myself that I was too working on the novel, just not where I thought I was.

Anyway, writing it turned out to have a couple of benefits. One, when I was wavering between A, B and C, I had the whole watermelon ready to go. I'd already thought it through. I just ran Backstory B against the WIP and saw how things went. Later, on another waver, I could try out Backstory D. A second benefit was that I had a couple I threw out. It wasn't that they were bad, it's just that others were clearly better (of course, never out anything; those backstory sketches still skulk in my archives somewhere, ill-defined and resentful).

Finally, and this is related to that second benefit, by writing it all out I had to think it all through. Some ideas seem solid when they're just a bullet point, but written out they reveal their true nature: this one is disconnected, that one doesn't go anywhere, another is clearly just decorative.

 

[Ireth]

Just in case others are interested in the OP, I've struggled with similar issues. It wasn't family but it was Eternally Shifting Backstory.

The only way I was able to nail it down was to write it down. I wrote out Backstory A. Then I wrote out Backstory B. And so on. It was a lot of writing and I had to keep telling myself that I was too working on the novel, just not where I thought I was.

Anyway, writing it turned out to have a couple of benefits. One, when I was wavering between A, B and C, I had the whole watermelon ready to go. I'd already thought it through. I just ran Backstory B against the WIP and saw how things went. Later, on another waver, I could try out Backstory D. A second benefit was that I had a couple I threw out. It wasn't that they were bad, it's just that others were clearly better (of course, never out anything; those backstory sketches still skulk in my archives somewhere, ill-defined and resentful).

Finally, and this is related to that second benefit, by writing it all out I had to think it all through. Some ideas seem solid when they're just a bullet point, but written out they reveal their true nature: this one is disconnected, that one doesn't go anywhere, another is clearly just decorative.

I've had that issue in the past with my vampire novel. I ended up deciding on a course of action, then keeping the other ideas around as myths or rumors regarding the villain in question. He's the first and oldest of the vampires, so it would make sense that his backstory is shrouded in myth.

 

[Grimmlore]

so i think you need to work out how will all that information make your character act... eg. dad is discovered to really be alive by MC or the MC has some sort of idea that he might be alive the quest becomes finding dad.
and then the emotions of the MC topic comes up,.. how screwed up is your MC by the death of their father? maybe they have already dealt with it but now finding out dads alive changes everything, brings back all those old emotions adds some confusion and then anger because why the hell didnt dad let him/her know?
If mums been lying was she protecting MC from being discovered? is real dad a bad influence or person? is slave driver dad the cause of this? MC has to do some detective work now to figure it out. if your just wanting MC to have daddy issues because it shapes his her personality then i would just have the characters quickly mention dad leaving at the start and be done with it.
i have NO idea if that helps at all. but my general rule of thumb is if they arnt mentoring,saving, being saved by, creating a personal relationship with or hating on the MC you dont need them on the front line.

 

[Addison]

Little tip, through experience, if you have an idea for a backstory/ family ties, but it doesn't fit your protagonist, see if it fits a side character. It gives them depth, makes them round.