Melpomene
Writer of Tragedy|Art by ROYTHEART|
Hello, lovelies!
I am SoundOfSilence, as many of you may know already. As some may not know, I am an aspiring novelist. I enjoy writing immensely. Writing and YouTube are possibly the only things that I do in my free time. I love it so much, that I would enjoy sharing my thoughts on it with you all! I plan on having multiple of these up, and I hope to start a discussion with you all. I plan on talking about things such as world-building, plot creation, character creation, rhetoric and general writing tools.
Today I plan on writing about character creation. Creating characters can prove to be quite difficult, because no one likes a dull character, and, at the same time, no one likes a Mary-Sue. I can give you an entire list of characters that I do not like, but that is not what this thread is supposed to be a bout. This plot is supposed to be about 'The Tragic Backstory' as the title suggests.
I believe that everyone enjoys a nice tragic backstory every once in awhile, yet, at the same time, that is likely something I find to be my biggest pet peeve when it is done in a way that is less than stellar. I have found that others agree with me, and after doing some research and asking around, I believe I have an idea as to what makes a tragic backstory good and what makes it worthy of an eye roll.
Please know that I am not claiming these words to be fact, only making a suggestion as to how to make a better tragic backstory for the characters that face us ahead. This is not meant to hate on anyone. If you find that you do something that I say I do not like, do not take it personally. I want a discussion, not a flame war.
Without further ado, here are my thoughts:
If the backstory is tragic, it should be necessary to the character and/or the plot for it to be tragic.
I believe that one thing that ruins the tragic backstory is that people tend to just shove one in to make their character more sympathetic/ edgy. Many times I find that people simply have a tragic backstory to have a tragic backstory. Their character would be no different with or without it. This, in itself, is a grievous fault in a backstory in general. The things that happen in our past shape who we are today, the same goes for our characters. If I don't see their backstory affect them in the present, then why have it included? Why have anything that does not affect your character now included in the backstory?
If you have a tragic backstory, it should be necessary for me to understand why the character are the way they are today. A tragic backstory could easily be what gives your character a crippling flaw or a great amount of strength. It could give your character the drive to go forward in the plot. It could justify why your character is in a certain place at a certain time.
If you choose to have a tragic backstory for only the reason to elicit sympathy, then I am afraid that it is doomed to fail. Same with you attempting to have your character hurt at any other time in the story. If it is just for sympathy, that moment is spurious at best, and detrimental to the story at worst. It makes your character seem weak and pulls away from the plot completely. Before you ever think about writing a scene or backstory where your character gets hurt, ask yourself why you want this to happen. Is it because you want the audience, and all the other characters to feel sorry for them? And really think about it, because usually if your first thought when beginning to think up the scene was about how much everyone else will feel sorry for your character, it may be best to cut that scene/ part of the backstory out. And for the love of God, don't make your character a Constant Victim1! But the Constant Victim is a tale for another thread. It does, however, tie in very well with the tragic backstory.
If it is necessary for the given plot and/or character, it should be well developed.
This is not the time to open the big book of clichés... I found that is the first thing many people will tell you. I, however, will tell you to go right ahead and do just that. Cliches are good2! I happen to love clichés and character tropes. My personal favorite is the Genius Asshole3, but I digress.
Starting with a cliché is fine, what is not fine is leaving it as a bare boned cliché. This rule, quite frankly, is good to keep in mind in terms of character creation in general. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it should be kept in mind for writing in general. But for the purposes of this thread, I will keep the topic upon the Tragic Backstory.
In the Tragic Backstory, a cliché that is often seen is the 'Sad Childhood' trope. While this can be a good set up for any character or plot, it is far from enough to simply put out there that they had a sad childhood. You have to make it your own in some way. Give your character their own specific experiences rather than just copying and pasting experiences unto them. Develop specifics about the circumstances that your character is in. Develop specifics about some of the big events that made them who they were today. Develop specifics about why they are in these circumstances if you can. Add and groom the cliché until it properly fits your character and the plot.
So you've developed it... Stop right there f***er. Don't overdo it!
This happens all too often when someone writes up a tragic backstory. They way overdo it. I am sure we have all seen a character like this. I am sure some of us have even created one with a backstory like this! No shame in it! But, I believe that it is best story wise to not overdo the creation of the tragic backstory. One of the reasons is because when you do such, you are often close to making a Constant Victim/ Mary-Sue type character. A plethora of others, actually, but I've found specifically those two, and possibly the Edge Lord4 come out of an overdone tragic backstory.
What is an overdone Tragic Backstory, SoundOfSilence? I hear the keyboards type and people say aloud to themselves. well, my lovelies, I shall gladly tell you exactly that.
This is when it seems that a character managed to have every bad thing that could possibly happen to a person happen to them. These are the characters who had abusive parents that they ended up killing themselves. Then they were bullied in school for something they could not help. Then they were with a foster parent that abused and raped and molested them. Then they watched someone they love die. They then became a child soldier, but was constantly abused by the people in the army. Did I mention they were starving and neglected throughout childhood? They also had bad luck with dating partners.
I know some people really have terrible things happen to them in their lives... But this is ridiculous. It is unbelievable. Especially, and this is often found with backstories like this, the character shows no signs of trauma even though they had not mentioned a psychiatrist at all.
In all honesty, this can even delve into the story itself. In general, don't overdo the amount of bad things that happen to your character. This falls back to the first rule: Just do what is necessary. Don't get trigger happy. Usually only one of the things that I listed above is enough to count as tragic.
Make sure the Tragic Backstory actually makes sense. 5
I know what many of you may be thinking, and that is that I have already mentioned this, but I wish to mention a specific portion of it. I have already talked about a character having far too many bad things forced upon them, now I am saying to not force a character to go OOC for the pure sake of your OC having a tragic backstory. This is mostly for fandom roleplays, but it is not exclusive to them.
For example, lets say you wish for your character to be the child of Anna from Frozen. Bare with me here, it was the only thing that came to my head. But think about Anna. She would never abuse her child, quite frankly I don't believe she would even be the type to yell at her child. Yes, I could see her perhaps having too wild of adventures with her child, but she certainly would never purposely harm her child. And I highly doubt she would allow anyone else to do such a thing while she sits back passively. You cannot have your character be her child and have them have an abusive childhood at the same time.
I am not saying that if you choose for your character to be the child of an already pre-established character that they can have no tragedy in their backstory, I am just saying to keep the personality of the pre-established character in mind. This goes even further from a pre-established character being a parent to your OC. If your character is in any kind of relationship with a pre-established character, make sure you keep their personality and overall character in mind.
Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon is unlikely to be an abusive boyfriend. I highly doubt that Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist would be disloyal to her partner. Keep things like this in mind, please.
Make sure the Tragic Backstory actually affects the character.
I know I mentioned this before, but it is such an important part of the Tragic Backstory that I felt the need to stress it even further, because this is one of the things that I find many people fail to do, and it is a pet peeve of mine. Because once again, there is no point in a tragic backstory if it does not affect the plot or character, but here I am specifically talking about the character.
If you have a tragic backstory, likely your character should not be completely mentally, or emotionally sound 6. This is why your character cannot walk around acting completely fine as though it never happened most of the time, but all of a sudden it starts effecting them when it is... "Convenient". This is not only inconsistent, but once more it seems that the backstory is only for sympathy points rather than story telling purposes. While I am certainly not saying that your character should constantly be plagued by the event in their past, they should not only be triggered for the pure sake of bringing attention to themselves. Have some rhyme and reason to how it affects your character and, once again, actually have it affect your character in some way.
I believe that this is a wrap. I may add more later if I make new discoveries and such, but I believe this is all I have, and I would love to hear the voices of you all
Footnotes
--------------
1. The Constant Victim. I do not know if anyone else has a different name for this, but this is what I call this character. This is a character I loathe. The Constant Victim, as the name suggests, constantly is a victim of something, usually just so the spotlight will forever stay on them. I may talk about this in further detail in a later thread.
2. Clichés are good! I don't know if this is a popular opinion or not, but don't think that I am crazy if you would like to hear reasons why I think this, request for me to talk about it in a later thread, or PM me about it directly!
3.The Genius Asshole. This is the character that is smart and they know it. And often they enjoy letting others know how smart they are. They can be quite condescending when they speak and are overall assholes. I may do a separate thread one day about why we love assholes so much in our stories, since I know I am not the only person that enjoys Sherlock or House M.D.
4. The Edge Lord. I am afraid the only way I can describe this character is edgy... Shocker, I know. These are the characters that seem to be constantly fighting their inner darkness and hating themselves while acting like assholes... I don't like these characters either.
5. For this entire section, I kind of am concentrating on Fandom roleplays, but know that even in a completely original piece, a character should never act out of character just because you want them to be a dick to your character. Find someone else to be a dick to your character that is likely to do such a thing if you really feel like you need someone to be a dick.
6. I understand that not everyone is a psychologist, and I also understand that everyone reacts to trauma and such differently, I just ask you attempt to try and give them something that shows they were affected by this event, even if it is that they cannot step off a stair with their left foot.
I am SoundOfSilence, as many of you may know already. As some may not know, I am an aspiring novelist. I enjoy writing immensely. Writing and YouTube are possibly the only things that I do in my free time. I love it so much, that I would enjoy sharing my thoughts on it with you all! I plan on having multiple of these up, and I hope to start a discussion with you all. I plan on talking about things such as world-building, plot creation, character creation, rhetoric and general writing tools.
Today I plan on writing about character creation. Creating characters can prove to be quite difficult, because no one likes a dull character, and, at the same time, no one likes a Mary-Sue. I can give you an entire list of characters that I do not like, but that is not what this thread is supposed to be a bout. This plot is supposed to be about 'The Tragic Backstory' as the title suggests.
I believe that everyone enjoys a nice tragic backstory every once in awhile, yet, at the same time, that is likely something I find to be my biggest pet peeve when it is done in a way that is less than stellar. I have found that others agree with me, and after doing some research and asking around, I believe I have an idea as to what makes a tragic backstory good and what makes it worthy of an eye roll.
Please know that I am not claiming these words to be fact, only making a suggestion as to how to make a better tragic backstory for the characters that face us ahead. This is not meant to hate on anyone. If you find that you do something that I say I do not like, do not take it personally. I want a discussion, not a flame war.
Without further ado, here are my thoughts:
If the backstory is tragic, it should be necessary to the character and/or the plot for it to be tragic.
I believe that one thing that ruins the tragic backstory is that people tend to just shove one in to make their character more sympathetic/ edgy. Many times I find that people simply have a tragic backstory to have a tragic backstory. Their character would be no different with or without it. This, in itself, is a grievous fault in a backstory in general. The things that happen in our past shape who we are today, the same goes for our characters. If I don't see their backstory affect them in the present, then why have it included? Why have anything that does not affect your character now included in the backstory?
If you have a tragic backstory, it should be necessary for me to understand why the character are the way they are today. A tragic backstory could easily be what gives your character a crippling flaw or a great amount of strength. It could give your character the drive to go forward in the plot. It could justify why your character is in a certain place at a certain time.
If you choose to have a tragic backstory for only the reason to elicit sympathy, then I am afraid that it is doomed to fail. Same with you attempting to have your character hurt at any other time in the story. If it is just for sympathy, that moment is spurious at best, and detrimental to the story at worst. It makes your character seem weak and pulls away from the plot completely. Before you ever think about writing a scene or backstory where your character gets hurt, ask yourself why you want this to happen. Is it because you want the audience, and all the other characters to feel sorry for them? And really think about it, because usually if your first thought when beginning to think up the scene was about how much everyone else will feel sorry for your character, it may be best to cut that scene/ part of the backstory out. And for the love of God, don't make your character a Constant Victim1! But the Constant Victim is a tale for another thread. It does, however, tie in very well with the tragic backstory.
If it is necessary for the given plot and/or character, it should be well developed.
This is not the time to open the big book of clichés... I found that is the first thing many people will tell you. I, however, will tell you to go right ahead and do just that. Cliches are good2! I happen to love clichés and character tropes. My personal favorite is the Genius Asshole3, but I digress.
Starting with a cliché is fine, what is not fine is leaving it as a bare boned cliché. This rule, quite frankly, is good to keep in mind in terms of character creation in general. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it should be kept in mind for writing in general. But for the purposes of this thread, I will keep the topic upon the Tragic Backstory.
In the Tragic Backstory, a cliché that is often seen is the 'Sad Childhood' trope. While this can be a good set up for any character or plot, it is far from enough to simply put out there that they had a sad childhood. You have to make it your own in some way. Give your character their own specific experiences rather than just copying and pasting experiences unto them. Develop specifics about the circumstances that your character is in. Develop specifics about some of the big events that made them who they were today. Develop specifics about why they are in these circumstances if you can. Add and groom the cliché until it properly fits your character and the plot.
So you've developed it... Stop right there f***er. Don't overdo it!
This happens all too often when someone writes up a tragic backstory. They way overdo it. I am sure we have all seen a character like this. I am sure some of us have even created one with a backstory like this! No shame in it! But, I believe that it is best story wise to not overdo the creation of the tragic backstory. One of the reasons is because when you do such, you are often close to making a Constant Victim/ Mary-Sue type character. A plethora of others, actually, but I've found specifically those two, and possibly the Edge Lord4 come out of an overdone tragic backstory.
What is an overdone Tragic Backstory, SoundOfSilence? I hear the keyboards type and people say aloud to themselves. well, my lovelies, I shall gladly tell you exactly that.
This is when it seems that a character managed to have every bad thing that could possibly happen to a person happen to them. These are the characters who had abusive parents that they ended up killing themselves. Then they were bullied in school for something they could not help. Then they were with a foster parent that abused and raped and molested them. Then they watched someone they love die. They then became a child soldier, but was constantly abused by the people in the army. Did I mention they were starving and neglected throughout childhood? They also had bad luck with dating partners.
I know some people really have terrible things happen to them in their lives... But this is ridiculous. It is unbelievable. Especially, and this is often found with backstories like this, the character shows no signs of trauma even though they had not mentioned a psychiatrist at all.
In all honesty, this can even delve into the story itself. In general, don't overdo the amount of bad things that happen to your character. This falls back to the first rule: Just do what is necessary. Don't get trigger happy. Usually only one of the things that I listed above is enough to count as tragic.
Make sure the Tragic Backstory actually makes sense. 5
I know what many of you may be thinking, and that is that I have already mentioned this, but I wish to mention a specific portion of it. I have already talked about a character having far too many bad things forced upon them, now I am saying to not force a character to go OOC for the pure sake of your OC having a tragic backstory. This is mostly for fandom roleplays, but it is not exclusive to them.
For example, lets say you wish for your character to be the child of Anna from Frozen. Bare with me here, it was the only thing that came to my head. But think about Anna. She would never abuse her child, quite frankly I don't believe she would even be the type to yell at her child. Yes, I could see her perhaps having too wild of adventures with her child, but she certainly would never purposely harm her child. And I highly doubt she would allow anyone else to do such a thing while she sits back passively. You cannot have your character be her child and have them have an abusive childhood at the same time.
I am not saying that if you choose for your character to be the child of an already pre-established character that they can have no tragedy in their backstory, I am just saying to keep the personality of the pre-established character in mind. This goes even further from a pre-established character being a parent to your OC. If your character is in any kind of relationship with a pre-established character, make sure you keep their personality and overall character in mind.
Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon is unlikely to be an abusive boyfriend. I highly doubt that Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist would be disloyal to her partner. Keep things like this in mind, please.
Make sure the Tragic Backstory actually affects the character.
I know I mentioned this before, but it is such an important part of the Tragic Backstory that I felt the need to stress it even further, because this is one of the things that I find many people fail to do, and it is a pet peeve of mine. Because once again, there is no point in a tragic backstory if it does not affect the plot or character, but here I am specifically talking about the character.
If you have a tragic backstory, likely your character should not be completely mentally, or emotionally sound 6. This is why your character cannot walk around acting completely fine as though it never happened most of the time, but all of a sudden it starts effecting them when it is... "Convenient". This is not only inconsistent, but once more it seems that the backstory is only for sympathy points rather than story telling purposes. While I am certainly not saying that your character should constantly be plagued by the event in their past, they should not only be triggered for the pure sake of bringing attention to themselves. Have some rhyme and reason to how it affects your character and, once again, actually have it affect your character in some way.
I believe that this is a wrap. I may add more later if I make new discoveries and such, but I believe this is all I have, and I would love to hear the voices of you all
Footnotes
--------------
1. The Constant Victim. I do not know if anyone else has a different name for this, but this is what I call this character. This is a character I loathe. The Constant Victim, as the name suggests, constantly is a victim of something, usually just so the spotlight will forever stay on them. I may talk about this in further detail in a later thread.
2. Clichés are good! I don't know if this is a popular opinion or not, but don't think that I am crazy if you would like to hear reasons why I think this, request for me to talk about it in a later thread, or PM me about it directly!
3.The Genius Asshole. This is the character that is smart and they know it. And often they enjoy letting others know how smart they are. They can be quite condescending when they speak and are overall assholes. I may do a separate thread one day about why we love assholes so much in our stories, since I know I am not the only person that enjoys Sherlock or House M.D.
4. The Edge Lord. I am afraid the only way I can describe this character is edgy... Shocker, I know. These are the characters that seem to be constantly fighting their inner darkness and hating themselves while acting like assholes... I don't like these characters either.
5. For this entire section, I kind of am concentrating on Fandom roleplays, but know that even in a completely original piece, a character should never act out of character just because you want them to be a dick to your character. Find someone else to be a dick to your character that is likely to do such a thing if you really feel like you need someone to be a dick.
6. I understand that not everyone is a psychologist, and I also understand that everyone reacts to trauma and such differently, I just ask you attempt to try and give them something that shows they were affected by this event, even if it is that they cannot step off a stair with their left foot.
