Why is a character’s history so important? What does it really do to improve your performance or feel for the persona you create?
These are excellent questions and the answer is everything. History has everything to do with a successful persona.
Think about it this way; look at how you are today. Think about how you act, how you talk, what you consider your favorite, and what you fear. Your experiences growing up shape these behaviors. A lot of times, the events that happen between the ages of 8-11 and 15-18 will build the foundation for every action or decision you make for the rest of your life.
Here is an example. Let us take a character that I created for an upcoming story named Arrow. She is 25, an artist, and exemplifies proper conduct in her culture. She is poised and elegant, yet emotionally closed off from the world. In fact, she avoids getting involved beyond a superficial interest in anything. She is sociable but never deeper than casual conversation save for two people, her best friend and her former lover. We have to ask, why is she like this?
As we discussed earlier, past experiences shape our behaviors. Arrow for example experienced tragedy at a very young age. When she was 10, she and her baby sister were playing hide and seek in their family’s barn. Her sister followed her up into the loft and accidentally fell and died. Arrow, who was once adventurous and outspoken, now felt responsible for the loss of her sister. This guilt led her to push herself to be the perfect daughter to make up for the one her parents lost.
Arrow also hides an alternative lifestyle in terms of sexual preference and has ever since she was a teenager. In high school, she had a friend named Caroline who was also alternative, but was not as regimented in her façade as Arrow. Caroline faced ridicule and harassment from the other students. It came to a head when Arrow’s sexuality also came under suspicion. Instead of standing with her friend, she chose to deny it and retreat from her friend. Again, she feels that she needs to be the perfect daughter, the perfect woman. So, she started dating appropriately to further the façade. Through this relationship, she found art that she would now channel her emotions into. This release came in handy when Caroline committed suicide.
The news hit Arrow like a ton of bricks. Now two people were dead because of her, she swallowed the guilt and became more and more detached, sinking into her façade to where she almost believed it herself. Until her former lover proposed. Arrow realized that this was going far beyond a simple façade; she couldn’t get any closer because she was afraid of hurting them. So Arrow broke off the relationship, because she couldn’t bring herself to live that lie with someone else.
Now Arrow lives purely in the now, barely going beyond superficial casual interactions to keep up appearances or else she face the harassment, and prejudice against her alternative lifestyle.
So what does all this mean for your goals and your persona? Well for one, developing a rich back-story like this you can very easily step into the frame of mind of your character. These decisions can help you decide how your character dresses, speaks, what movies that would like, if they like sports, what their emotional response would be to any particular situation.
You can test this by placing your character into a real world setting or scenario, you will find that this level of research will help you to quickly determine exactly how they would react and speak in that scenario.
Coming back to Arrow as another example. Let’s say that she is going to speak at a school, any high school. How do you think she would be? What would her mood be like? Would she immediately greet others excitedly? How would she dress? Would she speak softly or strongly? What would her reaction be if she saw another girl being teased by other students?
Did you notice how easily the answers came to you? Some of you may have even started seeing those scenes unfold in your head. This is the value of a detailed background and history. So now it is your turn.
I want you to take some time to sit and think about your persona. Where did they grow up? What was their family like? How were their relationships with their parent(s), siblings, childhood friends, and others? Did they experience tragedy? What do they regret? What were they most proud of? What are the most important moments in their life?
Ask yourself these questions and feel free to share your ideas here. If you want to you can email them to us at sanvaonline@gmail.com and we would be happy to offer feedback or help you if you’re stuck.
Next week we are going to talk about details and how even the smallest detail can create a memorable character.
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