This week’s video talks about
how giving your character a haunting backstory can instantly up the stakes and
make him a more interesting personality.
Video Transcript:
When we’re exploring our characters and digging up ways to get readers to
invest themselves in them, we come up the usual list, which includes important
things, such as a relatable motive, a winning personality, and an engaging
narrative voice. But one other thing we can add to any character to instantly
make him more interesting and compelling is a ghost. This is a term used by
screenwriters to describe something in the character’s past that is still
haunting him.
For example, the hero of Inception
is haunted by his wife’s suicide, Mistborn’s
Kelsior is haunted by his wife’s death as a slave in the mining pits, Peter Parker is haunted by the murder
of his Uncle Ben, and Bleak House’s
Esther Summerson is haunted by her illegitimate birth. And the list goes on and
on. What all of these characters have in common is the depth of their
backstories. They arrive at the beginning of their stories with baggage already
in tow. Not only does this give you the opportunity to tantalize readers with
your characters’ mysterious pasts, it also gives the characters themselves more
to overcome and more to be motivated by. Their ghosts are often at the core of
their internal conflict.
In contrast to all these successful ghosts, consider the
book that got me thinking about all this recently. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s
beloved A Princess of Mars presents a
main character who has no ghost. Even though his past as a Confederate soldier
and general adventurer offers all kinds of opportunities for a ghost—as,
indeed, we find manifested in the death of a wife and child in the recent
adaptation—the author never took advantage of the opportunities. Those who
already love the book aren’t likely to complain, but just the inkling of a
ghost would have gotten even more interesting mileage out of this character.
Tell me your opinion: Does your protagonist have a ghost in his past?
Related Posts: Discover the Perfect Place to Insert Backstory
Story by K.M. Weiland
Tags: backstory , Characters , Feature , ghost
Thinking back on the last few books I've completed the answer is a resounding yes. All my characters had ghosts, one literally :)
I definitely think ghosts make for more interesting characters. People with pasts seem more real, imo.
I know it's at the end of the film, but the greatest and most spine-tingling 'ghost' scene in a film has to be Michael Corleone looking back on his past in The Godfather Part II - his happy past haunting his current coldness.
In my own Over the Shoulder, Tony's father left the family when he was eight, a trauma later urging him to bring together his many half-siblings once he finds out about them.
totally!! My character's ghost is her older sister's life and death. Both haunt her as she strives to win the affection of her family but is generally overshadowed by the memories of her sister. Its just a work in progress so I need to still work on this backstory.
@mshatch: I adore ghosts - as both a reader and a writer. Nothing keeps me turning pages faster than the inkling of something mysterious in a character's past. And my own backstories are always mammoth haunted houses.
@jd: Sequels get to benefit from even deeper ghosts, since they get to build on the previous books, as well as the unseen backstory from the first one.
@Candace: Sounds great! That's exactly the sort of thing that brings increased depth and contrast to a character.
Wonderful tip! In my w.i.p. I was subconsciously doing this already...to a degree. My character definitely has baggage, but I don't think I had been using that to it's full potential. Now I'm definitely going to work on her ghost.
thanks for the inspiration :)
~Maree
The deeper the ghost, the deeper the character in my experience. So load 'em down with that baggage!
Yes, so far all of my characters have had ghosts. Amanda has been haunted by the death of her fiancé, Tamryn is haunted by her horrible taste in men, and Darby is haunted by the fact she doesn't understand her super powers and why she of all people should have them (plus there's a bit of a ghost with the fact her dad murdered her mom, and her brother walked away shortly thereafter.)
It's actually fun to come up with characters with troubled pasts since it always manages to impact their present and futures. :)
I'd say a character's father murdering her mother is more than a bit of a ghost. Sounds intriguing! Love Tamryn's. ;)
I think -- and have recently made use of – inherited psychological ghosts to compensate for the fact that my protagonist is eleven years old. She is haunted by the fear that the madness that plagues her ancestral line will one day find her.
Fear of going bonkers - always a good ghost! Often, fear is at the root of a character's ghost, one way or another. Otherwise, he would have put it to rest long ago.
Oh yes. I love baggage in characters. What depth is there to someone who's slipped through unscathed?
In my WIP, the story is told from 2 complementary POV. I focused on the characters' relationship and alternated whose side I tell. The story starts before MC1's ghost is born, but I don't reveal it as I'm showing the repercussion through MC2's eyes, not the event itself.
@Debra: Perfectly perfect and happily happy people may be wonderful to *be*, but they're absotively boring to read about.
@Patchi: I like that. I've always found unseen ghosts to be the most powerful. When we only catch a glimpse of the depth of the character's pain, it's all the more powerful for its unknown quality.
I think I need to create a ghost for my main character. So far I only have her nemesis and all kinds of bad things(people getting killed, etc.) happening in her life. I see what you mean, a ghost would give a glimpse of the character's pain and reveals more of who they are. So I'll dig deeper... :-) Very helpful post...thanks!
As if we weren't already doing enough mean stuff to our characters, right? :p
This is exactly what I needed to hear! And you know what? I came up with a great ghost in minutes. It better explains the motives of both my protagonist and some supporting characters and should make them all more sympathetic. Thanks!
I love ghosts and ghost stories and finally managed to find a place for a ghost story in my second MG novel. The ghost is a person from the past, around the 1740s, who was beheaded by Cromwell's men for supporting Bonny Prince Charlie. I turned him into a Headless Horseman character and he has a page of bloodcurdling activity as the story is recounted by the butler in an old castle. Lots of fun and mayhem
When I read this, I thought you were talking about an actual ghost and since I write horror stories, a story popped up in my mind. Thanks!!
I think this just became the deciding factor as to whether I keep the beginning or tuck it away as backstory. The pure drama of having mysterious baggage no one wants to confront escalates an ordinary life experience. Brilliant post.
@Connie: Ghost hunting is always one of my favorite parts of the character development process. Never know what kind of juicy tidbit you're going to discover!
@Fiona: A literal ghost! Sounds like fun. I've always like that historical period.
@Traci: Well, like I always say, inspiration is everywhere. ;)
@sjp: Actually, the power of the ghost is yet another reason I'm not fond of prologues. Sometimes the unstated can be so much more interesting than spelling everything out.
Rather than a "ghost," I think of it as a secret, and, yes, every major character should have one. Like a magma chamber in their psyche, it should bubble and fume and occasionally erupt in ashen despair or fiery wrath.
The screenwriting term "ghost" can be a little misleading. I like secret better as well. And the volcano metaphor hits the nail on the head.
Thanks for the post! I just found out that in the main couple of my WIP they both have ghosts and I was unaware of it :O
*hug*
M.
Heavy backstories almost always bring ready-made ghosts. Makes it all so much more interesting!
I admit I was not sure what you meant by ghost. I had a literal ghost previously, but I cut it out as padding. However oh yes, my sailor girl and thief girl have baggage alright. And I wont reveal all the details by slowly stringing it along.:3
A ghost is a screenwriting term for something in the character's past that's haunting him. Your characters' baggage is likely exactly that.
As an aspiring novelist, I so very, very much appreciate you! I read books on writing, character writing, grammar and I find the ever-learning process both thrilling and challenging.
I have written an inspirational book that has 23,000 words. Is that enough words to be considered for publication?
Word count requirements vary from genre to genre (and, to a lesser extent, from publishing house to publishing house). I don't know if you're talking fiction or non-fiction, but 23k is pretty low to be considered a complete book in either. 70k is the average low end for most genres.