Believable Romance Characters: Begin with the Back Story

Perhaps it's because the romance genre remains the highest selling, meaning that there are a lot of avid readers who know what they can expect from a romance book, or perhaps it's because the people who read romance come from such varied walks of life ... either way, the fact remains that romance characters are put under a microscope and scrutinized carefully by every single person who ever picks up your story.

Within a romance novel, there is usually a pretty small cast of characters. We don't want to have to learn the names and occupations of fifty odd people who don't have a thing to do with the love story taking place. Instead, we want to learn everything there is to know about the heroine, the hero, and enough about a couple of other characters to just keep the story moving along. Make no mistake about it, though, nearly every single romance book you will ever read or write is character driven. It has to have a great plot, and it has some really neat things going on, but it's the characters who fall in love and we want to know why it's special.

If we can't believe in the heroine, the fact that she's falling in love with someone will mean nothing to us. So make us believe. Make us root for her every step of the way, help us see where her hang-ups are and then we can struggle with her. How can you do all this? With the back story.

What is a Back Story?

Definition-wise, the back story is the experiences of a main character that took place prior to the story in action; it is these experiences that contribute to character motivations and reactions.

Without trying to think like a dictionary, the back story can be described as what makes a character tick. It is the reason that the heroine who lived seven years in a physically abusive relationship has a hard time looking the hero in the eye, and why she panics every time he gets too close. Back story is the reason that the little girl who grew up overweight and finally shed the baby fat in her twenties can't see herself as beautiful, still hearing the taunts that school kids gave her, and why she has such a hard time believing that Mr. Hunk would be attracted to her.

The back story, when defined right, will play into every single action that your character makes. It will color every word they speak, and it shapes the way that they view the world around them. From a writer's stand point, it also makes understanding your character's motivations much easier - and writing about them becomes much more believable.

Writing the Back Story

Some writers will never have the patience to write out a back story; how their characters ever become fully developed without a million and one rewrites, though, I'll never know. What I do know is that, from my experience, taking the time to write out the back story for your heroine will help you avoid tons of rewrites and make you much happier with the story progressing.

Writing the back story is a strange thing. It's not something that will ever appear in your novel word-for-word. You don't want to bog your reader down in the details of "she was born, she was loved, she went to school". Instead, this is like a short story that you will be able to reference over and over as you write. It's just for you - which should make it a bit easier to do. You don't need to worry about making it perfect, because as long as you're getting the idea across clearly and completely to yourself, nothing else matters.

If you've created a character sketch, this will help you even further. A character sketch is simply a question-and-answer format that shows what your character looks like, how old they are, who their parents are/were, etc. The Scriptorium has a great Character Sketch Worksheet http://www.thescriptorium.net/sketch.html that you can use if you want to get your creative juices flowing.

With your character sketch in-hand (or nothing but a few ideas in mind), it's time to write the back story.

Right. So. There's a blank piece of paper there ... what do you put on it?

Start the back story with the tiny details. When was your heroine born? How old is she when the story starts? Does she look her age, or does she seem older/younger than her years? This is where you get to bog yourself down with the minutiae. No one else loves your characters quite the same way you do, so you don't mind detailing every single hair on their head, or the crazy way that your heroine was born with green eyes (not the standard baby blue) that turned into the standard baby blue on the day of her fifth birthday. And why did this happen? What does it foreshadow in your story? Only you can say.

The back story should be at least 2 typed pages, but no more than 6. Limits are important here - if you don't do enough, you're not going to know your character inside and out. You should know every major thing that has shaped who she's become from the time she was a baby - or a child, at least. If you go too far, though, you'll end up with a novel that isn't what you set out to write in the first place. And believe me, it won't be a good one - it's your inner editor telling you that your story idea isn't good enough, and using delaying tactics on you to keep you from writing it. So stick with the limits.

An Example Back Story

I don't know about you, but I always find it easier to understand something when I've got all the information and then can view an example so that I can really get my own ideas started. So, that's how I'll close this little article - with an example back story. You'll see that I always start with a quote. Using a quote helps remind me of the theme or overall feeling I want my story to play out with, and it helps me start defining my character.

Please also note that this is not a complete back story. To do the whole thing would make this article ridiculously long. Instead, it's the highlights to give you an idea of where the back story should take you. A full back story would include more plot elements, and it would give clues as to what is going to happen in the story you're about to write. Samara, for instance, in the example below doesn't show how she's always thought of magic as being perfectly natural. She hasn't ever thought of herself as having the talents her mother displayed, but she does believe in magic and isn't frightened by it. This foreshadows the appearance of the Love Talker, a faery spirit who will shape the rest of her life.

Running ever through my head, is an old-time rune -
"Who meets the Love Talker must weave her shroud soon."
-Ethna Carberry, "The Love Talker"

Samara was a late child, born to her parents when they were in their mid-fourties. Her two older brothers were quite a few years older than her, and both were involved in the IRA. When she was 8, her parents were caught in a cross-fire that killed them both; her brothers, involved in the action, were unable to save them ... and they snapped. In the moments that followed, one was killed and the other taken into custody, effectively leaving Samara an orphan.

Through the years, Samara kept in contact with her remaining brother through letters to a flat he shared with several others in London, where he'd been exiled to and worked as a literary professor. Around Samara's 17th birthday, the letters stopped coming. By her 18th, when she was released from the convent she'd been raised as an orphan in, Samara was convinced something had happened to her brother and was determined to find out what.

Samara used her small savings to move into a room near the flat her brother rented and earned a fair income as a violinist - working with small bands at the bars or on street corners. These places also allowed her to investigate her brother's disappearance.

Now 23, Samara has gained local fame for her skill with the violin - a fame she has carefully cultivated. At this point, she is still certain her brother lives - and if she can't find him, her plan is to let her fame find him ... and him find her.