It's a hot seat. See what I did there? Courtesy of Dav

Why do I need a character backstory?

Let’s just go over, briefly, why that is so. Now it used to be that an author could spend pages describing a character and their history (or anything else for that matter. I remember reading a paragraph that lasted one whole page and was packed with dense description of a kitchen, or something. Not sure of the novel. Might have been Tess of the D’Urbervilles).

Not so these days. It’s the whole, “show, don’t tell” thing again. It’s considered much more effective to give an impression of the character through their actions and the way they perform them. Hints and clues. Less is more. This is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Feel free to disagree of course, many do.

So it might be that a lot of the backstory of your character does not get put into words in your finished novel. Why should you bother developing one, then? I refer you to paragraph one. Writers often need something solid in their heads, or preferably written down, to get a real sense of the character’s motivations, and to know what they will do next. Armed with such priveledged knowledge, characters begin that process of “writing themselves” that we’ve all heard so much about.

So what’s this hotseat thing, then?

A few weeks back, I read a blog post that dealt with this issue. The author recommended a method I had used before, but not applied to writing.

As I commented at the time, this reminded me of drama lessons. The idea is based around interviewing a character. In the drama excercise, the actor sits in a chair in front of his or her peers. The actor is in character, having read the script and so armed with that knowledge.

They are then asked questions by the other people in the class and must improvise their character’s response. The idea is to fill in the gaps left by the script and gain greater insight into the character’s past and motivations, all of which can be brought to bear in performance.

In the writing exercise of course, you are both actor and questioner. It is your job to ask questions of your character, and also your job to respond as your character, by putting pen to paper. Again, you are improvising, or freewriting, and again, such freedom will give rise to unexpected events and reactions from your character. They will help make your character whole, and may even provide some future plot points for your story proper.

Some tips

Don’t be coy when asking questions. You want to ask those questions to which you don’t yet know the answer, otherwise, what’s the point? And to help keep the flow, why not write out the questions beforehand, so you don’t keep having to pause to think of a new one halfway through the process. If you think of new questions during the improvisation, well just ask them then and there, and answer them then and there. Just as long as you’re not interrupting yourself.

When the time comes to do the answering, take a moment to get yourself into character. Imagine a scene with them in it, and imagine how they behave from what you know of them so far. Then go for it! Make your character honest for this round of questions, even if they are not normally. You’ll get more out of it I’m sure.

Anyway, that gives you an idea of how it worked for me during drama classes, and what helped then. At the moment I’m concentrating on a short story, but I’ll run through this exercise myself as soon as I’m done. I’ll let you know how I got on, and I’d like you to do the same!

It also has to do with research. A lot of my fiction usually involves lots of technical “stuff”. Lots of guns, lots of cars, lots of computer jargon, most of which I don’t have the first clue about. Guns, well they shoot bullets don’t they? But personally, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Glock and a Walther PPK. Cars? They get you from one place to another. But make and type, well, that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

I was reading William Gibson’s All Tomorrows Parties recently, and my attention was drawn to the fact that he does this. For instance, he’ll say that a car is a black Subaru SUV. And I find that’s all the description that’s needed. Hell if I know what a black Subaru SUV looks like specifically, but it gives a general idea of what the car is about, and that’s to the wonderful world of stereotyping, we all know what kind of people drive large black SUVs. This is something I’ve introduced in my own work. Its fine saying “get the car”, most people will fill in the blank anyway. But throw in make and type and, those in the know will be able to picture it, and if you don’t, then hell, it’s a car; it gets you from one place to the other.

It all comes down to that first, and perhaps most sacred writing rule. SHOW DON’T TELL. You can spend paragraphs telling the reader exactly what a character looks like, but to someone like me who has never been particularly good at picturing what I’m reading (I can see the words and the story, but as for setting and place, I’ve never been able to put myself into the world of a book.) its not going to do much good. I guess that’s why most writers don’t really describe their characters in great detail. It has always stuck with me from a number of Robert Rankin’s books; about his character Lazlo Woodbine (some call him Laz). He’s a spoof of those hard boiled private Investigators like Philip Marlowe, who only operates in the first person. He operates this way and is never described so that the reader can picture themselves in the role. And I guess this may be true in a certain sense.

I’ve worried about this greatly. About how much detail to put into describing characters. But if you do your job right, then you get a good sense of the character from their actions, the way they talk, the way they move, the way they live. Get all of that down, and you only need the minimal amount of physical description. This is also true of script writing. Perhaps even more so. Because let’s face it, it’s pointless describing what a character looks like in a script, because it narrows your casting choices. But here’s an exercise for you to try, should you feel the need. If you’re writing a script, or a book, or whatever, try describing all of your main characters in a single sentence each. I think the best description I even came up with for a character was-

Raymond – A young man weighted down by the burden of ordinariness.

So there you are. Have a go, and see how creative you can get.

The most famous example of a 6 word story comes from Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s. He made a bet that he could write a story in only 6 words. He won that bet, and the result is quite brilliant considering this limit. The story is simply:

For sale. Babies shoes. Never worn

I have always loved this story. It gets around the whole 6 words problem by making what is not said the most important thing. There are a few possible reasons why these shoes are for sale, sure, but we will automatically choose one that is story worthy. There is a wealth of pain and sadness behind those six words that goes far beyond what could be communicated with “sadly, her baby died. The end”. Six words, no impact. A deliberately obtuse alternative, admittedly, but nevertheless, this example goes to the heart of the “show. Don’t tell” ethos. Show the reader what’s there, and let them fill in the gaps. They will feel it more.

Here’s one I knocked together based on my mini-saga example:

He positive. She negative. Divorce inevitable.

or an alternative:

He positive. She negative. Poles attract.

I also found a rather charming collection from sci-fi and horror writers for Wired. Most are funny, and a few are similar to each other, but in my opinion none come close to Hemingway’s.

So there ends our trilogy of really short story types. I hope that’s given you a bit of inspiration. One exercise might be to take one story (or at least one inspiration), and do all three types of story around that one idea, gradually condensing it until you get to six words only.

I’d love to see any attempts at any of these really short stories, so pop them in the comments for us to have a look at!

Although a few Twitter story tellers have come and gone there are still some around. @arjunbasu is one such tweep and one all should follow.

If ever there were proof that a very small story can be a successful one then he is it.  He will often twitter more than one story in a day.

Despite the limit each one feels complete. Often, they describe a domestic situation unfolding, and the conclusion forms a witty punch line.

It’s an excellent demonstration of clarity through precision. 140 characters forces merciless cutting. Only the kernel of the story remains.

And that’s all the tips I can give (being inexperienced myself) – pick a situation, then cut cut cut. Finally, juggle words and punctuation.

I think the beginning middle and end bits take care of themselves – they naturally appear from the way we build sentences. Here’s an example

This was what he’d been waiting for, a chance to be heard! He opened his mouth to speak, but practice had rendered him completely voiceless.

And this isn’t the only creative writing going on on Twitter (it could be argued that all Tweets fall into that category, but I won’t here).

Some impersonate dead celebrities like @cdarwin who uses the writing of Charles Darwin to Tweet his Beagle trip as if it were happening now.

Poems are a favourite too. @thebookwright announced on @thecreativepenn’s podcast that he will be tweeting his poem 100 Years Of Ermintrude.

Haikus are a great medium if you LOVE strict rules. The combination of 140 characters plus the required syllable count are a real challenge.

I’m sure my readers and followers have come across some excellent writing on Twitter, so please share Tweeps you follow in the comments bit.

Leave your comments, stories or other Twitter writing, plus your Twitter handle at http://www.getmewriting.com/short-stories/twitter-stories

This is the biggest of our tiny stories – it’s all downhill with the word count from here on in. A mini saga is essentially a story in 50 words. Exactly 50.

Personally, I first heard about them in high school, and have always thought them an amusing idea, but I haven’t revisited them since. I found a couple of websites citing Brian Aldiss as the inventor of the mini-saga. I’m not sure on the validity of this, as like I said, it was only a couple of references. There was actually a competition involving Brian Aldiss and the Daily Telegraph, the result of which is this book. I haven’t read it myself, but if you’re interested in mini sagas, it will likely be a good collection (if anyone has read it, please let us know what you think in the comments). I also tried a search on Google for any famous examples, but didn’t get anywhere. Anyone know one?

Obviously the aim is to be as concise as possible. Keep your ideas simple. And be prepared to be a little mysterious – if the reader has to work to fill in the gaps, that’s no bad thing, and it will cost you fewer words.

I had to give this a go of course. I wrote what I thought was a very brief story, but it turned out to be over double the required wordcount! Here is the first draft.

They were crossing the road just as the driver turned the corner. He glared and shook his head, but John simply waved back and smiled.
“Don’t smile at him – he wasn’t indicating,” Said Jane.
“Ah, well ,” John replied, “we all make mistakes.”
They were never quite the same after that. It took a while but eventually Jane was broken by John’s overwhelming positivity.
“I’m leaving you.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be with me it will only make us both unhappy. It’s better this way.”
She left him and took to drink. He found someone else.

This was hard, but a lot of fun. It took about twenty minutes and about five drafts. I was reminded of reducing wordsto fit them into a text (because I’m tight like that). Here is the end result. I actually think it’s pretty good, and I’m surprised that there are two sentences that did not change from the original.

They crossed as the driver turned the corner. He glared. John waved.
“Don’t smile – he wasn’t indicating,” Said Jane.
They were never the same. His positivity broke her.
“I’m leaving.”
“It’s better than us both being unhappy.”
She left. Took to drink. He found someone else.

And I’d love to see yours, so please post them in the comments! For an extra challenge, it might be fun to try one made entirely of dialogue.