(no subject)

These posts by kaigou, who I don't know, are riveting. If you write, read, or just wish to understand.

Part One.

Part Two.
By way of matociquala and difrancis.

The overarching point, of providing your characters with realistic backgrounds, of making the effort to flesh them out with the right details, is something I've seen discussed since I started writing. I remember an article in which Samuel R. Delany asked his students to think about what their protag did for a living. The "phantom income", the gang of underemployed 20-somethings living in the Manhattan apartment that anyone with some knowledge of the area knows would cost thousands a month. How do they pay the rent? Where do the clothes come from? How do they get around? Do they have friends? Can they keep them, or do they lose them, and why?

Those aren't details that get in the way of the story--they *are* the story, because they shape who your characters are and how they react and how others react to them.

The set-up of Incident on a Small Colony involved Jani-as-fugitive trying to earn enough money to get to the next hiding place. Yes, as I read kaigou's posts, I compared points made to my mental checklist. I did better than I thought. I see a couple of places where I missed the boat. Jani came from a different place, but the similarities I saw between what I've read of intelligence agents and what I read in kaigou's posts...well, it strikes me that there's a lot of overlap. A lot.

The conclusion is that background shapes character. It doesn't have to be a street background, which seems to strike some folks as romantic in a Paris urchin kind of way and isn't if you take the time to draw back the curtain and look at what's there. If you take the time to learn, you may not wind up with the story you originally intended. And the story will likely be better for it.

(no subject)

These posts by kaigou, who I don't know, are riveting. If you write, read, or just wish to understand.

Part One.

Part Two.
By way of matociquala and difrancis.

The overarching point, of providing your characters with realistic backgrounds, of making the effort to flesh them out with the right details, is something I've seen discussed since I started writing. I remember an article in which Samuel R. Delany asked his students to think about what their protag did for a living. The "phantom income", the gang of underemployed 20-somethings living in the Manhattan apartment that anyone with some knowledge of the area knows would cost thousands a month. How do they pay the rent? Where do the clothes come from? How do they get around? Do they have friends? Can they keep them, or do they lose them, and why?

Those aren't details that get in the way of the story--they *are* the story, because they shape who your characters are and how they react and how others react to them.

The set-up of Incident on a Small Colony involved Jani-as-fugitive trying to earn enough money to get to the next hiding place. Yes, as I read kaigou's posts, I compared points made to my mental checklist. I did better than I thought. I see a couple of places where I missed the boat. Jani came from a different place, but the similarities I saw between what I've read of intelligence agents and what I read in kaigou's posts...well, it strikes me that there's a lot of overlap. A lot.

The conclusion is that background shapes character. It doesn't have to be a street background, which seems to strike some folks as romantic in a Paris urchin kind of way and isn't if you take the time to draw back the curtain and look at what's there. If you take the time to learn, you may not wind up with the story you originally intended. And the story will likely be better for it.