Backstory: Avoid Info Dumping by Making It Essential: Part 4 — Guest: Kris Kennedy
A character’s backstory reveals what they thought they could never do, which gives us ideas for our plot and making them face their fears.
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A character’s backstory reveals what they thought they could never do, which gives us ideas for our plot and making them face their fears.
Pin ItA character’s backstory can be mined to add more emotion to our stories, such as by layering how their backstory’s defining moment affected them.
Pin ItA character’s false belief is central to a story’s internal arc, and the defining moment in a character’s backstory is key to creating that false belief.
Pin ItBackstory helps readers connect to our characters and provides context for their actions, but how can we make it compelling and avoid boring information dumps?
Pin ItThere’s no “one right way” in writing, so how should we approach writing advice if even the most frequently shared advice is often wrong?
Pin ItCharacter descriptions are often necessary in a story, but can be boring. Here’s Angela Ackerman’s 7 tips for how we can keep our character descriptions from slowing our story.
Pin ItEveryone understands what worldbuilding is for fantasy, science fiction, historical, etc., but what does worldbuilding mean for contemporary stories?
Pin ItWorldbuilding means we have to create the “rules” for our characters and their story world. How can we can develop our story’s world to make it feel real?
Pin ItSometimes we’ll hear writing advice like “avoid clichés,” but what does that mean when it comes to story tropes? After all, can’t tropes be helpful? And if so, how do we make them less cliché?
Pin ItWriters need readers to grasp emotional information from non-POV characters, which can be a struggle. Becca Puglisi, co-author of the Emotion Thesaurus shares 6 techniques to avoid the problem.
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