Character Bios

Question

Anyone have an opinionfor or against character bios? I have heard people argue for and against them. I make notes about my characters, but I'm lukewarm regarding the effort it takes to create one. If you're for them, do you have a link to a good one?

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[nq:1]Anyone have an opinionfor or against character bios? I have heard people argue for and against them. I make notes ... the effort it takes to create one. If you're for them, do you have a link to a good one?[/nq]
Personally, I've never bothered with them. I know a great many other people use them, but, for me, they've never really added much. I don't necessarily know or care where my characters went to college, or whether they're the middle of three kids or the oldest or the youngest or their parents were divorced unless those things have something to do with the story I'm telling about them.
If particular things impinge upon the present-tense of the story, then I think about them and figure them out. But as for the rest of it, my feeling is that it all sort of adds up to a fundamentally false premise and that is that a person's character can somehow be derived from their resume.
That is, you read where somebody came from, who their parents were, where they went to school all the details that you might find in a bio and having done that, you now know what kind of character that person has as if Events A, B, C through Q = Character Type Z.

Certainly our experiences have a significant, even a defining effect upon our lives, but I simply think that, outside of very simplistic, and fundamental artificial constructions, it simply isn't valid to suggest that a person *is* a certain way, is, in effect, a certain person, because a given set of events have occurred in his life.

We are in a profound way, more than simply the experiences that we have had.So when you decide that you are going to create a character that serves a certain purpose it is that need your need as the writer to create that character to serve that story purpose that is the ultimate source of why that character is the way that he is. If the need that the story creates for the character requires some particular aspect of his past say some past shame or past crime or unfinished business that causes him to behave in a certain way in the present - then that's one thing.

But if there is no such requirement for a "past" to drive your character, then the extent to which he has a past is limited to the particular requirements of the story. How much of his past do we need to know? What he does? Who his parents are? What his educational and social background are?

Ultimately, what is needed for the purposes of the story is really all that is actually needed.
Now, if in order to get what you need for the story, you somehow have to construct the whole submerged iceberg in order to get the "story part" to rise up out of the water then go ahead. There's nothing wrong with doing that as part of the creative process.

But if you can simply make the stuff that appears above the water line and have nothing below water there really is no difference. We're not in the business of creating people. We're in the business of telling stories, in which characters are not simulacra of real people, but are symbolic constructs that serve particular story purposes.

NMS

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anyone have an opinionfor or against character bios? I have heard people argue for and against them. I make notes ... the effort it takes to create one. If you're for them, do you have a link to a good one?[/nq]
They're pretty much standard in TV a big part of the show bible. But in a spec, do whatever works for you.

If only those who dream about Hollywood knew how difficult it all is. Greta Garbo

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anyone have an opinionfor or against character bios? I have heard people argue for and against them. I make notes ... the effort it takes to create one. If you're for them, do you have a link to a good one?[/nq]
I agree with Neal in that the nitty-gritty details of a character's past don't often matter. If writing a bio helps you get you know your characters better, then by all means do it.
But it's a document for you, not for anybody else. The times when I have written them, they're not the sort of thing I'm likely to share. They might not even make sense to anyone else. For me (when I do it) it's part of the creative process, figuring out who this person is.

The key is, in essence, to figure out what somebody's problem is. Sometimes it's an obvious part of the original idea for the character - but sometimes it isn't. Figuring that out - "Rick refuses to take risks that might get him hurt again," or "Ripley's scarred by her helplessness in the face of the loss of her former crewmates and daughter" - and you've got a character you can write.
Doing a bio, for me, is a tool to help me get there. And sometimes it turns up interesting stuff. But sometimes I don't need it.

-Ron

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I agree with Neal in that the nitty-gritty details of a character's past don't often matter. If writing a bio helps you get you know your characters better, then by all means do it. But it's a document for you, not for anybody else.[/nq]
And I've read stories where the author makes it clear that they've gone through a lot of work writing character bios, because they include tons of minutia in their story. But that's not the fault of the "character bio," it's more the fact that they want to "show their work."

RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anyone have an opinionfor or against character bios? I have heard people argue for and against them. I make notes ... the effort it takes to create one. If you're for them, do you have a link to a good one?[/nq]
One really powerful exercise I have participated in: instead of a resume which can be very stultifying, you decide you are a reporter and interview your character, ask them difficult questions because (I think) of the play element involved, very creative things can happen. It's a way of by-passing the "will" which often keeps us at the predictable, cliche level. I had the sensation of tapping into deeper things during the exercise, and watched the instructor practically channel a serial killer. Crreeepy and powerful.

We did it in a class at Santa Fe conference, and it was ASTONISHING the rich vivd stuff that came out. I think this is most useful when you are at the early iterative stage, going back and for between plot and character (because, you know, they're really the same thing) when building the structure of your story.
JMO.
I used to do character bios but it slowed my writing down because I hated doing them so would put off the whole project. I DO have a list of 21 questions that I ask myself about the character, but they are all related to plot (or should be sometimes I have to change the story, sometimes revise the character depending on the answers to things like "greatest fear?" "strongest desire?", things that should be in the subtext of the story). I got the list from a UCLA professor who is THE BEST in the world, Neil Landau. Hal Ackerman is also superb, if you ever get the chance...
I can't find my list (I'm adapting a great book right now, so I don't need them, the author worked all that out for me!), but when I do, will post them. They save me time when creating story/character at the very beginning. You know, those false starts when you realize a girl who is afraid of the dark can't run through a cave in the first act, but probably should in the third act...
Mysti

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