Every character in your story has a past. The events that occurred in a character’s life before they ever appear in your story determine their personality, life goals, the way they react to situations, even the way they speak. Your ability to understand your characters’ history, and share glimpses of it with readers, will determine how realistic your paper people will seem. Savvy writers use backstory and flashbacks, special tools to show their audience a character’s motivation, thus bringing them to life on the page. These are powerful, advanced techniques, and yet they are easy to master once you know how.
About Kathryn Johnson
Kathryn Johnson’s 40+ popular novels (nominated for the Agatha Award, winner of the Heart of Excellence and Bookseller’s Best Awards), include historical fiction (e.g., The Gentleman Poet, wherein Shakespeare escapes to the New World aboard a ship bound for disaster) and contemporary suspense. The Extreme Novelist (nonfiction) is the text based on her courses at The Smithsonian Associates and The Writer’s Center. More about her at KathrynJohnsonLLC.com.
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