Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Greetings Storytellers! We’re off to Part 3 of Crafting Rich Characters. In Part 1, we explored a character’s physical appearance, mannerisms, and quirks. In Part 2, we covered Attributes and Traits, Skills and Abilities, and Occupations and Interests.

In this post, we’re going to look at Formative Backstories, Core Values, and The Lie. These are parts of the character that we can’t see, but they’ll impact your character’s thoughts, choices, and behavior.

Formative Backstory

All characters (unless they’re robots) have a formative life that shaped them and established their worldviews. In previous posts, I talked a little about the person as an individual, but a character is, or was, also part of a family or group. A child’s or young person’s experiences stay with them, and most people carry around some baggage from their formative years, both positive and negative.

This doesn’t mean you…