Dear John: How do you write a role-playing character biography?

On the article “Creating Memorable Characters” Natausha wrote: I was wondering how to write out a biography. I’m making a character for a role play chat. She’s a sorceress. Please help.

Natausha,

As someone who has played a few role-playing games, I think I can help. The point of writing a back story for a role playing character is to enrich your experience in the game. The biography of the character helps define that character’s actions and attitude. When it comes to adversity, the character’s life doesn’t have to be miserable, but it should include some moments that give the character motivation.

Let’s say I decide to play a bard (I don’t want to taint your sorceress). I want my bard to have some fighting skill and some musical skill, but the character is still young and relatively unproven. In researching character skills I decide I want him to start off with skills in performing, scribing and basic weapons. I also intend for him to pick up forgery, diplomacy and information gathering as skills later on. Personality wise, I picture him as good natured but a bit of a con man and a blowhard. He doesn’t just want to kill enemies and make money; he wants to have a great story to tell. He’s also the type of adventurer who will do whatever it takes to survive.

Below are a few short questions and answers that I will use to flesh out his character. I include my thought process in parentheses.

What’s his/her Name?

Lute Barjoey (This name is musical and it ties into his heritage. Yes, that can be a little hokey but role-playing games are for fun, not literature.)

Where did he/she grow up?

Lute grew up in a minor town of about 800 people. He was the third of three children, all boys. His father and mother owned a small tavern where they and his eldest brother Edward worked. Lute grew up surrounded by laughter, liquor and music (Explaining his formative background in music and revelry).

Why did the character become a bard (Sorceress, warrior, etc.)?

Lute was an amazingly intelligent and beautiful child with an excellent aptitude for mimicry both in voice and instrument (Accounting for the high points I allot to charisma and intelligence). As the third child he stood little chance of inheriting the bar so his parents apprenticed him to a touring theater company where he received basic training (Enough to be a low level bard with some performing abilities). While touring, the theater company disbanded for a lack of funds, leaving the young man in a new city with almost no money (Adversity). He survived for a while by performing music and storytelling in the streets and by writing letters and documents (Scribing) for the illiterate townsfolk but spent more than one night hungry and huddled in the cold (More adversity!). While he believed himself to be a good person, he stole food on more than one occasion and conned his way into a few ladies beds by virtue of his looks (Food and shelter trump law and honor for him).

Tired of living hand-to-mouth he joined the military and was sent to a foreign war. He spent most of his time as a prison guard and saw very little action (Remember he is still young and untested), but he learned how to use basic military weapons such as swords and bows. Much of his time was actually spent playing music for his fellow soldiers and writing letters home for them (More performing and scribing).

How did the character come to seek adventure?

The roots of the bard’s wanderlust began when he toured with the theater company. The desire to travel grew while in the military. After his country was victorious in the war, they cut back on their military. Lute was given a small severance package and went home to live with his parents. He worked for a year scribing documents for the local government (The roots of both his emerging forgery and diplomacy skills) but still spent his nights playing flute in his parent’s tavern and entertaining the locals with his exaggerated tales of the war based on other soldier’s letters (The roots of his information gathering skill). His future seemed set, but the thought of spending the rest of his life writing down other people’s words depressed him (More adversity and desire for adventure). Also, he longed for the money to start a theater group of his own and he knew that his small salary would never be enough (A goal). Plus, he had told his exaggerated stories of adventure so many times that he had started to believe them himself.

How did the character arrive where he/she is?

One day Lute packed up his few belongings (Including paper, a pen and ink, a sword, a bow and a flute) and decided to head out in search of adventure. There were rumors of rebellion in the lands his country had conquered. Apparently martial law was failing. Lute smelled adventure . . . and money. (These circumstances may have to be molded to whatever adventure is being planned)

John Hewitt’s Writing Tips: Read it out loud

One of the most important steps you need to take when editing any document is to read it out loud. Staring at text on the screen or on paper and looking for errors is important, but there are some problems that can only be solved by reading the words out loud. This is especially true when editing creative work.

Story elements such as dialog and narration are meant to give someone a voice. If you have given someone a voice, the next logical step is to listen to that voice. Dialog, in particular, can look good on the page but fall flat when read out loud. That is because the pattern and rhythm of speech is different from that of writing. You need to make sure that whatever you write passes both visual and verbal scrutiny.

The obvious way to read a story out loud is to start at the beginning and work your way to the end. Dialog, however, should also be read in groups. Make sure that the way a character speaks is consistent across the story. Ask yourself if the speech sounds real, and if the speech sounds as if it all comes from the same character. Beyond that, you should also look for differences between characters. Are the characters’ vocal styles distinct? Not everyone speaks in the same way, and these differences should be manipulated (subtly) in your writing so that characters can stand out from one another.

Don’t limit reading out loud to just creative work though. You may be surprised at how often your tongue trips over sentences that look grammatically correct. When you can smoothly read your entire article out loud, you can begin to feel good about what you have written. You can be satisfied that it at least sounds good.

John Hewitt’s Writing Tips: Track your submissions

Keep a tracking log for your story submissions so that you can know at a glance where you have submitted and what the status of each story is. This will help keep the process organized, and will be especially useful if you make simultaneous submissions and need to alert other publishers that a story is off the market.

There are fancy programs that do this, and you can design your own database, but a simple sheet of paper will do. There are many variables you can track, but here are the key categories:

• The title of the article you submitted
• The title of the publication you submitted to
• The name of the editor you addressed the submission to
• The date you submitted your story
• The status (No Reply Yet, Accepted, Rejected)
• A summary of any feedback you receive

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To help people out I have created a simple submission tracking form in RTF (word and open office compatible). Download it here.

John Hewitt’s Writing Tips: Lean stories get published

Remember that space and story length are key issues when submitting work for publication — both in print and online. For print publications the issue is simple. The longer one story is, the less space they will have for other stories. While you might think that length is less of an issue for online publications because they don’t have to pay for paper and ink, the problem is that people don’t like to read long stories on their computer. Reading for long periods of time on a computer is inconvenient and it makes the eyes hurt.

This is not meant to discourage you from writing longer stories. A story should be as long as it needs to be. What you should keep in mind, however, is that a story should not be one word longer than it needs to be — especially if you want to get published. Be brutal when you edit your work. Ask yourself what can be cut and what absolutely needs to stay. A lean, tightly-edited story has an advantage over a longer, more rambling story.

While you never want to cut so much from your story that it no longer makes sense or says what you want to say, you need to look carefully for padding and unnecessary exposition. Most inexperienced writers don’t fail with their initial stories; they fail when editing and rewriting.