For this step I'm going to share parts of an article I wrote several years ago for the Outreacher, a newsletter once published by the Outreach Chapter of Romance Writers of America.
What My Dogs Taught Me
About Story Characters
Ginger Hanson
© 2003
We have two adopted dogs,
Toffy and Bandit. We found Toffy at the animal
shelter and the note pinned to her kennel said:
thrown over the fence at Thanksgiving. She was only a
year old, but that first year of her life scarred her
in numerous ways. Within a few weeks, we knew she had
been locked for hours in a small bathroom, she had
been severely punished for going to the bathroom in
the house and she had belonged to a man.
We have owned Toffy for eight years, but all the love
in the world cannot eradicate her early experiences.
To this day, she will not enter a small room that has
a door. In fact, she will forgo a treat rather than
enter the laundry room where the dog biscuits are
kept.
An unfortunate side effect of her punishment as a
young puppy means she will go hours without relieving
herself. We had to retrain her to perform a normal
function. And when we leave her in a kennel, she
reverts to her primary learning.
As for the assumption she belonged to a man, her
reaction to my husband supplied that answer. The
first time he disciplined her in a stern voice, she
became a trembling wreck for several days. Since she
didn’t react as strongly to my stern voice, we
decided her first owner was a man. Needless to say,
my husband doesn’t use a stern voice with this dog.
Toffy’s only child status was changed within the year
by the introduction into our family of a puppy
someone left beside a four-lane highway. Bandit was
six weeks old when my husband rescued him.
Bandit never knew anyone threw him away. And no one
locked him alone in a bathroom for endless hours, no
one denied him the opportunity to go outside when he
was being housebroken, and he benefited from the “no
stern voice” rule by never having anyone speak
sternly to him. Plus, he had baskets of toys to play
with, doting parents and a reluctant new sister.
Sixty-five pounds later, we owned an affectionate,
good natured hound dog who believes everyone loves
him and he can do no wrong. If you insist he did
something wrong, he will press his ears back against
his head and look guilty for a nanosecond. Then, he
comes over for the hug he deserves and he forgives
you for scolding him.
As you can see, Toffy and Bandit experienced two
different childhoods. And by now, you’re probably
wondering what my dogs taught me about story
characters. Well, it has to do with psychological
baggage.
What is psychological baggage? To me, it is the sum
of all the events that occur during a person’s life.
Each of us drags our own version of this baggage
through life and it shapes how we act and react.
Early life events are often the most significant and
have the most profound effect on us. For example, it
only took Toffy’s previous owner a matter of months
to alter her life forever. Therefore, it behooves us
to search our character’s childhood (birth to
adolescence) and find their psychological baggage.
One of the rewards of finding psychological baggage
is the discovery of internal conflict which leads to
character growth.
Now I’m not suggesting you overload your characters
with crippling psychological baggage, but you do need
to search their lives for major events that have
shaped them into the persons they are when your story
begins. These character forming moments should be the
linchpin of their motivation throughout your story.
If we look again at the story I'm putting together,
my theme is based on abandonment. Thus I have to look
into my heroine's background to find the answer to
why she fears abandonment. Why does it color her life
with such intensity?
The answer to that question will color the way I
write this story.