Writing a Character Background

[DSmaster21]

I am not the most elegant or eloquent writer. I have a tendency to ramble and go off on tangents. Recently I created a character and I want to write a backstory and I have the key events worked out but when I tried to write it well... (This uses the Inner Sea Setting of PF)

Sample... He had a father who was one of the original clerics of the Lantern King (He is a god of the Fae, and his influence is mostly on the PF version of the Feywild) on the Prime Material Plane when his father died the town began to question Arte's rather unusual powers and slightly off behavior/appearance. So Arte took up his father's holy symbol, dagger and Cloak and hoofed it.

I am sure any of you can do better. Can someone help me?

Key Events

1. Father Majoram becomes a Cleric of the Lantern King who wished to extend his power to the PMP. (This is important later)

2. Father Majoram travels extolling the Lantern King and how he wants to bring laughter to the world. (Why his father would have a travellers cloak and why Arte would grow up to look to the road as a place of excitement and intrigue)

3 FM meets a nice Illusionist wizard lady and falls in love. They get married and settle down. Soon Mother Majoram is due. (Arte is almost in the picture)

4 The Lantern King wants FM to choose a successor until he meet MM and decides that their unborn child can spread mischief and laughter. He insists they stay and feast in the First World (PF Feywild). (Comes together soon)

5 Arte is born in the First World and as such it and Arte are part of each other. (Fey Bloodline)

6 At the age of 13 (puberty) Arte's powers begin to manifest and He starts becoming a sorcerer. MM teaches him a lot about illusions. (Spell Focus Illusion and Greater Spell Focus Illusion)

7 MM dies soon after and Arte doesn't advance further than learning a few cantrips, color spray and disguise self.

8 Arte gains a reputation for jokes and trickery around town and a few years pass. Arte also learns much about the Lantern King from FM.

9 Arte is now 19 and his father is killed in a bandit raid. People whisper about Arte on the street as he seems much younger than 19 (Fey are long lived so after it manifests he seems unable to age) Arte eventually feels that he is in danger and steals away one night along with all of his family's remaining savings.

Thoughts and any suggestions would be appreciated. I would also love if someone would help me write this into a full backstory.

[GilesTheCleric]

Well, if you're not the best writer, then perhaps bucking genre expectations a little bit would help you. What if you wrote your backstory as a timeline rather than a prose piece? Or, you could do it as a sort of abridged travel journal, organizing by location: what happened in each town/locale as you moved through? Perhaps you could write it like life entries in the front/back of a Bible - put down the date for important life events, who was involved, and special things that came out of it.

If you're not confident in your writing skills regardless, the best advice I can give is to shorten your sentences. If you just have one independent clause, or 1 independent + 1 dependent, it is much easier to construct a syntactically correct sentence.

[DSmaster21]

Thanks

I just have a tendency to second-guess myself when it comes to writing because of my tendency towards logorrhea, much less when trying to write a really epic or cool stor,y it's part of why I lurk so much. I'm not shy but I sometimes make others mad on forums with my walls of text. etc.

I think your travel journal sounds good and I will probably write the pre-journal stuff as the timeline.

[ArcturusV]

I've done the "Journal Entry" before. It's interesting because not only do you get out the important facts "I'm a feybrat, I have magic, Mom and Dad are dead, etc" it also gives you a chance to give some characterization to it. If you have a journal entry that says something like:


June 5th, 1519:

Four times today I noticed people suddenly stop talking when I entered a room. I feel them staring at my back. People won't look me in the eye anymore. I can't recall the last time I heard someone else laugh.

Fate: 27, 12, 8, Orange.

Sunny, 5 knots north wind, 72 degrees.

It gives the historical impression that he's getting paranoid, thinks the town is up to something, puts the fear in his life. Also suggests other things in his character. He felt a need to record down the weather for some reason. Why? Just curious? Been raising crops and it's important for forecasting and noticing long term patterns? Helps him visualize his memories of the day? Similarly with the fate stuff. If he into some Feycrafted Soothsaying? Does he see omens in things or put high value into seemingly random occurrences as Omens?

[Malrone]

If your concern is expressing vital or pertinent content with brevity, click here (http://community.wizards.com/forum/4e-character-development/threads/1340441). It's an old thread that lays out a useful format for quickly assembling a character's background.

If you're angling more to the side of the artistic side of writing, that is, to write an actual story...
I'm less helpful. :smallredface:

I can parrot, though, that the style and tone of the writing (journal, in medias res, 1st-person [of you or another]) can express wonderfully.