The Importance of Character Backstories
We meet Karl Schulsser early in the Victoria da Vinci trilogy, high in the mountains of Colorado in the year 1899, as he is struggling to meet the unreasonable demands of his impatient, vain and imperious boss.
Karl was born in the Kingdom of Bavaria. He ran away from an arranged apprenticeship to a printer and found his way to Sweden, where he sailed away with the merchant marine at the age of 14. At sea, his preternatural mechanical aptitude was particularly useful, and he quickly acquired a reputation for being able to fix anything on board. His creative and ingenious solutions won him the admiration of the captain, who tasked Karl with improving various systems on the ship. Karl questioned all conventional wisdom and constantly sought better ways of doing things.
Having acquired a deep fascination with wind propulsion and hydrodynamics from his time on the water, Karl traveled to Germany to study engineering. He was one of the men who came to think that controlled, sustained, heavier-than-air human flight was a technical possibility. His papers on the subject exposed him to scorn and ridicule.
Before Karl could finish his degree, he was hired out of school by the Baroness von Berge, Greta Greaves of Austria, who enticed him with the promise of being able to design and build wonderful and amazing things that the world had never seen. What Karl did not know was that the Baroness would take credit for his ideas, force him to work in secrecy, continuously interfere with everything, treat him rudely and sell the products of his efforts to the armies and navies of an increasingly militarizing Europe.
Karl is a tragic figure who unknowingly made a poor choice. The purpose of his character in the story is to illustrate the complicated and abusive relationship that exists between Greta and her staff. She operates under the delusional belief that she is the greatest inventor of the age, when in fact she is merely a shrewd and ruthless businesswoman. (Like many people who have found great financial success, she thinks she is gifted and infallable in all areas.)
Although Karl appears repeatedly in Book I, Dicing Time for Gladness (released a year ago), as well as Book II, Crass Casualty (coming out in about a month), none of the backstory above — not even his last name — actually makes it into the text. The character of Karl Schulsser is an excellent example of the purpose and value of creating a backstory: the author needs to know why he does what he does, even in cases where the reader doesn't.
This illustrates two fiction-writing guidelines. First, create a backstory for the sake of understanding a character's motivations and behavior so that the character can be written in a consistent and logical way. Second, however, R.U.E. (Resist the Urge to Explain.) If there is not a valid narrative reason to put the backstory in the text, don't. The character's actions should speak for themselves in the context of the plot.
Karl was born in the Kingdom of Bavaria. He ran away from an arranged apprenticeship to a printer and found his way to Sweden, where he sailed away with the merchant marine at the age of 14. At sea, his preternatural mechanical aptitude was particularly useful, and he quickly acquired a reputation for being able to fix anything on board. His creative and ingenious solutions won him the admiration of the captain, who tasked Karl with improving various systems on the ship. Karl questioned all conventional wisdom and constantly sought better ways of doing things.
Having acquired a deep fascination with wind propulsion and hydrodynamics from his time on the water, Karl traveled to Germany to study engineering. He was one of the men who came to think that controlled, sustained, heavier-than-air human flight was a technical possibility. His papers on the subject exposed him to scorn and ridicule.
Before Karl could finish his degree, he was hired out of school by the Baroness von Berge, Greta Greaves of Austria, who enticed him with the promise of being able to design and build wonderful and amazing things that the world had never seen. What Karl did not know was that the Baroness would take credit for his ideas, force him to work in secrecy, continuously interfere with everything, treat him rudely and sell the products of his efforts to the armies and navies of an increasingly militarizing Europe.
Karl is a tragic figure who unknowingly made a poor choice. The purpose of his character in the story is to illustrate the complicated and abusive relationship that exists between Greta and her staff. She operates under the delusional belief that she is the greatest inventor of the age, when in fact she is merely a shrewd and ruthless businesswoman. (Like many people who have found great financial success, she thinks she is gifted and infallable in all areas.)
Although Karl appears repeatedly in Book I, Dicing Time for Gladness (released a year ago), as well as Book II, Crass Casualty (coming out in about a month), none of the backstory above — not even his last name — actually makes it into the text. The character of Karl Schulsser is an excellent example of the purpose and value of creating a backstory: the author needs to know why he does what he does, even in cases where the reader doesn't.
This illustrates two fiction-writing guidelines. First, create a backstory for the sake of understanding a character's motivations and behavior so that the character can be written in a consistent and logical way. Second, however, R.U.E. (Resist the Urge to Explain.) If there is not a valid narrative reason to put the backstory in the text, don't. The character's actions should speak for themselves in the context of the plot.
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Upside-down, Inside-out, and Backwards
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