Just Ginger

Story Steps Five   As I was winding up my undergrad degree many, many years ago, for fun I took a Creative Writing class. Somewhere along the way I lost the handy dandy writing how-to book we used in the class, but one recommendation stuck with me: write a detailed biography for characters prior to writing the story. After the class, I subscribed to several writing magazines. They echoed the author’s opinion that a writer had to “get to know” story characters completely before you could write about them. Over the years, I read articles and attended workshops that abounded  with character lists. Hair color. Eye color. Date of birth. Educational background. Height. Weight. Favorite foods. Foods dislikes. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. I wasted a lot of time writing biographies full of trivial information for characters. Information I never used and soon forgot after writing it down. Gradually, my biographies changed. I started concentrating on...

Story Steps Four Sierra showed up at our small local airport, a starving, flea and tick infested Beagle. No microchip, no tags, she became an immediate addition to the family. She was an anomaly in the Beagle family because she seldom barked. From all accounts, barking is a perennial Beagle issue. She arrived with some additional baggage, she didn’t run to the door when we arrived home. This is a major dog duty and we resorted to bribing Sierra into acceptable dog-at-the-door behavior. We kept treats in the garage to reward her when we opened the door. My husband even came up with a “Sierra’s happy we’re home” dance. Backstory Naturally, I came up with a backstory to fit her behavior. If she’d been kenneled by her previous owner, she wouldn’t know how to greet anyone when they arrived home. How can you greet anyone when you’re locked in a kennel? Why would you bark at anything, if you’re locked away from the windows and doors? Just as I build a backstory for...