Writing a character's backstory

Writing a Character's Backstory

So whilst we're in Covid-19 lock down, I've been tackling a variety of projects around the house. That's what I'm telling folks. But honestly, I've just been baking, eating, cooking, eating, playing with the puppy, eating, ignoring housework, eating, helping out the in-laws while my father-in-law recovers from heart surgery, eating, watching television, eating, making a couple of baby quilts (which are a super duper cute), eating, dealing with pesky doctors and MRIs, eating, and mulling over some background plot ideas for Book 2.5, the love story between my main character Jack Diamond and the love of his life, Claire Wilcox. Oh, and eating.

So several people along the way have asked me how I come up with my characters' back stories. And honestly, the majority of the time I truly don't know. They just sort of come out. I'll be merrily writing along, and the next thing I know, I'm jotting down info about where Nick Buchanan went to school, and the fact that he had a baby sister, and his football career, and so forth. It just writes itself, and I don't really think about it. Honestly. Things just write themselves right out of my fingertips, and sometimes I'm just as surprised as you are when you read them.

But I've been mulling things over about my sweet Claire, and I have to give her back story a great deal of care and thought.

I know how Claire met Ron Wilcox and his daughter. That much has been obvious to me since the very beginning. I know why Ron Wilcox is an alcoholic. 

I know where Claire and Jack Diamond meet.

I know what Claire does for a living, and I know one of her co-workers.

But I had to think about Claire and her house where she grew up, and her folks and wondering if she had any siblings.

And I had to think about why she decided to become a cosmetic surgeon, specializing in pediatric facial reconstruction.

And this morning as I was lounging about in bed, not wanting to face the world because today is housecleaning day, I started thinking about Claire's background.

And several scenarios started making their way through my thought processes.

To take it back a step, Jack Diamond had a very violent past. Much of this is hashed out in books 1 and 2, so I won't bore you with it here. And when I was writing Book 2 I had to reconcile the problems with Jack's violent past with Jack's adorable and lovely Granini. How did she not know? Why didn't she try to fix it? Was Granini Jack's father's mother? or his mother's mother? That reconciliation caused a great deal of time and grief and tender care when writing Book 2.

So now it's time for Claire's back story. I don't even know if it's going to appear in Book 2.5, but I have to know what it is in order to figure out who she is, and how she came to be that way.

Do I want her to have an equally challenging childhood so that she can Jack can bond over trauma?

Do I want her to have an innocent and carefree childhood free of all the drama? Would someone like that be someone strong enough to be a mate for Jack?

And how did she get interested in facial reconstruction?

So I started playing out several different scenarios in my mind:

*Abusive father:
Mother gives birth to baby boy with a cleft palate. Father is livid at his son's 'deformity.' He kills the boy, kills the mother, and goes to kill Claire, but she kills him.

Too violent.

*Sexually abusive father:
Mother gives birth to baby boy with a cleft palate. Father is livid at his son's 'deformity.' He kills the mother, strangles the boy with his own umbilical cord, and goes to kill Claire. BUT, Claire's older sister, whom the father has been sexually abusing for all these years, grabs a pair of scissors and kills him first.

And as much as I love the evil thought of the horrible man strangling his own 'defective' son with his umbilical cord, trying to pass the murder off as a 'natural' accidental death, the whole scenario is just way too violent.

And honestly, blech! Who wants to read about child sexual abuse?!!!? It's bad enough that it happens in the real world. Why does it have to happen in my books?

*Accidental death
Claire's mother gives birth to a baby boy who is born with a cleft palate. The birth is quick, and at home in the middle of the night. There's so much blood and it happens so fast, that everyone is caught of guard. Claire's father runs out of the room to grab a pair of sharp scissors to cut the umbilical cord. Claire's older sister wakes up. She asks her daddy what's wrong. He quickly tries to explain that everything's okay and he tells her to go back to bed. Claire sleeps through the whole thing. Claire's mom cries out for help. Claire's dad turns to run to get back to Claire's mom. He trips on the rug in the hallway. He lands on the very sharp scissors he's carrying and bleeds to death in the hallway. Claire's mom bleeds to death in the bedroom. And Claire's baby brother dies before medical attention can arrive.

This super sad story may be the one I go for.
It serves multiple purposes.

1. Both of Claire's parents are dead. Both of Jack's parents are dead. Even though Jack's father was horribly abusive, and Claire's was not, being an orphan does connect them to each other in a way that most young 20 somethings don't have in common.

2. This storyline means that Claire now needs to be raised by someone other than her parents. I don't know if it will be a family friend, an aunt, or a grandparent. But being raised by someone in a loving home is truly important to both Claire's and Jack's positive upbringing. Without the positive influences, both Claire and Jack could end up having significantly different personalities. I want these two to have complicated childhood backgrounds that gives each of them compassion and a mission to do better. This positive upbringing by someone other than her parents also endears Granini to Claire, which adds to the benefit of this story line.

3. Claire's baby brother being born with a cleft palate could easily become the motivation that Claire needs to become a surgeon who repairs birth defects. She has a soft spot for babies and young children with birth defects, or those who suffer from facial deformities due to accidents, and for the parents and siblings who care for these children. These two facts will then explain how she becomes motivated to become a surgeon and why she falls in love so dearly with Ron Wilcox's daughter, and has a soft spot for Ron, himself.

4. This story line now gives Claire an older sister. Which I didn't even know was a possibility. An older, lovely sister. And now I get to go and mull about Claire's older sister and find out how she turns out. Will she be a lovely person? Will she be productive and amazing and inspirational? Or will she be sad and depressed and go down a dark hole and be someone Claire is embarrassed to call her sister? Oh, I say let's go positive. Today I'm in a happy mood. I don't want any more darkness. There's soooo much darkness in this world.

So.

That's how I start thinking about characters' backstories. It's long and complicated and will end up being given more thought along the way. But this is how it starts.

And that's it for today. I'm going to go eat some strawberries.

* * * * *

I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

Currently writing:
Book 2.5: Yet to be named: Jack and Claire's love story

* * * * *

Granini's Monkey Bread - the cinnamon kind

Granini's Monkey Bread

Much better!!

The first time I made monkey bread, it was a complete disaster. The biscuit dough was too mealy. The dough didn't cook all the way through. I filled the pan way too full. The syrupy goodness dripped down into the au gratin potatoes that were baking on the shelf beneath the monkey bread. The bread was way too salty, and no one liked it. Super duper sad.

So, I took what I learned, and WOW, what a difference!

This time I used my dinner roll recipe for the dough, used half unsalted and half salted butter for the caramel sauce, and mmmmm boy howdy it was delicious!!

So here you go!

Ingredients:

For the dough:

1 package yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

1/4 cup warm water

1 cup scalded milk

2 Tablespoons butter (salted or unsalted, doesn't matter)

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten

3 1/4 cups flour

Sprinkles:

1 cup sugar (next time I'm going to use ¼ cup sugar and ¾ cup brown sugar)

2 teaspoons cinnamon (next time I'll add 3 teaspoons)

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Sauce:

¼ cup maple syrup

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ cup melted butter (unsalted)

½ cup melted butter (salted)

Directions:

1. Sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water. Give it a vigorous whisk, and allow to sit for about 5 minutes.
2. To scald the milk: place milk in a reactive (a metal pan, rather than a nonstick one) saucepan on medium high.  Allow the milk to come to a full simmer.  When the milk starts to climb the sides of the pan, pull it off the heat.
3. Add butter to the very hot milk.  Allow milk to cool for about 10 minutes. I usually put mine in the fridge to cool.
4. Add the sugar and salt. Whisk around. Add in the egg and whisk thoroughly.
5. Add ½ cup of the flour and stir completely.  Slowly pour in the milk, and stir. Mix in the remaining flour.
6. Turn on your oven to 400℉.
7. Knead the dough for roughly 5 minutes.
8. Lightly spray a clean, large bundt cake pan with cooking spray.  Make sure to coat all the nooks and crannies.
9. No, I did not let my dough proof in an oven. I was, however, busy making breakfast, so it probably sat on the counter for 14 minutes or so.
10. Split the dough into small pieces. About 1 to 1 ½ inches square or so. No need to be exact. No need to roll them into balls. Just chop them roughly around that size.
11. Mix your cinnamon sugar and nutmeg together in a medium sized bowl.
12. Drop each of your small pieces of bread dough into the cinnamon sugar and toss them around, coating all the sides.
13. Plunk the cinnamon sugar pieces into your bundt pan, placing them roughly fairly evenly around the inside of your dish.
14. After each layer (or just every once in a while), sprinkle an additional handful of cinnamon sugar over the whole section of bread dough, just to give the dough even more of the cinnamon sugar goodness.
15. Melt the butters together and stir to make sure the butter is completely melted. Add in the syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar. Stir until it is a thick gooey delicious looking texture.
16. Pour the cinnamon sugar syrupy caramel sauce over the top of the cinnamon bread chunks.
17. Pop the bundt pan in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or so, or until the whole top is lovely and medium brown. After 24 minutes, keep an eye on it. This is rather tricky. You don't want the caramel to burn, but you don't want the bread to be under baked. So keep an eye on it.
18. When the monkey bread is ready to come out of the oven, you're not going to let it rest in the pan it baked in. You're going to go ahead and pop it right out onto its plate.
19. Get a cake plate or a wooden cutting board or a serving dish that is slightly larger than your bundt pan. Using hot pads, very carefully flip your bundt cake upside down (invert it), and lift off the pan. Fingers crossed, and the whole thing will pop out of your pan easily, the underside lovely and caramelized, and your kitchen smelling like heaven.
20. Allow the monkey bread to cool slightly so that your fingers and your tongue do not suffer third degree burns when you dip in. If any of the caramel oozes off the sides, feel free to use a rubber spatula to schlop the goodness back onto the top of your bread.
21. When the monkey bread comes out correctly, you should be able to dip your fingers inside and pull out lovely chunks of caramelized bread bits. Like bite sized sticky buns. And boy howdy, is it scrumpdillyicious!!

For those of you who like pictures, here you go:

At this point, the bundt pan was barely more than ½ full -- definitely not even 3/4 of the way filled, but I was all out of dough. I honestly thought there wouldn't be enough dough in the pan, and I regretted not making a second batch of dough. But honestly, it was more than plenty!!! The dough rose beautifully in the oven, and baked to perfection.

I thought it looked a wee bit too dark around the edges, but I'd only baked it for about 29 minutes at this point. But it was lovely. I think for me, it might have been better after 28 minutes. I wanted to make sure the insides were baked all the way through.

 Look at that lovely monkey bread!!! HEAVEN!

This is what my monkey bread looked like no more than 12 minutes later. We put the cutting board in the middle of the table, and each of us grabbed a fork. We sat on opposite sides of the table and systematically pulled little pieces off, put them onto our dessert plates, and nibbled. WOW. What a treat!

We obviously decimated the entire thing. My daughter claimed that this new treat was like eating the insides of cinnamon rolls -- all the nice and gooey parts, without the hard crusty outer pieces. My husband, in between happy mmms, said he'd like a wee bit more cinnamon. And when I mentioned that I have a recipe for a savory version of monkey bread, my son said he'd like to eat a garlic parmesan version of the bread. So, I'll definitely be making this again!!!

How might I improve the recipe for next time?

Next time I'm going to roll the pieces in brown sugar and cinnamon (rather than regular sugar and cinnamon), like I normally do when I make cinnamon rolls. I will also add more cinnamon. I may also add in some toasted pecans. And perhaps I'll try not using the maple syrup. I like my caramel sauce nice and sticky, and the maple syrup really did the trick. But when I make cinnamon rolls, I don't use maple syrup. I don't really need to, since the brown sugar and the butter melt together in a lovely way to create a caramel sauce. So, I'll give that a whirl and see if I can perfect the recipe. But honestly, this was pretty darned terrific. The whole thing was decimated in about 12 minutes. Clearly, we liked it!

Alrighty then, until next time!

I'm off to go work on Book 2.5, Jack and Claire's love story.

Who are Jack and Claire? Jack Diamond is a Detective for the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, who stars as the protagonist in the Jack Diamond Murder Mystery series. Claire is a pediatric cosmetic surgeon who repairs birth defects and specializes in reconstruction after traumatic injuries. They fell in love in college. After years of separation due to work, marriage, murder and life, they finally find their way back to each other.

You can read all about them in Diamonds for Diamond and No One Noticed. They'll also both appear in Book 3 -- a yet to be named book about a massive casualty shooting on a pedestrian bridge in Portland, Oregon.

Click on the links below and get started. Amazon will ship them to you, or you can download and read the e-book versions now!

What are you waiting for? Go get the books now!

* * * * *

I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

* * * * *