The 2 Things You Need To Be Using Instead of Long Character Backstories
How to create amazing stories according to Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin is a genius. I’m not the first one to figure that out, which is why he has an excellent Broadway play turned award-winning film, awards for The West Wing, and his own Masterclass.
Recently, I forced my two younger brothers to watch an episode of his Masterclass with me on character building where I knew he would be talking about A Few Good Men, one of our favorite movies of all time.
“The properties of people and the properties of character have almost nothing to do with each other. They really don’t. I know it seems like they do because we look alike, but people don’t speak in dialogue. Their lives don’t unfold in a series of scenes that form a narrative arc.” — A.S.
In this particular class episode, he harped on how most people write stories. They sit down, and they start telling this character’s life story since they were born.
The problem?
We don’t really need to know that much about them. And we don’t really care that much either.
1 — Intention
Sorkin argues that you don’t need a lengthy character backstory. On top of that, he encourages that you don’t do that at all.
He says that all that you need is an intention for your character — and any information directly relevant to that said intention.
When Finding Nemo begins, all we care about is that Marlin is an overprotective parent, at odds with his son Nemo.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the intention of a movie directs what genre it’ll be categorized in. In every action movie, the character wants to pull off the heist. In dramas, the main character wants to find themself. In a romantic comedy, someone just wants to be in love at the end of the day.
“Characters make your story. If the people come alive, what they do becomes the story.” — Sol Stein
All we care about, at our core, when we sit down to watch a movie is that the character wants something. It can be anything — but it has to be something.
It can even be nothing, but it has to be nothing on purpose.
At the beginning of Up, Carl just wants to stay put and stay connected to his wife Ellie. In Captain America, Cap just wants to make it into the army. In Top Gun: Maverick, Pete Mitchell wants to just stay in the air.
2 — Obstacle
After we know what a character wants, we want to know what’s going to get in their way. We want to know what insurmountable problems they will have to navigate and the harrowing pathways they’ll have to walk through.
Sometimes it’s a person. Sometimes it’s the laws of space and time. Sometimes it’s themselves. All that we care about is that something gets in our favorite character’s way of achieving what they want.
This reminds me of one of my top favorite quotes on writing from G.K. Chesterton:
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
We all want to hope that our obstacles won’t get in the way. When we sit down to read a book or watch a movie, we want to be given some hope that against all odds, life can be good, and love can be found and everything we go through can mean something.
“Create a compelling character, give them a problem they must overcome, then remove all possible solutions except one.” — Chris Sparling
Instead of long character backstories, put your character into a situation and show us who they are as they navigate that problem. We learn the most about people through how they handle their most stressful moments.
Stories are simple.
They’re real, visceral presentations of everything we know to be true — and everything we wish were true. When you’re telling stories, don’t add more than you need to.
We don’t love characters because we know everything about them — we love characters because we know everything we need to know about them to care.
Make people care. That’s all you have to do, and all it takes is intention and obstacle to get it done. You’ve got this. Best of luck!
Kindly, Katie
If you enjoyed this article, feel free to go and read more like it from my publication Story Nerds!
