If you are reading through my journal this is simply an exerpts from a series of rants about charecter histories and why they're important and how to make me love yours.
If I sent you the link to this page it's because you either did somthing to annoy me through your charecter history or you didn't include one for one reason or another. Read this and reaply.
Four reasons character histories are important
1) Quality control. If I don't keep some limit on the angst factor before long this will devolve into nothing but a moan fest about abusive dads who ripped apart their teddy bear the day their mom died because they killed her and their grandparents sold their livers to pay for their education and... I'm sorry, but I want editing rights on what your character has been through. If what they've been through should have put them in a mental institution for good I want to be able to tell you (as politely as possible) that your character would be in a mental institution and you need to cool off the drama
2) Having a posted character history means that the next person to apply will hopefully read it and go "Oh, A, B, and C happened to this character, I probably shouldn't have A, B, and C happen to mine to" We don't want fifty abuse victims who got raped by their boyfriends and killed there cat.
3) A different type of quality control. Histories are the best way for me to judge your writing skill. An inability to put together a coherent and well-written history has proven a fail proof sign that that person will be giving me headaches before the week is out. By now it's one of the few things that causes me to reject someone flat out to avoid said headaches, calc gives me enough already.
This does not mean it needs to be the equal of a great classic you studied in lit class. I just want as history from as early in life as necessary to the present telling the important details in a manner that I can follow.
4) Not being willing to write a history just makes it seem like you were too lazy to be bothered. This is not a good sign.
If you’re trying to write a bad past without making it too terribly angst-ridden here’s a suggestion:
Make your character active, and make them make bad choices every so often.
I love it when characters end up in a bad place because of bad decisions as well as bad luck instead of fate just having a hit out against them. It leads to a much more believable character, more room for personal growth, and helps keep them from having a victimized attitude. People with victim complexes tend to be very boring to rp with.
Here is an example of what I mean, My character
Amelia had a good life, the worse thing that could be said about it was she was pushed a little to hard to excel but she wasn't beaten or starved when she didn't. She didn't have a choice about falling in love with another girl but she chose to act on it perfectly aware of what would happen if her parents found out. She didn't have a choice about the bad things that happened after that (but it is made very clear she tried to do something about it rather than just going damsel in distress) and when she was committed to a mental institution for a few months it was because she chose to try to kill herself, not because someone framed her or some overeager doctor decided he needed another inpatient.
After she got out she chose to run rather than needing to because of something. She made bad decisions by getting into drugs and eventually the hard stuff. She shared needles knowing full well the dangers of that and she got HIV not because someone raped her but because of her own bad decisions and now she has to live with that.
Even now, with her rather self destructive behavior (not eating or sleeping for days, occasionally relapsing into self injury) are all her own faults and when she alienates people the narration doesn't blame them or call them names. Her personality’s hard to live with and I as the author am aware she’s not the easiest person to get along with.
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Magpie_13
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