Serious question, that character backstory I wrote completely fell apart last night

I spent 3 hours crafting a detailed backstory for a side character in my fantasy novel, making her a former blacksmith from a coastal town, but then I realized her motivation to join the quest made zero sense given she's scared of water. The whole thing just collapsed because I wrote her fear of the sea but had her signing up for a voyage. Has anyone else scrapped a character profile after catching a contradiction like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

karen_perry3823d ago

Did you try just flipping her fear to something else, like heights or closed spaces? You could keep the blacksmith background and coastal town, just swap the phobia so it doesn't block the plot. That's always saved me a rewrite when the core concept is solid but one detail messes it up.

sandrat2423d ago

Oh man, I've been there so many times. @karen_perry38 that's honestly a great tip and I wish I'd thought of it last month when I wrote a character who's terrified of the ocean and then set half the story on a boat. I mean, my brilliant idea was just to have her stay below deck the whole time, which made for some really exciting sailing scenes, let me tell you. So yeah, flipping the phobia is way smarter than what I did, which was basically me fixing my own plot hole with duct tape and prayer.

lily_singh216d ago

Wait, didn't you read that one writing blog about using character weaknesses as plot drivers instead of roadblocks? I swear it was like a lightbulb moment for me after stumbling onto it during a late night rabbit hole. Honestly your duct tape and prayer method sounds like something I would do too, but I bet flipping that phobia would have made your ocean scenes way more tense and interesting.