some dnd backstory ideas that give your character a reason to leave home that isn’t “everyone in my family died.” (just to say: i have nothing against those backstories (i use them a lot), but its fun to mix it up!)
family/friends/personal
someone close to you is sick. you need to adventure to find a cure
someone stole something important from you and you need to find it
you’ve received a message from a long lost relative and are trying to find them
someone that you love has been kidnapped (maybe you have to earn money to pay a ransom or complete some deed…)
adventuring runs in the family! everyone is expected to complete one quest in their lives
your family/culture sends people out to complete certain tasks when they reach a certain age as a rite of passage
another player’s character saved you in the past so you feel indebted to them and travel with them, protecting/aiding them
there’s a magical drought in your hometown and you have to fix it
your hometown doesn’t have a lot of jobs so you have to travel and send money back home
some childhood friends and you made a “scavenger hunt” where you try and complete a checklist of certain tasks (ie. defeat a barbarian in hand to hand combat, steal x amount of gold, slay a dragon, etc) in an allotted amount of time
quests/jobs
a god/patron has sent you on a quest to do something for them
you’ve been hired by someone to complete a task (and you get sucked into the big adventure along the way)
you’re on a quest for knowledge. maybe it’s to learn the best ways of fighting, maybe it’s something more academic related
your priest received a vision from your god and they sent you on a quest
you’re writing a book about the world and different cultures and you need first hand experience
you’ve found every map you’ve come across is shitty, so you decide to become a cartographer and make your own
you’re a detective who helps solve crimes and need to travel to solve a particular case
you’re a collector of a certain object and travel across the land to find it
you’re apart of an adventuring academy and have to complete a quest to graduate
you’re an artisan and you travel with your wares, trying to sell them. alternatively, you’re trying to spread word of your business and gain new business partners
you worked at a tavern your whole life where an old bard would sing songs of their adventuring party and that inspired you to go and do some adventuring of your own
feel free to add some of your own!
Hello, I am writing a book where rather than having one main character/protagonist there is multiple characters that are sort of 'focused' on in third person. I have been looking into this for some time and many resources simply say 'your main character' and I struggle with what I am meant to do if I have more than one character. Am I searching for the wrong things here? Have I bitten off more than I can chew and do you have any resources for writing more than one MC?
The key to this balance is smooth transition and a balance of “screen time”. The story lines must be evenly balanced and prioritized in the actual text and the overall plot/conflict.
It’s definitely challenging to incorporate multiple focus characters and storylines, but it’s not impossible. It’s more time you’ll have to spend on character development, and then weaving the plots together in a way that feels balanced and purposeful. This can be as simple as utilizing format, and as complex as jumbling all of the separate conflicts and background noises together without pulling the reader in a million different directions.
I have a few resources you may find helpful as you go along, but the overall piece of advice I have on this is to focus on an even distribution of time, energy, and care into each character and their own stories, and then make sure it all fits nicely by the end.
How To Fit Character Development Into Your Story
Giving Characters Distinct Voices in Dialogue
Tips on Character Consistency
Resources For Plot Development
Guide To Plot Development
Tackling Subplots
Plot Structures
Pacing Appropriately
Tips on Introducing Backstory
What To Cut Out of Your Story
Tips on Balancing Development
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this is almost certainly a post ive made before but when a character's grief is so strong it fully alters the form of the narrative itself... moby dick being so much longer than strictly necessary because ishmael's grief made him stall for time in the telling of the tragedy... harrow the ninth being in second person because harrow was so grief-stricken that she herself was not capable of making narrative sense of the events of the novel and so someone else had to do it.... do u know what i mean
Relationships that have real king/lionheart energy, that whole “I have sworn myself wholly to you, I am your sword arm, I am your dog” to someone else’s “you are the one person in this world I can rely on, and I am both bolstered and burdened by your absolute faith in me” vibe, but it’s in circumstances that are like. so low stakes. Manger of a movie theater/the one usher who doesn’t smoke weed at work.
things that might inspire me or help with with my writing skills
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