Hi so I have this character Ceri and I'm not sure what to do with her backstory. Because she's only 15 but I don't want her parents getting in the way of the story, but I also don't want to give her a tragic backstory because it gets bad enough in the main story. Anyone able to help?
so like whats her basic information?
So she's basically an average nerdy 15 year old, she's smart, good at school, enjoys reading. She's secretly studying magic online but has never experienced it IRL at the beginning of the story. Her cat turns out to be an immortal shapeshifter who she makes friends with and that's what drives the story, but she doesn't know this originally.
maybe she just has an ordinary life but…. some magical occurrences happen
like when she was six she saw a horde of pixies
and so on and so forth
Yeah good idea, but I need some excuse to have her parents not show up very often in the story, even though she's 15 so her parents would be around and involved.
her parents are docters that travel around the world helpig others but the downside is they dont see their daughter often
Nice, that's a cool idea. Thanks!
no problem im procrastinating from my stories so
Or maybe her parents have some kind of piloting agency and travel abroad often?
thats a good idea too
I think those are both good, definitely they have to travel a lot.
Maybe her parents get divorced and she only lives with one, and that one is always away for work (this way you only have to avoid 1 parent)
maybe she's an orphan
@Keeja I think that would be too sad.
i am sorry. Hm.. you said that she was smart? I saw this movie where this girl was very intelligent and could practically live on her own. Maybe her parent(s) trusted her enough to possibly let her… I don't know live in her own place? Maybe they signed a thingy stating that she is responsible enough to legally live on her own even though she's underage?
She doesn't have to live by herself for her parents to not be a huge part of her life. Maybe they just work a lot, or maybe she has younger siblings that demand more attention from her parents. Or they could just be the type of people who give their children a lot of freedom.
I personally like the magic backstory with parents who are doctors and travel a lot. They don’t need to even travel a lot; they could be ER doctors and are being called in all the time.
she is very smart, maybe she goes to a distant boarding school or college
I like the idea of a magic backstory as well. Perhaps her parents were magic beings but after she was born, they sent her to earth because she was born at a time where the place she lived was dangerous and they didn't want anything bad to happen to her. they sent her to live with a couple on earth that they had met on a trip there that they trusted. She grew up with them, was always very advanced in her school studies, and had a knack for some kind of artistic thing (you decide what). On her 15th birthday, she finds out the truth about her family and is able to travel back to where she was born and is taught to use these magic powers she didn't know she had.
@lizzie_black Yeah there's going to be "big reveal" where she's actually a fairy changeling. I think I'll go for the busy doctor parents, that makes sense with the story.
I thought it would be cool if maybe she is at a type of boarding school especially if its like Scotland/Ireland where there is a magic basis - ley lines - that kind of thing. Parents wouldn't be dead but wouldn't be in the picture either, it would also help explain if she is super smart to be a school….studying magic on her own. Her parents could still be doctors or pilots which would give her a 'rich' status and let her have her own room/space and explain why she is 'weird/eccentric'
hope this helps