Playwriting - Part 5F - Creating Characters by Having them Monologue about Backstories

If you've created backstories for characters, a way to get deeper into those backstories is to create a monologue for one of the events in your backstory. This exercise will allow you to get to know your character just as if you were talking to a new friend who is telling you stories about his life.

Since in my last entry, I used the example of a character I might create named Peter and gave him some events for a backstory, I'd take a look at those events.

• My fight with Jacob
• Winning the basketball game in junior high
• My first date
• Accidentally setting the hayloft on fire
• The time I almost drowned in the local creek

From my list, I would pick one of the events. Once I chose the event, I would start writing a monologue for Peter. Maybe I picked the event of winning the basketball game in junior high. My monologue might start something like, "We knew there was no possible way we could win against the Dragons. They had defeated every team in the state except for us and that was only because we had not played a game against them. We were afraid, but also excited about the game because we had been practicing for weeks and studying all of their moves in their previous games."

Peter would talk about the game, the way he perceived his teammmates and the other team, his feellings, and possibly more. It would depend on what came out as I wrote. Then it might end like, "And there we were. The scoreboard read Dragon 18, Haymakers 22. We couldn't believe it. No newspapers were going to print headlines full of the pun 'Dragons burn the Haymakers.' This was a major event for my junior high. It was the first time any team had beat the Dragon. As exhausted as we were from playing the game, the adrenaline kept us going and we could not settle down. We all ran around cheering and high fiving each other. The only thing that got us to come together in a group again was when the coach annoucned we were going to get on the bus and get pizza. I don't think anybody slept that night."

If you write a monologue about one event and it goes into another event, there is nothing wrong with that. It just means that they happened that way for your character. Maybe you will use some of these monologues in your play or other writing. Maybe you'll never use them and they will only be for you. It doesn't matter.