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On a recent vacation cruising the Rhine River, my husband and I stood on the top deck of our ship as it docked in Cologne, Germany, watching the crew coax the boat with incredible finesse into a tight area between two others, a multiperson job conducted with walkie-talkies and crew members standing at various points of the ship to help the captain.
In between maneuvers we chatted with a crew member working near us at the stern—the junior captain—about how he wound up in his position. He left home at 14 after a challenging family environment, he told us, and began working on ships to support himself at age 16. But when we expressed our sympathies for his family situation he just shrugged in that phlegmatic European manner and said, “Everybody has a backpack.”
He was from Holland, and I don’t know if it was a language barrier that resulted in the twist on the more typical expression of the idea—that everyone has their own baggage—or his particular spin on it. But the metaphor hit me viscerally: Baggage is something we pick up and put down, but I was struck by the idea of each of us carrying our load on our backs always. Because we do, don’t we?
Our metaphorical backpacks may contain the legacy of our upbringing, our experiences, our perspective and prejudices. As a result it’s full of assumptions we may make, biases we hold, illusions we’ve developed about the world or ourselves that weigh us down or hold us back: the factors that make us worry we’re not good enough, for instance, or be overly perfectionistic, or convince us the deck is stacked against us in life.
We can’t really divest ourselves of these things; they travel around on our backs, always with us. They affect every step we take. We are born who we are, but we’re also shaped by everything we experience. I am a product of how I was parented and raised, where and how I grew up, my education (or lack thereof), my relationships, my triumphs and heartbreaks, stumbles and advances.
So are you. And so are your characters. These factors influence what a person thinks, what they do, how they act, their reactions, their interactions, their emotions and the expression of them (or lack thereof).
Trying to write your characters without understanding on a deep level what’s in their backpack often results in characters who feel flat, unidimensional, or simply unrealistic. And it leaves an author flying blind, trying to create cohesive, believable, vibrantly real characters without considering the many factors that have made them who they are.
Unpacking Your Characters’ Backpacks
But our backpacks are also full of useful things, even if they may weigh us down. When I’m traveling, mine is always stuffed. I love knowing that I have healthy snacks if I get hungry, water if I’m thirsty, an umbrella if it rains, a sweater if I get cold, Shout wipes and WetOnes and napkins if I run into (or make) a mess.
When I’m presenting at a conference I always have everything I need to teach a class right there on my back: my computer, cables, and other accessories; supplemental materials for my classes; backup flash drives in case my computer hookups to the event’s A/V systems don’t work; my business cards and books, and stands to display them; even cough drops and herbal tea in case I start to lose my voice.
My backpack may strain my shoulders to carry around, but it also equips me to handle whatever comes my way—the same way my metaphorical backpack does. The weight of some of our “baggage” can be heavy to bear—but all that background and all those experiences are what make us who we are now.
“Look where I am!” the captain said after sharing with us some of the history that had led him to his current position, spreading his arms as if to encompass the entire ship, the full length of the Rhine, all of Europe. He didn’t bemoan his own backpack, because it had led him to a place in his life and career that he very clearly loved.
My family experienced some fairly significant hardships when I was younger, but it drew us exceptionally close. It made me stronger, more resilient, and resourceful. So did every failure, disappointment, setback, and heartbreak I’ve ever experienced. Given a choice I wouldn’t set down my backpack, nor trade it for someone else’s—it might not bring me to where I am now.
But over the years I’ve regularly reexamined its contents. I’ve pondered what things I’m lugging around are helping me and which are unnecessarily weighing me down, and I’ve rearranged some of the former to make the load a little easier to carry—and let go of some of the latter.
Much of creating your characters’ journeys lies in doing the same: putting them into situations that force them to unpack their backpacks and examine their contents, understand them, and learn what’s worth continuing to carry around and what may no longer be serving them…in other words, their character arc.
Unpack Your Own Backpack
But take a moment, too, to consider your personal backpack. How is it hindering you, and how might it be helping you—both in writing and in your life as a whole?
Your youthful heartbreak, for instance, may make you fearful of rejection and reluctant to take a chance and put yourself out there. But perhaps it also gave you the tools you need to deal with those very fears: the ability to weather emotional pain, the knowledge that you can recover from it, even the memory of that fiery first love that drives your imagination and dreams and hope to experience that kind of passion again—whether in your writing, your career, or your romantic life.
All those things are in your backpack. But you don’t have to just mindlessly lug it around. Rifle around inside; get a clear sense of what you’re carrying and how it serves you—or doesn’t. Take out some of the unnecessary load that’s weighing you down. Rearrange the rest to make it easier to carry.
Most of all, be grateful for what you have in there. It’s a legacy of your life and how you’ve lived it, and no one else’s is packed quite the same way. Who would you be without it?
Authors, have you considered what might be in your characters’ backpacks? How do its contents affect their actions, behavior, and reactions in your story? What’s in there that’s holding them back from what they want—and how do they finally deal with it in the course of the story? What’s in your own backpack, and how do its contents hamper you—but how might they also be serving you?
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