Everyone has a ghost or two from their past.
A character’s past can haunt them. In fact, a character’s past should affect who they are when your story begins.
Backstory provides insight into your characters’ personalities, values, beliefs, and motives, giving us context to who they are as a person and what prompts their course of action. The term backstory is broad, and not everything in your character’s past will be interesting to the audience. So let’s focus on one aspect of backstory.
One of the great narrative tools you can use to develop your character is by giving them a ghost. A character’s ghost can be effective at engaging with an audience, allowing them to fully realize the emotional depth of the character through their backstory.
Story Mode breaks down how Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s narrative teaches us how to create an effective character’s ghost that has a great payoff in the end. Check out the full video below.
Author: Alyssa Miller
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
