The Tangle of Family Trees

Where does it end? Not the book–I know how it ends. (Finally!)

What I mean is the backstory. Where does the backstory end? More precisely, where does my job of unearthing each character’s backstory end?

I fully accept that each character, no matter how minor, has to have his/her own memories which will then inform how he/she reacts to the plot at hand. I’ve taken time to develop David’s life story, and now I’m working on another character, Ayaan.

But what I realized is that David and Ayaan’s stories aren’t enough, because they’re unbreakably linked to the lives of their parents. Just like Lyra is isolated and alone thanks to the decisions her parents have made, so too, are David and Ayaan affected by the choices of their parents.

Which means, in order to fully understand David and Ayaan, I need to understand their parents. Which means I need to know their names and occupations and philosophies of life. But of course, how they came to see the world–and therefore pass that vision onto their children–comes from their parents/background/childhood/upbringing. But of course how their parents raised them reflects the way they were raised. And so on and so forth…

For example, I use David’s grandmother, Mama Jua as an important influence on both David and Lyra’s lives. Why she does what she does is because of her backstory. Yet all of it still has to be connected to David and Lyra–otherwise I will get lost in the morass of memories and lose focus.

So, I have David appear in Lyra’s life with a dire warning. To make this believable, I have to know why David would risk his life for a stranger. He’s a part of a resistance group, but going after government targets to warn them is not part of the group’s M.O. So why would he do it? Because, in part, he’s opposed to his mom’s hands-off, non-confrontation, more subversive methods of resistance. Why does he hate it? Because his mom Emmanuelle has been wholly focused on her hands-off, non-confrontation, more subversive methods of resistance at the expense of her son.

Well, why is his mom so neglectful of David? That’s because of her own upbringing with her mother, Mama Jua. Now I need to figure out what happened when Emmanuelle was a child. She was hurt by her mother’s frivolous neglect. She felt abandoned when her mom would attend society parties and teas, which, according to Emmanuelle were vapid and empty, so she vowed when she was older, she’d make sure her life had value and purpose. What she doesn’t see is that the end result of her “meaningful” resistance efforts (no time for her son) is the same as her own childhood.

Hence, we bring the story back to David. But not yet to Lyra. The novel is about Lyra, so I have to get back to Lyra.

There’s got to be more. So now I have to look at why Mama Jua chose tea parties over her own children. Now I have to delve into Mama Jua’s memories. Her husband had just left her; in their society, divorce was frowned upon, so she felt utterly humiliated. To save face and social standing, she tried to “fit in”. She did it, thinking if she could make the stuck-up ladies of the town accept her, then her children’s lives would be easier–they wouldn’t be teased or bullied for being raised by a single mom.

Yeah, ok, that’s bittersweet and all. There’s a link to Emmanuelle and then to David, and David helps Lyra, but is that enough?

Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

So I took another look at Mama Jua’s story. Somehow, I have to make her story fit more closely with Lyra’s narrative. That’s when I realized Mama Jua’s motivation for helping Lyra: she takes Lyra under her wing, in part, out of regret for how she raised her own daughter Emmanuelle. She knows she made mistakes, acted on misjudgments, so now she wants to make it right–as much as she can. She can’t re-do the past, but she can care for Lyra the way she realizes she should have cared for Emmanuelle.

And that’s the answer to my question. Where does it end? Where do my backstories end?

When they’ve come full circle to Lyra.

‘Cause in the end, it’s all about Lyra. 🙂