I love the prompts you come up with for a lot of varying stories, and I hoped you could help me. I have a character, haunted by a mistake she made in a war where following orders led to a massacre. But I feel like it's a cliche back story and I wasn't sure if there was any better choices for her?
Hi!
It’s hard to say whether that would seem cliche or not because the truth is that it does happen. People make mistakes in wars, and unfortunately, there are many circumstances which may lead to massacres or the deaths of innocent people.
Some of this depends on what kind of person is your character. If she’s a tougher, battle-hardened person, she might be making much more brutal decisions. Your character might be used to making hard sacrifices to win a battle. If your character is a more naive, inexperienced, or simply softer/easygoing person, they might be completely unused to making hard decisions or the necessary steps it takes to win a war.
Also, if she was just following orders (assuming she may be a soldier of some kind), the mistake isn’t necessarily hers, but rather her superior’s (or whoever made the decision that led to the massacre). If she’s just following orders, it’s not really her fault. She was just doing what any soldier would do - follow the orders of their commanding officer. Now, obviously some people would still feel extremely guilty even if they’re indirectly involved or weren’t the direct cause of the situation. A lot of people who deal with the grief and trauma of similar situations tend to think in “What if”- type statements. E.g. “What if I had done something differently? What if I had disobeyed my orders? I should have done this instead.” You also say “haunted” rather than “guilty”, so your character may just feel horrible that people died because that’s a tragic event.
If you really wanted to change it up, here are a few ideas:
Write your character as the one who made the decision, rather than her just following orders
Perhaps the decision she made was actually a good one - e.g. went into a warzone to save a friend, rescued a child from a burning building - but it led to disastrous consequences. For example, her going to rescue someone left a group of people/her soldiers vulnerable
Your character actually chose to do something horrible, and didn’t regret it until years later (maybe she sold secrets to the other side, smuggled weapons, took part in war crimes)
Character went AWOL/deserted and abandoned people who needed her help
Character was trying to prove her worth (possibly to earn glory/fame/a medal) and disobeyed orders; Alternatively, she switched units without letting any of her colleagues/bosses know, and that messed up her team’s plan that she left behind
I think sometimes the cliche lies in that the characters feel guilty when they 1. did their best in a horrible situation, or 2. didn’t really do anything bad in the first place, but feel that a specific consequence is their fault nevertheless. Very rarely do we see characters who feel bad and actually did something quite horrible. Part of this might come from a fear that if a character has, say, murdered someone or left someone for dead, they will automatically be labelled as “bad” or “villainous”, but the world isn’t so black and white, and sometimes people must choose the better of two evils.
E.g. A ship captain chooses to close off the lowest decks of the ship to prevent it from sinking/gaining more water. By doing so, the captain trapped some of his own crew members, resulting in their deaths. However, he did so to save the rest of his crew, and had he done nothing, everyone would have died.
The decision is obviously a tough one, and by itself, it’s a horrible deed because it’s essentially murder. But in the situation, the captain was not only doing what he thought was best, but he did what he knew would save countless others’ lives by making sacrifices. Or maybe your character just did something that was awful and uncalled for. Maybe they killed someone in cold blood, abandoned a family in need, stole from someone who didn’t deserve it; it’s your characters past, so they’ve changed since then. War is also crazy and affects people in different (and often harsh) ways. Looking into real war stories and the experiences of veterans from all different wars may help give you an idea.
If you really think your character’s backstory might be too cliche, I’d suggest forgoing any backstory that tries to preserve a sense of goodness in your character. Don’t be afraid to let your character be gritty, or make bad decisions or do bad things.
But I also think you could make your current idea work as well. You can always put an interesting twist on it, and if your story takes place during or after a war, or in a world where war is common or other characters were affected by the war, then her backstory makes sense and you could delve into her experience vs. other characters’ experiences with the war.
Mod Carolyn @theories-fans-andwombats
