When you're creating your characters, you have to build them up and to do that you have to know a lot about them. Sometimes the things you know are inconsequential and likely to come up once and never again. Other times the things are the bits that great scenes are built upon.
It's easier to give you examples than to explain it. I'll give you two examples that I think were done well.
(1) Harry Potter and (2) The Throne of Glass series.
Search your memories (if you've read them). If you're familiar with Harry Potter, then you know about the feud that Severus Snape had with James Potter. It was legendary. We heard about these moments through lots of characters before we actually saw it ourselves.
When the moment came, it was through Snape's own memories that we discovered the truth. James was horrible to Severus and while the memory was one-sided, it was easy to see where the hatred began. Even Harry is horrified by his father's actions and for once pities Snape. But would it have made as much as an impact if we hadn't gotten hints of this before? Most likely yes but, for readers, the story is enhanced by these dropped tidbits.
Now, for the Throne of Glass series, there are many mentions of things that we don't see in the main novels. However, Sarah J. Maas does not disappoint. Instead, she wrote The Assassin's Blade which is a collection of short stories. Celaena had made mention of her journey to the Red Desert and her stay with the Silent Assassins, but then we got to see it. She told us of rescuing two hundred slaves, but then we got to live the adventure alongside her. We knew how important Sam was to her and then we got to know him and love him as well.
Maas managed to bring those stories to life, which had been mere sentences in the scope of her novels. Maas does this so well that each of those stories adds to the later books and explains how things were stirring years ago in Erilea before the main story takes place. That is incredible planning and forethought, because every figure had some importance and every story brought more of the world to life.
This is what I want to add to my own writing because it takes a lot of skill and thought. You have to know your story and world well enough to know that there are events that don't take place during the main events of your novel (or novels as the case may be). These events are still important, but there may not be space to include them in the detail that they deserve.
I'm working on building a world this in-depth and understanding the origins of my characters from their rough childhoods to their rocky adolescence. Why rough and rocky? Let's just say that these characters have had their share of struggles and very little about their lives has ever been easy or happy. So that's where I'm at right now.. I'll keep developing my writing and techniques, and I'll definitely keep reading, because otherwise I wouldn't learn so much.
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