My Netflix addiction this year is Once Upon a Time. My adult crush on the Evil Queen notwithstanding, I have good reasons to follow OUAT. Primarily, for a deeper understanding of backstory.

Yes, it’s a dirty word. So heavily shunned in writing circles that most of us don’t bother to put it in writing. I fear this has resulted in some shallow characters, especially villains.

The villains of OUAT are, in no particular order, The Evil Queen, Rumpelstiltsken, Peter Pan (yes, really), Captain Hook, The Wicked Witch, Cora, and a smattering of others, with no regard to compatible story lines.

What keeps me coming back for more is that the writers gave each of these villains a backstory, told with well-placed flashbacks. And guess what? All those villains began as good people. They had hopes and dreams. Families. They fell in love. And then…something went tragically wrong.

In a classic “state the theme” moment in season three, the Evil Queen (Regina), says to the Wicked Witch, that “evil is not born, it’s made, the same is true of good.”

Yes, I cheered.

But those clever writers didn’t stop there. Not only did they reveal the tragic pasts of the villains, they revealed the speck of darkness that lives within the “good” characters. Yes, even Snow White has her skeletons. In the cleverest of backstory reveals, we find that it was the child Snow White who got Regina’s true love killed, resulting in the feud that has lasted for hundreds of years in children’s books.

I recommend you give season one a look if you have access. The characters alone are worth a study. Especially since these are characters we’ve all grown up with and know—or think we know—inside and out.

What about your villains? What were they before their hearts turned black? What event or events turned them? And your perfect “Snow White” heroine? Surely there’s a skeleton in her closet.

If you want to write your own Once Upon a Time and give it a width and depth that goes far beyond the borders of your novel, dig deep into your characters’ pasts. If you can’t love and cry for your villain, you haven’t dug deep enough.

And, by the way, if you see an Evil Queen, give her a hug. She’s been through a lot.

~*~

Ron Estrada writes young adult and middle grade fiction for all ages. He can be found at RonEstradaBooks.com. The first of his young adult series will be released soon. There may be some supernatural stuff happening. He can’t help it. The real world is just too limiting for him.