[Solved] Background - School Years

As I was writing the background for my character sheet, I found that my momentum slowed when I started on the school years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we need to write at least a paragraph for each year?

If that's so, what would you recommend for focuses in these paragraphs? I just don't want to fall into a rut of mentioning similar things repeatedly.

Thank you! 

Hi and welcome, Britney! I'm Olivia. =]

A short paragraph will usually do the trick! What I usually go for are the following;
-- Mentioning canon events and how they affected Brooke/ how she responded to them.
-- Talking to other drivers to work out connections with their characters, which you can then write into her history.
-- Any classes that give/gave her grief or that she found she had a knack for. Definitely mention this in First Year but you can revisit this as well for Third Year elective classes, O.W.L./N.E.W.T. choices, etc.
-- Any family events - siblings coming to/ graduating from Hogwarts, etc.
-- Clubs or activities that she joined or started.

I know I'm forgetting some, but those are usually the main ones I go with! Plotting with other drivers is one of my favorites because you can come up with things for multiple years with the same pair of characters. ^^ For instance, my Keela and TaylorC's Terry became friends early in school, then went through a period in Third/Fourth Year where Terry was jealous of Keela for making their House Quidditch team, which ultimately led to a huge argument (and resolution) this year and will end up dating haha.

Hello Britney, welcome to MH! I'm [tay]Taylor[/tay], one of the admins here and it's super awesome to have you in our community ^^

I took a look at Brooke's current sheet in your sandbox and Olivia's list of prompts should start you off nicely! Seeing as how she's already 23, what happened during Potions class in her second year probably isn't as important as how she got her first job. Instead, try to touch more on things that impact her character growth and/or future (going by Brooke's case, you can mention things like when did she start realising she wanted to become a magizoologist, did she find someone to mentor her, what were some struggles she faced etc). Some drivers also lump a few years of history together when nothing particularly exciting happened, so if there's a lull in Brooke's history anywhere you can do that as well. It doesn't have to be super long or ultra detailed, so don't stress yourself out over that!
If you have more questions feel free to send me a PM anytime

Wow, thank you two very much! That's a lot of super helpful advice. I think that maybe when I got down to the history of her school years that my brain was ready to take a hiatus from all of the brainstorming I was doing. Ha-ha!

But all of your advice makes perfect sense now that I've taken a short break from writing it.

I was going to ask about the canon events. I wasn't sure if you preferred we mention them to follow things more closely or not. For instance, if she were attending when all of the drama went down. Obviously that is something important to mention. I'd have to do the math on what happened in what years, unless y'all have a guide for that? And determine her involvement or lack thereof accordingly.

Also, I would love to reach out to other drivers and see if any of them would be interested in tying storylines together. How would I go about doing that?

Thanks again! I really appreciate it.

Hahaha history tends to be overwhelming sometimes, I've had to stop on several occasions and do something else before I drove myself crazy xD There's no rush! Take your time and when the muse is right, it'll flow~

To be honest it all depends on how much the canon events would impact your character. We have members going into great detail on how they reacted to each event, but we also have members who mention everything in passing. Although as a general guideline I don't think the Sorcerer's stone is as important as the BoH, and the opening of the Chamber of Secrets would probably be less of a thing to worry if your character isn't muggleborn, things like that.

As for the timeline with other MH events I believe we have one in the works, but I'm not really the admin in charge of that x___x There are certain site events that happened and I would love to fill you in on them but I'm half asleep right now and am practically useless. I'm sure another driver will be here in no time though!

The sandbox is normally where most of us make character connections! I believe someone has already posted in yours, and you can of course post in other members' sandboxes as well ^^

Hope that helped!

It certainly can be overwhelming! Ha-ha.

I'll spend some time considering the canon then. I hadn't mentioned anything so far, but we'll see.

Also, no worries about filling me in. I'm sure I'll be lurking about the forums reading about various things after Brooke gets sorted. And yes, someone did post in my sandbox, and I have to admit that I'm pretty excited!

Also, do you know if there is a Timeline showing what happened in Hogwarts in what years? I.E.: The BoH, and approximately what year that happened? The others as well. That would be very helpful as a reference point.

Sorry for all the questions.. Lol. I'm a thorough type person.

I have a semi-master timeline in my sandbox if you want to reference that! I'm super thorough myself and love timelines haha. If you check out my Ben's sheet, you'll see an example of a super-detailed sheet with regard to canon events haha. Offhand, the Battle of Hogwarts was May 2, 1998. ^^ I can help you figure out what events happened when in Brooke's life if you'd like! Feel free to send me a PM - I'll drop you a line in your sandbox now as well. =]

Well, I'm seeing this as I see that you've posted to my sandbox. I'm going to scoot on over there.

Thank you again for your advice.