The best characters feel so three-dimensional that we think of them almost as real people. This happens when writers make the effort to formulate clear backstories for the characters: these characters don’t fall onto the page as blank puppets; they’ve experienced traumas and triumphs, feats and failures.
When you create backstories for your characters, it helps your reader understand their motivation, and makes your key plot points logically acceptable. This is why it’s crucial that you learn to write great backstories.
What Is a Character Backstory?
First, let’s define some terms. A character backstory refers to the character’s history, which goes back to way before he or she appears on page. This background informs what happens in the main narrative, because it gives the reason why the character acts as he or she does.
According to Lisa Cron of Story Genius, the backstory tells the what that happened in your character’s life, and these explain the why of your character’s motivations. It also gives us a glimpse into the why not, or the major fears and obstacles that keep him from getting what he wants so badly.
As a writer, you can write character backstories as part of your worldbuilding process. This lets you conjure up fully-formed characters who have distinct personalities, nuances, and actually resemble real, living, breathing people!
How Do You Develop a Character’s Backstory?
Here are some important tips to help you write compelling backstories for your characters:
1. Build a timeline for your character’s life.
This doesn’t have to include every itty-bitty detail; instead, create a timeline showing key events in your character’s past. For example, what were they like in school? What was his favorite memory in school? When did his father die? How many foster families did they go through?
Other questions can be: When did they first fall in love? When did they get married? How many years later did they get their first divorce?
These major life events can direct the trajectory of your character’s life, and it also helps you understand your characters better.
2. Brainstorm ideas for your character’s past experiences.
Explore different possibilities for your character’s past through brainstorming. For example, if your character is a greedy, selfish person, what could have made him that way? Was it a childhood that was swamped in lack and neglect, and needing to survive? Was it an experience of betrayal?
Brainstorm different possible scenarios and choose the ones that make the most sense for your character.
3. Keep your backstory details relevant.
Although it can be fun to include random details in your character’s personal history, the only ones you really need are those that are relevant to your plot point.
For example, if your character had a scary experience being chased by a dog but it doesn’t impact anything in your storyline, you won’t need to include it. But if your plot includes a scene where your character needs to face up to her fear of dogs in order to succeed, it makes sense to include this in the backstory.
4. Write standalone scenes to describe these past experiences.
In Story Genius, Kron encourages writers to write a full-length scene showing the turning points in a character’s life.
She refers to these as the scenes that cement the character’s “misbelief.” For example, if a character struggles with a constant feeling of rejection, you might write a scene where she was bullied as a child in a new school.
5. Look to real life for inspiration.
Writing fiction doesn’t mean you can’t be inspired by real people. Author L.M. Montgomery, who wrote the bestselling classic Anne of Green Gables, talks about how her father, Hugh Montgomery, came to Canada from Scotland, originally intending to sail to Quebec.
His wife’s seasickness forced them to stop on the shore of Prince Edward Island, where the poor woman put her foot down and refused to leave. The author uses this story in her later trilogy, Emily of New Moon, to describe the way that Emily’s ancestors came to New Moon.
Real life is rife with stories that you can use for your character’s backstories. Think about turning points in your own life, or the lives of your friends and family. Read biographies and pay attention to important events that change lives.
6. Show, don’t tell.
This is perhaps the golden rule of writing, but it may be more difficult to apply in sharing characters’ backstories. How do you “show” something that happened in the past instead of having some characters talk about it?
One way of doing this is by using flashbacks, which are triggered by events in the present time. This gives you tangible pictures of how that event affected your character. Just remember not to info-dump, or talk too much about past memories that are no longer related to the present event.
7. Unveil backstory wisely.
Although you want your readers to understand why your characters act the way they do, be wise in revealing parts of their past.
This means that you shouldn’t unload all their backstory in the first chapter, or any one part for that matter.
Pace yourself in unveiling these details from your characters’ pasts. Revealing these details only at relevant points makes for a more compelling read.
Do All Characters Need Backstory?
The short answer is no, you don’t need a backstory for all your characters; minor characters can just walk in and out of a scene without you needing to understand all their motivations.
But, you do need to understand the motivations, fears, and struggles of your main characters, so it’s a good idea to map those details out ahead of time.
Writing Compelling Character Backstories
Creating believable, logical, and effective character backstories takes time and practice. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If needed, scrap those that don’t work and create others to take their place.
The more you do this, the clearer you will understand cause and effect in life and in the fictional world, and this can help you write more believable, relatable stories that people will love and remember.
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- 60 Questions to Ask Your Characters
- The Audience Surrogate: Characters That Represent the Audience
- The Idiot Plot: Why Characters Often Make Dumb Decisions
- How to Write Character Flaws: The Importance of Imperfect Characters
Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
