Q&A for How to Write a Backstory

Every story is different and not every story needs character backstories. Sometimes all you need to do is hint at the backstory or describe the character and trust the reader to fill in the gaps.

Having one will give your character depth. Backstories help your readers understand more about where the character is coming from.

It depends on the kind of story that you're writing. If it's intended to be dark and gritty and appeal to an older audience, then yes. If you are marketing this to kids or young adults, you may want to be a little gentler with the gory backstory (young adult fiction sort of blurs the line, so use you best judgement about how much to include). Overall, including characters with PTSD helps to diversify your cast and shed light on important mental health issues.

Keep thinking! You'll have to be more creative. If you really want to, you could take someone else's backstory and just change it a little, or combine two of your favorite backstories to make something new.

Use flashbacks. Rather than having a whole dreary paragraph of the events that brought your alien to present day, after certain points include a flashback so the reader/audience can decipher what exactly happened to the character. This will make it more interesting for the reader, as they have to think deeper to understand rather than having been handed the storyline.

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Perhaps a flag she designs could be accepted as the new flag for a nation? That would get her plenty of attention and fame.

No. Many characters are given tragic backstories for the sake of drama, or to make them sympathizable, but backstories can also be happy or just neutral.

An all-happy life may seem idyllic, but without any other emotions, Lora will come across very one-sided and -- boring. If her life is "all happy", where will the conflicts be in the story? How will any other characters interact with Lora? What can she say, besides "Oh, I'm so happy-happy-happy!"

Yes, find your ideas within your own creativity. We don't know your characters and backstories, so we cannot possibly give you ideas for a main plot. We could tell you the plot is a girl dancer wearing ballerina shoes in a play in a Midwest USA middle school.... but your plot is actually a 22 year old street singer in New York City.

Make use of flashbacks. These can be scattered throughout your novel, but make them meaningful and make sure whatever happens during these flashbacks affects them in their current position. Also, place them strategically, so it feels natural.

There's nothing wrong with having a tragic backstory, but it has to be well written. If you don't want your character to have a tragic backstory, then that's okay but you will want to make it interesting. Something that can be really helpful is thinking about whether your character has a secret from their past that they don't want to reveal but will be useful later in the plot. You could also make it interesting by having them have a completely different backstory from everyone around them, or that they meet someone from their past at some point in the story.

This is quite a detailed description and a very good background story for the evil.

What if his mother threw him in tar when he was a child? It’s just an idea. Maybe he sees his mother in people (metaphorically). Or maybe (if you like the “mother throwing him in tar” idea) he has nightmares about drowning in the tar, which gradually progress into showing his mother. The trauma could affect the way he sees others, which could then explain his past.

Here’s an idea; What if she was supposed to be killed when the lab was finished with her, but she instead escaped? Maybe she had no idea what the outside world was like, which would make it a dangerous and foreign place for a girl. And then, she has to lay low as the government searches for her. Maybe she takes refuge in someone’s home, and develops a bond with the person(s). And perhaps her mission becomes something bigger than running.

Make it similar to creating a backstory for an unpossessed girl. But since you can’t exactly make her backstory affect who she is when the story begins, try to make it relatable and perhaps a little tragic. The tragedy of her past will make readers really feel for her, even though she may be possessed. Perhaps her past-self was sweet and innocent, and the possession is trying to imitate that to fool those around her. You could almost treat it like you would another character’s backstory.

The age is definitely something to keep in mind when creating a backstory. If you’re aiming for a children’s book, make sure it’s appropriate for the age group. Moving on, I’d like to address the common difference in children’s books; they tend to lack backstories. The reason I say this is because they almost always begin with the backstory. J.K Rowling’s “Harry Potter“, for example, starts with Harry’s “backstory” which, in this case, is his everyday “normal” life. So, a backstory at all would be unique.

It’s best when the villain doesn’t see themselves as a villain. They may have selfish desires, but let’s face it, everyone thinks themselves to be right at some point in their lifetime—even if they aren’t. Perhaps the villain’s plan was developed from their backstory. For example, the creature’s home-dimension banished them due to a mistake they made—which then introduces their plan, example, to take over another dimension. There’s really no wrong or right when creating a backstory, but they’re best when they affect a character’s motives.

You could sneak it in with the way they see things; how they look at wealth and fame, violence and kindness, people (children, teens, babies etc. do they often empathize with them?), etc. Their backstory should also effect the way they trust and bond. In my work-in-progress novel, my character was raised by a father who favored his sibling, and so, he’s kind of the lone-wolf type. Although, he still (in the back of his head) looks for a father-like-figure in those around him. I’ve also seen some authors dedicate pages to memories, so they can quite clearly delve deeper into a character’s past.

Give them a reason to be so revengeful. Make sure their backstory resonates with the character they are when the story starts. And make it a relatable reason to readers. Here’s some ideas; maybe when they were a child, there was a break-in (or some sort of raid, depending on the genre) and their sibling (or parent, cousin, etc.) was killed but they were left alive. Or, perhaps they’re special in some way (if it fits your genre), and others are afraid to, can’t, or won’t hurt them because of their gift or deformity. Whatever you decide, make sure you sneak hints of their past throughout your novel(s).

"Mary Sue" is a very vague, unhelpful concept. There's no real definition behind it, and it's not something to get caught up in worrying about. If your character's backstory makes sense with both their narrative and the rest of the story, there's nothing to worry about when it comes to "Mary Sue".

You can try to work against the trope. The trope is that characters with traumatic backstories are often unpleasant and cruel people. My love interest character had a hard past, and he's one of the sweetest guys my protagonist has ever met, so that's one of flipping it. For yours, perhaps give the troubled character a bland, middle class upbringing in which nothing ever happened, exciting or awful, everything was just always the same, always ordinary.

You go into as much detail as you need. Depth helps a character feel more human and relatable, but don't let yourself get bogged down with unnecessary facts. Go into detail on the things that are relevant to the story, and leave out the parts that don't have anything to do with it.

Kids' cartoons can be surprisingly dark. As many cartoons show, even death is a fairly common theme in children's media. They key is to not be explicit or gratuitous. Establish the backstory that you want to tell, then work with the parts that would be upsetting or inappropriate for a child. You can have a dark story, but you want to tell the story in a way that will be more entertaining than miserable.