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Stories are part of human nature. We started on cave walls using simple paints, moved on to clay tablets, then parchment, and finally, in modern times, an LED screen. Technology changed how we write stories, but one thing that has remained consistent is our love for characters. Whether they are heroes or villains, shallow or deeply philosophical, they can help explore themes that resonate with the human condition. A character’s past relationships, ethnicity, creeds, and deeply held beliefs provide a framework for the audience to understand a character’s motivations, flaws, and actions. Thus, crafting a compelling backstory for your characters is essential. Below are explanations of character backstories and a numbered list of techniques to consider for developing your characters.

What Makes a Compelling Backstory?

A character’s backstory is not just a list of past events. It is a comprehensive history that serves as the foundation of their present-day personality, motivations, and actions. A compelling backstory separates a mundane plot device from a complex real person.

Key Elements of a Compelling Character Backstory:

• Character motivations: Both conscious and unconscious.
  • What makes your character act? What do they want, and conversely, what do they truly need? What do they actively avoid?
• Formative experiences: Key life events, traumas, and triumphs
  • All of these come together to mold a character’s view of the world around them.
• Significant relationships: Encompassing family, friends, rivals, mentors, and romantic interests
  • These elements influence a character’s beliefs and the choices they make.
• Ethical Beliefs: A character’s values, faith, and convictions guide actions and interactions.
  • Knowing these factors helps develop how your character will act when facing tough moral dilemmas. Using a character’s beliefs against them makes plot conflicts personal. The story may challenge a character’s beliefs, leading to personal growth and change over time.
• Character Flaws and Weaknesses: The Imperfections and Inner Conflicts.
  • Flaws and weaknesses add another relatable layer to your characters. Superficial flaws, such as balding, nail-biting, or wearing socks with holes, are generally uninteresting and often serve as scapegoats; imperfections should have a narrative impact. 

By focusing on these key elements, you can begin thinking about your characters and what information you have neglected or did not know to develop. As you go through your revision process, make a list of areas that need improvement.

Why Backstory Is Crucial: Unlocking Character Depth and Narrative Power

A well-developed backstory enhances character depth and provides a foundation for character development. 

• Enhancing Character Depth: Backstory adds layers.
  • Think of Shrek. He’s not just an ogre. He’s a man who looks different from everyone around him. His loneliness and societal dejection led to an angry exterior. He plans to scare you away before you acquire the chance to hurt him. Throughout the story, he discovers love and community, allowing him to become the loving individual he aspires to be. This depth makes him more relatable and engaging. The writers do not include a scene explaining these ideas. They are inferred and implied, or hidden gems you have to ponder on your own. 
• Driving Character Development: Backstory explains how characters react to external and internal stimuli. Their behavioral change arises as they shift their focus from the past to the future. Altered behaviors can also lead to negative character development.
  • Darth Vader, who started as a noble Jedi and evolved into the Lord of the Sith, lived in pain and misery (until his redemption, of course). 
• Propelling Plot Dynamics: The characters drive the plot. Their backstory explains what decisions they will make and why.
  • It would make no sense if Sherlock Holmes entered a crime scene with a bloody weapon on the floor and cameras in every corner of the room. But instead of investigating, he said, “No clues. Looks like a cold case.” 
  • Or you could think of Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Aang lived as an Air Nomad and learned the important lesson that he should not take a life. Many would have used bending to kill the Fire Nation, but Aang’s spirit bending in the final hour is thematically impactful.
• Improving Audience Engagement: When audiences understand the roots of a character’s actions, they become more endearing.
  • For example, in Fullmetal Alchemist. Edward and Alphonse attempt human transmutation. Throughout the plot, this intense trauma shapes the decisions they make. 

When crafting your character, account for the journey you plan for them. Incorporate their history and its influence on decision-making and the surrounding world.

Crafting Effective Backstories: Techniques for Writers

Having discussed the importance of character backstory, let’s now explore how to create it.

Techniques for Developing Compelling Backstories

Here are several techniques that writers can use to craft effective character backstories:

1. Building a Timeline of Key Life Events: This method involves creating a chronological account of the character’s life. Mapping out significant events helps you understand their impact and emotional distance. A car crash three years ago that resulted in minor injuries may be considered less traumatic than an accident that occurred two months ago. Conversely, if the accident killed the character’s parents when they were a child, they may have lifelong fears.
   • Example: A timeline might include events such as the loss of a pet, a childhood friendship, a betrayal, or a life-altering decision. Analyze each event for its impact on the character’s development.

2. Using Character Questionnaires and Profiles: Questionnaires can assist writers to flesh out every facet of their character. Questionnaires often include prompts about a character’s family, childhood, beliefs, fears, goals, and significant life events. Detailed character profiles can span multiple pages. I struggle with character profiles and rarely use them; however, I want to use them more often and will make it a goal of mine.
   • Example: A character questionnaire might ask, “What is your character’s greatest fear?” Or perhaps, “What event in their childhood had the most significant impact?” A profile might detail their relationships with family members, educational background, and professional history.
3. Exploring the Character’s “Wound” and “Lie”: This addresses a character’s trauma and the misconceptions formed from canonical events. A character’s “wound” originates from an event that caused significant psychological or emotional pain. These can manifest in many ways: phobias, knee-jerk thinking, or unconscious actions like leaning away from people. This wound can lead to an “inner obstacle” or a core “lie”—a false belief formulated about themselves or the world to rationalize their painful experience.
   • Example: A character abandoned as a child might develop abandonment issues, which then lead to the belief, “I am unlovable.” This lie could manifest as a fear of intimacy and a tendency to push people away.

4. Establishing “Want” and “Need”: This technique distinguishes between a character’s external desires and internal requirements for growth. A character’s “want” is often a tangible goal. A want may be an item, a promotion, a new job, or a car they believe will solve their problems. When their “lie” creates this goal, it can have powerful thematic implications and character development.
   • Example: A character might want wealth, power, or acceptance, believing those equate to love. However, their “need” might be to overcome their insecurity and learn to love themselves. 
5. Drawing Inspiration from Real Life: This technique involves observing real people with experiences of personal interest. Ethically, utilize these moments as a case study to understand how “lies” develop. Paying attention to how individuals explain formative events. Take the time to study biographies or memoirs. You could also speak to the people in your life.
   • Example: A writer might draw inspiration from a friend who thought people were always selfish. The “lie” stemmed from a childhood of people who stole from them. 

These techniques are not exhaustive; they are merely a selection. If you have a different process, that is perfectly acceptable. We all have our unique methods for character crafting.

Showing vs. Telling Backstory: A Guide for Writers

How a writer reveals a character’s history is as important as the history itself. The principal idea, “show, don’t tell,” comes into play. And in most cases, it works rather well. But sometimes “telling” is the correct choice. However, in this post, we’ll focus on how to “show” backstories in engaging ways.

Techniques for Showing Backstory

Here are several effective methods for showing backstory:

1. Character Behavior and Choices: A character’s actions and decisions provide small windows into past experiences. By observing how a character behaves in the present, readers can infer the past events that have shaped their personality and worldview.
   • Example: A character who consistently avoids intimacy might be revealing a past of betrayal or abandonment.
2. Dialogue Hints and Exchanges: Subtly weaving hints about the past into casual remarks or significant conversations can provide valuable context. Dialogue can divulge past relationships, traumas, or pivotal moments in a character’s life.
   • Example: Mentioning a past conflict with a family member or a recurring nightmare can allude to deeper unresolved issues.
3. Internal Monologue and Memories: Granting readers access to a character’s inner thoughts through internal monologue or narration can work. This technique allows writers to reveal a character’s past without interrupting the present-day narrative.
   • Example: A character’s internal reflection on a past mistake or a vivid memory of a childhood event can provide crucial backstory information.

4. Judicious Use of Flashbacks: Dramatized scenes of the past can allow the audience to see the event and come up with the character’s “lie” through empathy. Flashbacks can reveal pivotal moments, but overuse can disrupt the narrative flow and diminish its impact.
   • Example: A flashback depicting a character’s first encounter with their nemesis.
5. Intentional Connotations: By carefully using words and their suggestive meanings, you could reveal what a character thinks about topics without outright stating beliefs.
   • When a character describes a man, he could say, “A tall man with a long beard like a wizard.” This dialogue creates a somewhat naive character with a sense of humor. Conversely, a character could say, “The man was possibly 6 feet 7 inches tall with a grimy, ungroomed beard.” This character has reservations about facial grooming and a detective-type flourish, stating a possible height. 
   • The use of keywords within character dialogue shows history. The average person may say “dictionary.” Someone with higher education or understanding of a subject may use “lexicon.” Vernacular is also worth mentioning. In Massachusetts, it’s not a drinking fountain; it’s a bubbler. In the American South, it’s not a side dish; it’s some fixins. 

6. Symbolic Imagery and Subtext: Using symbolic imagery and subtext can convey key backstory elements without explicit exposition or narration. This technique allows writers to layer meaning and hint at past events through subtle cues and recurring symbols.
   • Example: A recurring motif, like flowers, causes the character to remember the death of their best friend.
7. Strategic Information Release: In most cases, avoiding info dumps is crucial. Famously, Star Wars starts with exposition, so this is not a hard-and-fast rule. A writer should strategically spread backstory information throughout the story. By carefully pacing the release of backstory information, writers can maintain reader engagement and create a sense of mystery and intrigue.
   • Example: Instead of revealing a character’s complete history in the first chapter, a writer might reveal key details as the character faces challenges or interacts with other characters.

Mastering the art of presenting backstory expands your toolkit, offering numerous possibilities. These techniques enable the past to influence the present, shaping characters whose actions, motivations, and relationships propel the plot.

Conclusion

A backstory is often vital for crafting compelling characters. Some notable characters defy the ideas in this post. However, utilizing these elements can help you create a character that transcends the page. It can also be difficult to keep track of these elements. I use Scrivener to house all of my character profiles. Editing and structuring timelines for your character is simple with folders. You could write a separate page for each topic we’ve discussed and organize them by character. Here is my affiliate link https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener-affiliate.html?fpr=polyprose. I can’t recommend it enough. Try the free version, and I’m sure you’ll quickly wonder how you ever managed to write anything without it. I would love to hear your favorite characters and their backstories. What characters are you working on, and has this blog post influenced your project?