The Magic of a Good Character Backstory

What Is Backstory?

Backstory is a literary device used to present the history of a character before the events of a story begin. This history shapes their personality, looks, and actions in a fictional world. Every major character needs a defined past to make their story more realistic, relatable, and riveting.

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An Example of Good Backstory Use

Let’s take a look at Katniss Everdeen’s backstory from The Hunger Games. Katniss lives in District 12, the poorest region in her world. Her father passed away in a coal mine accident, which meant her mother could not care for Katniss and her younger sister. As a result, Katniss has spent years looking after her family by hunting for food and selling on the black market, both of which are illegal, to survive. 

This is a strong backstory because it is:

1. Realistic 

Katniss lives in a dystopian world. Following the conventions of this genre, it is realistic that Katniss would have a backstory with small inclusions of rebellion. 

2. Relatable

Everybody has experienced some form of grief. Thus, they could relate to the emotions Katniss feels as a result of her father’s death and the responsibility she must wear as the oldest sibling to fill his shoes.

3. Riveting

Katniss’ past introduces us not only to this unique dystopian world but also to the torment she has suffered her entire life. These two components compel the audience to read on and follow Katniss on her journey. 

Ultimately, without the concept of backstory, the reader will struggle to care about the character’s goals and desires. 

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The Influence of Backstory

There are many aspects to writing a strong plot and character, but if the backstory of your characters is solid, everything else will follow. With that in mind, how does backstory impact other concepts in fiction?

Character Development

For developing characters, we need to know their past experiences to see how they either grow or decline. Once we know where the character was before the story’s events began, we can determine where they will end up. This will make the journey from point A to point B clearer. 

Dialogue

The accent, slang, and quirks in a character’s voice are all affected by their past. This could be influenced by where they lived, who they lived with, societal expectations, the internet, etc. If you can figure out the basic past of your character’s location, family life, and the time they lived in, you can start to write their speech more realistically.

Pacing

When we usually think of pacing, we think about the speed at which a story’s plot moves based on scene length and page count between major plot points. However, when it comes to revealing backstory, you don’t want to give everything away at the start, as this will remove suspense from the fiction and become very info-dumpy. If you spread out the backstory and only refer to small amounts at a time, it will be more believable and digestible. 

Perspective

A narrator’s perception of story events not only helps to reveal backstory, but the more we know about this backstory, the more defined our character perspective will be. For example, if the character was left heartbroken in every relationship they ever had, they might not believe in love. Therefore, their perspective at the beginning of the story should reflect that. This would build upon the psychological realism of that character.

Show, Don’t Tell

The use of emotion is a key element of showing and not telling. The more we know about a character’s history, the more aligned with their emotions we will be. As a result, showing will become easier, leading to a more enjoyable reading experience.

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About the Author

Jessica Price is a third-year English and Creative Writing student at Coventry University in England. She volunteers as a proofreader and obsesses over superheroes and her animal crossing town in her spare time.