How To Craft a Compelling Backstory for Your Novel and Keep Track of It!
What is backstory and why does it matter?
If you consider a story to be one large event that creates an irreversible change, then it must have a beginning to have an end. It must start from somewhere and be in a particular state to experience said change, and there must be a reason for that initial state of being.
That reason, my friend, is the backstory.
Backstory refers to experiences and events that occur before the story starts. These events shape your characters: Their motivations, current circumstances, and the world the reader will encounter in the story. Think of backstory as the untold history of your characters. It’s like the foundation of a building: invisible, but crucial for the structure’s stability.
I like to refer to the backstory as the story before the story. The backstory is everything relevant that brings us to the moment in time when our story begins, and it informs our characters’ desires, fears, actions, and reactions.
Why does backstory matter?
Crafting a compelling backstory is essential to creating realistic characters with motivations and complex problems the reader will relate to. It will also go a long way in preventing plot holes, writing yourself into corners, and getting stuck in the manuscript because you don’t know what should happen next.
Think of it this way: you are who you are and want what you want at this moment in time because of your past. Your characters, their problems, and the worlds they inhabit are no different.
Case in point:
Can you imagine reading The Hunger Games without understanding why Katniss is such a guarded character or why the Games matter politically and personally to the communities of Panem? Would you buy her volunteering as a tribute if you didn’t understand her motivation: she believes taking care of her little sister is all on her shoulders? Would the fact that she volunteers be as impactful if we didn’t know how the Reaping works or the Games themselves?
The short answer to all of those questions is no. No, we wouldn’t get it. It wouldn’t move us, and we’d struggle with the logic. But because the first chapter delivers enough relevant backstory, we care and become invested in this world and this character.
Backstory answers the WHY questions: Why are we here, and why do we care?
If backstory is all the relevant things that happened to your characters and the world they live in before the main story starts, then the story present happens between page one and the end of the book.
Imagine a timeline where you plot out the action of the story. You must decide when this story will begin, and everything else leading up to that point becomes the backstory.
Depending on the worldbuilding and the type of story, writers often need to know a great deal of backstory that will never actually make it into the draft. It’s like an iceberg…it’s enormous, and you know it’s there, but you only see the tip poking through the water.
It can be frustrating and overwhelming to feel like you need to know so much, so it’s crucial to be able to mine the past for the specifics that will have the most significant impact on your story present.
Components of Backstory and How to Decide What to Examine:
We don’t need to know just any type of backstory. We need to dig for what is relevant to our story’s present and what will serve the conflict of our plot.
So you probably don’t need to know what type of experience your character had in the third grade, why their favorite color is blue, or what happened on their very first date unless those things will impact your story present in some way that moves the story forward.
These are the golden rules of developing a “relevant” backstory:
It must contribute to the character’s identity (externally and internally) - who they are and how they view themselves at the story’s beginning.
It must influence the character’s actions, reactions, and behaviors in the story present.
It should create conflict or obstacles for your character in the story present. This is how the past is biting them in the ass.
Specific Backstory Components to Consider:
Characters - Their motivations, actions, and reactions. Who are they, and why are they like that when we meet them in the story? What do they want, and why do they want it? What do they value and why? What do they fear and why?
Relationships - What has linked characters together or torn them apart?
Situation - What has occurred in the world of the story to create the situation the protagonist is facing at the start of the story?
Events - The major events that shaped the characters, their relationships, the situation, and the history of the Story Present world.
Backstory Specific to Character Development:
As I said earlier, characters are who they are when we meet them on page one because of their past, which has shaped them. Your character’s past will inform their attitude, attributes, and personality, as well as their desires, fears, and values, which will inform their voice, interiority, and thoughts.
Their past will give you their identity: who they believe they are and how they present themselves to others.
So consider the significant events in their childhood, formative years, and the recent past that have led to their current circumstances.
Knowing your character’s backstory will help inform the arc of change you want them to have in the story present: the version of themselves they will become because of the lessons they learn or ignore in the story’s present.
Consider the assumptions, misconceptions, and expectations they have in the story present. How did they develop those? Where and when did they start, and how did they evolve over the characters’ lives to where we meet them on page one? From that, what related internal and external obstacles may stand in their way and why?
For more on character development and arcs of change, read How To Construct a Character Arc Your Readers Will Love.
Tools to Help You Manage Backstory:
A cast of characters list:
Create a list of your characters that includes their primary desire and motivation for achieving it, what secrets they keep and why they keep them, where they live, and how they came to live there. What do they value and believe about themselves and the world at the beginning of the story? What do they most fear and why? Understand the roots of their assumptions, misconceptions, and expectations in the story present.
A backstory timeline:
Most of us create timelines for our story present to help us keep track of the events the protagonist will face and how those events propel them to take action, but you can also use this tool to help manage the backstory.
Consider plotting out the major events of the character’s life before the story begins.
For when you get frustrated—because you will.
Stories are epic, complex, evolving things. There’s a lot to consider and keep track of, and the backstory takes time to develop.
Even if you do all the upfront work to develop a solid backstory, sometimes you’ll have to stop mid-draft and rework pieces of the past to align the logic and desires of the present. All fine. All normal. It’s impossible to know every single detail about the story before you start to write, so think of developing backstory as something that evolves and builds on itself as you write your draft, and when you have to change something that impacts a bunch of other things in the story—it’s okay. You’ll figure it out. 😉
If you’re stuck and don’t know what happens next, consider examining your backstory logic. Nine times out of ten, the solution to the problem you are facing in the story present is rooted in what came before because that’s where the actual problem began. Don’t be afraid to stop writing and examine your characters’ logic, wants, and motivations from a previous moment.
Takeaways:
The backstory creates your characters and the world they exist in. It contains your characters’ motivations and desires and directly impacts the conflict they face in the story.
Mine your character’s past for relevant backstory components: Character (traits/personality, desires, motivation, values, and beliefs), Relationships, Situations, and Events that affected them and the world around them.
Remember the rules of creating a relevant backstory:
It must contribute to the character’s identity (externally and internally) - who they are and how they view themselves at the story’s beginning.
It must influence the character’s actions, reactions, and behaviors in the story present.
It should create conflict or obstacles for your character in the story present. This is how the past is biting them in the ass.
Keep track of your backstory using a cast of characters sheet and an events timeline.
Don’t be afraid to stop mid-draft and examine your backstory to see if something needs to change to align with the logic in the story present. This is normal. Try to be flexible.
In our next craft chat, we’ll discuss the different ways to weave “relevant” backstory in your draft to avoid info dumping, explaining, or bogging the story down with flashbacks.
