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Please help with back story development for characters

Greetings, fellow scribes

I wonder if any of you would be so kind as to provide some advice on how best to create some back story ideas of your characters that help shape them into the adults they one day will be (not necessarily main protagonists!) I understand that this exercise is meant to influence them as adults in terms of how they react or even act (or don’t react or act) in the story.

I am doing an exercise where I need to come up with five experiences my character went through as a child/youngster and I came up with some good ones at first but now I am wondering if one really needs to do five? I feel the further along I went the more ridiculous watered down they seemed. Aren’t a few better than many?
 

bdcharles

Minstrel
Try writing a passage where one of your characters - their younger selves if you like - is in some situation or other. Doesn't matter what it is, or if it is relevant to their world. Just put them in it and chronicle what they do.
 

WooHooMan

Auror
Backstories are an explanation. Specifically, they should explain the origin of your character’s goals, motivation, strengths and weaknesses.
So ask yourself “why is X my character’s goal?” or “why would my character care about Y?”

Don’t worry too much about making the backstory super compelling, intriguing, complex or exciting. That’s what the main story is for.
 
Yeah, that’s what I figured (main story). I will play around with less intriguing back stories for my characters - it is less stressful that way anyway. Would rather keep the gems for the greater story anyway. Thanks!
 
I might try considering which stories the character tells about himself. Not the stories he tells to others, necessarily, but the stories he tells to himself when he's alone, perhaps in bed trying to go to sleep after a very stressful day or maybe at a wedding or funeral for a person he only somewhat knows.

I don't know how well this may work for a character, but I do know this is something I do all the time in my own life. I suspect that the remembered stories — events filtered through memory — will have a common thematic element or motif for your character regardless of how different those events are. I suspect a person remembers some factual details only and casts those in a certain skewed light or tone. In any case, if he carries them with him still, that's a sure sign they were periods in life that hold a strong influence on him even now.
 

Insolent Lad

Maester
It does not matter whether the experiences you might choose to write about are 'important' or traumatic or even shape the character that much. They can just be an investigation of who they are. Simple things, like the first boy or girlfriend. A favorite memory of a parent or grandparent. Some kid they disliked for some reason (but investigate that reason). A place they lived. These will tell you how they might react or feel about things down the line.

On the other hand, I'll admit to having written little erotic back-story tales about a few of my characters. Not much more revealing than that.
 
All of my major players have a backstory. It may or may not end up in the main work, but *I* the author know where their dreams, nightmares and ambitions truly lie.

As for what to write about, well... not every one's life is dramatic or remarkable from their own perspective. An exercise that has worked well for me, is writing an event where they (the MCs) performed an act of simple kindness to a stranger, or not. You can create a simple scenario: a horse cart broken down on the side of the road, and trying to undertake simple repairs is a very frail old man. Your character happens upon this scene while walking home. What does your character do?
After you've written that, write about your character in the same scene from the perspective of the frail old man.

Start with a simple biography too, if that helps. Parents, siblings, social status, etc. Make a questionaire of seemingly random things for your character to answer. For example, Why is X your favorite color? Blue, for it reminds this Character of her mother's spirited eyes when she'd be cutting flowers in the garden.

Start with a simple Bio, a quick questionaire, and a random happenstance they can react to at whatever time frame seems important. If you just want a bit of room to run and play with ideas, that's a great starting line.

Now, many of my characters' backstories have to be a bit more refined, as some in my WIP have their backstories become immensely important to the plot. But, if you're not sure that's your primay goal, just have fun with it.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
If it's an exercise, there's no such thing as too many. Write ten and forget about them. There's no threshold for how many are helpful for improving your skills here.

Inside your story it all kind of depends. Some people naturally think about their past more than others. That's especially true for someone who learns a lot through doing, like, say, a farmer whose home town was destroyed....

The thing is, there's another word for "a simple, watered down moment".... I'm probably borrowing from Heliotrope, I think, but she's hardly alone. The word is intimate. The grand backstories are great, but also they're big plot points. The small moments matter.

I was watching The Dragon Prince recently on Netflix, and I noticed something in particular while I was watching it. I thought the small intimate moments were boring. And there were lots of them. I wasn't impressed. But when they were over, and things got back to the big plot events, I also realized that I cared so much more about the characters because of those of boring intimate moments between the characters. If I wasn't thinking about it I wouldn't even have realized why.

In a novel, the same is true with the intimate backstory moments the character just remembers for a few lines before the story goes on. She learned to count by watching her father the orchard hand sort good plums from bad? Just one line like that, even if it's boring in a plotty, backstory way, makes the character feel more real, and the readers care a little more.
 
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Miles Lacey

Archmage
Sometimes people (real or fictional) can be influenced by something they witnessed rather than experienced. Watching Pacific Islanders playing a game called four square then suddenly turning on one another in a brutal punch-up just because someone used a throw-away remark that someone else took exception to. Watching a vigilante mob chase someone down the street and beat them up on the basis of an accusation. Seeing a family living in a particular house suddenly disappear one night and no one will tell them why they disappeared.
 
All of my major players have a backstory. It may or may not end up in the main work, but *I* the author know where their dreams, nightmares and ambitions truly lie.

As for what to write about, well... not every one's life is dramatic or remarkable from their own perspective. An exercise that has worked well for me, is writing an event where they (the MCs) performed an act of simple kindness to a stranger, or not. You can create a simple scenario: a horse cart broken down on the side of the road, and trying to undertake simple repairs is a very frail old man. Your character happens upon this scene while walking home. What does your character do?
After you've written that, write about your character in the same scene from the perspective of the frail old man.

Start with a simple biography too, if that helps. Parents, siblings, social status, etc. Make a questionaire of seemingly random things for your character to answer. For example, Why is X your favorite color? Blue, for it reminds this Character of her mother's spirited eyes when she'd be cutting flowers in the garden.

Start with a simple Bio, a quick questionaire, and a random happenstance they can react to at whatever time frame seems important. If you just want a bit of room to run and play with ideas, that's a great starting line.

Now, many of my characters' backstories have to be a bit more refined, as some in my WIP have their backstories become immensely important to the plot. But, if you're not sure that's your primay goal, just have fun with it.
Thank you so much!!
 
If it's an exercise, there's no such thing as too many. Write ten and forget about them. There's no threshold for how many are helpful for improving your skills here.

Inside your story it all kind of depends. Some people naturally think about their past more than others. That's especially true for someone who learns a lot through doing, like, say, a farmer whose home town was destroyed....

The thing is, there's another word for "a simple, watered down moment".... I'm probably borrowing from Heliotrope, I think, but she's hardly alone. The word is intimate. The grand backstories are great, but also they're big plot points. The small moments matter.

I was watching The Dragon Prince recently on Netflix, and I noticed something in particular while I was watching it. I thought the small intimate moments were boring. And there were lots of them. I wasn't impressed. But when they were over, and things got back to the big plot events, I also realized that I cared so much more about the characters because of those of boring intimate moments between the characters. If I wasn't thinking about it I wouldn't even have realized why.

In a novel, the same is true with the intimate backstory moments the character just remembers for a few lines before the story goes on. She learned to count by watching her father the orchard hand sort good plums from bad? Just one line like that, even if it's boring in a plotty, backstory way, makes the character feel more real, and the readers care a little more.
Yes! I find it’s the smaller seemingly insignificant things that end up getting under your skin without you even realising it. Thanks for reaching out.
 

ravenowl

Acolyte
Perhaps it might work for you to write the backstory as if the character is telling you about their life over a cup of coffee. You could even write it as a conversation. Something along the lines of this:
Across from me sits X, her eyes dart.... his eyes never move from.... she has a scar under her left eye. I wonder how that happened.
And then a conversation where you 'ask' your character the same way you ask a new acquaintance. If you have a clear idea of who your character is the answers will just mushroom. If you are still trying to figure out who this is, it might take a bit longer.
Ask about the scar. Does she become defensive (perhaps she feels guilty over the incident that caused it or simply doesn't like personal questions?). So apologise and ask again.
Another option is to become your character. Where would she start her life story, how would she tell it? Why would she include certain things and leave others out? Its great fun getting to know your characters that way :)
 
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