Crafting a compelling backstory is essential to creating realistic characters with motivations and complex problems. It will also help the reader relate to the characters and 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 you 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.

 Welcome to the Write it Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formerly repressed creative soul turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write it Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: The one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully.

Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing. to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers.  Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. 

 Hey writer. Welcome back to another episode of the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host Stacy, today is episode number 19, and we are going to talk about craft and dig into another micro element of fiction. Microelements of fiction are the glue, the things that hold the major components of the story together by major components. 

I mean, character plot, conflict, world, narrative design, those kinds of things, which I talked about in detail back in episode five. And I will link to that in the show notes. So today, the microelement we're going to focus on, it's kind of funny to actually call it a microelement. Because it's huge. It's just not obvious, not if it's done well, but it informs everything. And if you guessed that this microelement is backstory, you are spot on. So we're going to talk about what backstory is why it matters, how do we craft a backstory that will have an impact on our story present, and how to keep track of it. Those are the things we're going to cover. 

 So what is backstory, and why does it matter? 

Well, first, let's set up our parameters here and talk about how to think about a story. I believe it was Robert McKee who said that a story is essentially one huge event that creates an irreversible change. 

So if that's the way we think about it, then it needs to have a beginning and an end. It has to start from somewhere and be in a particular state to experience the change that we're talking about. And there needs to be a reason for it being in that initial state. The reason. His backstory. . 

Backstory refers to the experiences and events that occur before the story starts. These events shape your characters, their motivations, the current circumstances they're experiencing, and the world, the reader is going to encounter in the story. So think of backstory as the untold history of your characters, it's kinda like the foundation of a building. Now, it's invisible, for the most part. But it's crucial for the structure's stability.  I like to refer to the backstory as the story before the story. 

As a matter of fact, I used to teach a workshop called exactly that, the story before the story.  So, the backstory is everything relevant that brings us to the moment in time when the story begins. And.  It informs our characters, desires, fears, actions, and reactions.  Relevant is the key. 

 Crafting a compelling backstory is essential to creating realistic characters with motivations and complex problems. It will also help the reader relate to the characters and 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 you 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.

So, case in point, let's talk about the Hunger Games for a second. Imagine you opened the Hunger Games to page one. And the first words were I volunteer as tribute. 

And, you see this girl who volunteers to take her sister's place. I mean, would that moment be  Impactful?  Without understanding why Katniss is such a guarded character or why the games matter politically and personally to the citizens of Panem?  Would you buy her volunteering as tribute if you didn't already understand her motivation that she believes in 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 worked? Or the games themselves worked, all of which is backstory.  

The short answer is no, no, of course not. We wouldn't get it, and it wouldn't move us. And we'd struggle with the logic. But because the first chapter delivers enough relevant backstory, we care, and we become invested in the world and in Katniss Everdeen.  

So, the backstory answers the why question: Why are we here? Why do we care? Why does it matter? If backstory describes all the relevant things that happened to your character and the world they live in before the main story starts, then the story present is what happens between page one and the end of the book. 

So, imagine a timeline where you plot out the action of your story. You're going to have to decide when this story will begin, and everything else leading up to that point is backstory. Now, depending on the world-building and the type of story, writers often need to know a lot, a great deal about the backstory. 

That's actually never going to make it into the draft. But it's like an iceberg. It's enormous. And, you know, it's there, but you only ever see the tip poking through the water, and the tip is what's relevant and what will create change?  So this can be really frustrating and overwhelming to feel like you need to know so much, but it's crucial to be able to mind the past for specifics that will have the most significant impact on your stories present. 

Components of backstory and how to decide what to examine 

You don't just need to know any type of backstory.  You need to dig for what is relevant to your stories present. That's going to serve your conflict and plot.  So you probably don't need to know, like what type of experience your character had in the third grade why their favorite color is blue, or what happened on their first date? 

Unless those things will impact the story present in some way that will move the story forward. 

So here are kind of three rules to keep in mind as you are developing and digging for the relevant backstory. Number one, whatever happened. It needs to contribute to your character's identity.  Externally. Meaning how they present themselves to the world. And internally, who they believe themselves to be.  And also who they truly are at their core. What do I mean by that?  

When push comes to shove, what's this character really made of, for example, Katniss Everdeen? 

When push comes to shove, she is the type of person who will put her life on the line for her family.

Okay. So, number two. The backstory has to influence the characters' actions, reactions, and behaviors in the story. Again, if we look at the Hunger Games, think of the backstory, like how there was a civil war, and Katniss's father died in the mines. 

People are used to, the Hunger Games are used to seeing this, this televised event. So there's, there's some desensitization to it. There's different sections of this world and people in the Capitol. View it as entertainment, while people in the districts view it as a tragedy.  Other districts view it as a Rite of passage. 

So, again, the relevant Backstreet influences the characters, their actions, and their reactions, and you see that played out in the different factions, right? Some of the people who are tributes are out for blood, and they deserve to be there, and they plan to win. 

They know they'll win because of their history.  Other people are just hoping they make it through in there probably. And they're pretty much convinced that they won't. So the backstory, the relevant backstory should create conflict or obstacles for your character in the story present. So this is how the past comes back to bite them in the ass. 

A perfect example of this is Petta Malark being the other tribute for District 12 The backstory relationship between Peter and Katniss is the fact that he saved her from starvation. That is going to bite Katniss in the ass as she moves forward because she may have to kill him. Eventually.  

So here are some specific backstory components to consider as you know you're working on developing your own; think about your characters, their motivations, actions, and reactions. Who are they? Why are they like that? What happened to create their identity, their persona? When we first meet them in the story, why do they want what they want? And what are they willing to risk to get it? 

What do they value? Y, what do they fear? Why?  

Look for those specific things in the backstory.  

Relationships: what has linked these characters together or what has torn them apart? 

The situation: what occurs in the world of the story to create the situation that the protagonist is facing at the beginning of the book. 

Events: major events that have shaped the characters, their relationships, the situation, and the history of the story's present world. 

 If, you know, your character's backstory helps you 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 stories present. So consider the assumptions, misconceptions, and expectations that they have at the stories present. How did those develop? When and where did they start? And how did they evolve over the character's lives to where we meet them on page one? From that, what related internal and external obstacles can stand in their way? And why do they matter?

Okay. So this is a lot, right? 

You need to consider your protagonist's backstory as well as the backstories of your other characters, and that can feel overwhelming and hard to manage. But remember, every character in your story has their own agenda.  In the writing world, we put a lot of emphasis on our protagonist and our antagonist. And much less on our other characters, but they are vital. And they are agents of change too so everybody's gonna have their own agenda. 

They're going to all have their own wants and desires and misconceptions and fears.  You have to keep track of all of that. So how do you do that? Number one, I recommend you create.  A cast of characters list. So write down everybody in your story that's significant and write down what their primary desire is and their motivation for achieving it. What secrets are they keeping? 

Why are they keeping them? Where do they live, and how did they come to live there? What do they value about the world and themselves at the beginning of the story? Well, you know what, what's the worst thing that could happen to them? What are the roots of their assumptions, their misconceptions and the expectations they hold in the story present?  

 Keep a running list of that, and then you can kind of look at it and go. Hm. Are all of my characters similar to each other, or are they significantly different?

And from all of that, you know, you can add more conflict into the story just because you're going to have collision, you're going to have personalities that maybe rub against each other. So keep a cast of characters list and then a second tool is creating a backstory timeline. 

Now, most of us writers we create timelines for our story present to help us keep track of the events that the protagonist is going to face and how those events are going to propel them to move forward and take action. But you can also use this tool for backstory. So I suggest you consider plotting out. All the major events of the character's life before the story begins that are relevant that will contribute to the story’s present conflict and force the character to create change.  

Okay. So here's a little note for when you get frustrated—because you will. Just remember that stories are epic, complex, and evolving. 

There's a lot to consider and keep track of. And backstory takes time to develop. It's not a static thing. And even if you do all the work upfront to develop a solid backstory, sometimes you'll have to stop mid draft and rework pieces of the past to align the logic and the desires in the present. It's all fine. 

It's okay. It's all normal. It's impossible to know every detail about the story before you begin writing it.  And also, that's where the magic comes in. A lot of the time, there are things that you couldn't have anticipated, the angles you couldn't have seen, until you got to this place in this story. 

So just think of developing story as something that evolves and builds on itself as you write your draft. And when you have to change something, it impacts many other things. It's okay. You will figure it out. You might have to step away. You might have to give yourself time to think, but all that is okay. If you get stuck and you don't know what happens next, consider examining your backstory logic nine times out of 10, the solution to the problem you're facing in the story present is rooted in what came before because that's actually where the problem is. So don't be afraid to stop writing and examine your characters, logic, wants, and motivations from a previous moment. 

So that was a lot. Let's break it down to some takeaways. 

Number one, the backstory, creates your characters and their world. It contains your characters, motivations, and desires and directly impacts the conflict they face in the story. So that's why it matters. So you want to mind your character's past for the relevant backstory components, which are characters, relationships, situations, and events that are affected. 

The people who were here in the world around them. So look for the reasons behind their personality traits, desires, motivations, values, and beliefs. Remember, when you're creating relevant backstories, make sure that they contribute to your character's identity, both externally and internally. That they influence how the character behaves on the page. That they create conflict or obstacles for your character in the present story. 

Again, this is the past, biting them in the ass. 

Keep track of your backstory by using a cast of characters sheet and an events timeline. Don't be afraid to stop mid-draft to examine your backstory to see if something needs to change to align with the logic of the story. That's normal. 

Just try to be flexible. When we come back in our next craft chat, we'll discuss ways to weave relevant backstory into your draft to avoid info dumping, overexplaining, or slowing down the pacing of the story with poorly placed flashbacks. So we'll talk about that next time. 

Thank you so much for tuning in. If you have any questions, please reach out to me@stacyatwriteitscared.co. I will see you next time.

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