by Elton Gahr

Created on: May 11, 2009

If you want your characters and world to feel real then you have to make it clear that they didn't spring into existence at the beginning of the story. The key to this understanding is back story. Things have happened before the story begins. These can be things of major importance to the plot or simply things that define the character's personality or reactions. There are three major keys to writing effective back story. It must be relevant in some way to the story, it must not overshadow the story and it should be subtle.

If you spend days plotting out your characters life and learned that he was a airplane mechanic in Fargo in the 1980's and then spent another two days researching the job and the city of Fargo then there is a strong temptation to put that into your story. If the story you are telling has nothing to do with airplanes or Fargo then you need to leave it out. This doesn't make the information useless, you may find that halfway through the story it defines one critical action of the character. You must learn the difference between history and back story.

Another problem that can sometimes arise from back story is that it becomes more interesting than the story itself. If you are telling a single story about your character it should be the most important story of their life. If there was a moment ten years ago that is bigger and more important than the one you are writing about then you should ask yourself why you're not writing about that? This doesn't mean that the back story can't be important, or even bigger in overall scope. Only the effect on the main character is important.

It is important, if you want your back story to work well, for it to be subtle. Major flashbacks to events can be useful in the right situation but for back story it's usually far more useful to drop hints. The knowledge that your protagonist has met the antagonist before will likely add more tension to the story than any explanation of why. One of the great things about back story is that it is a mystery.

Knowing what led up to your story, and where your character has been is a great way to make your characters feel like real people and show where he is going. Small hints at things that happened in the past can be dropped in to add spice to your story without adding unnecessary exposition. But, just like spice you must be careful that it doesn't overwhelm the taste of your story.

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