The History of Your Characters

When we think of “historical”, we think the story is set in a historical time period, and many of us have a favorite time period – the Victorian Age, the Renaissance, the Old West, or any one of so many more. We imagine poring over history books, encyclopedias, or websites that provide information about the time period so that we can be sure the historical parts of our fiction stories are accurate.

What about the history of your characters? This is otherwise known as “backstory”. The history or backstory of our characters can be just as important, maybe even more important, than the history of our time period.

Just like people in real life, your characters need a history. You can’t write accurately portray a character without knowing their back story. Just like real people, the histories of your characters are important to who your character is. Their history has an effect on the character and personality of your character. It may even be important to their motivation and goals.

Therefore, whether you are a pantser, plantser, or plotter, you need to create a backstory for your characters before you write your story. The better you know and understand your characters’ histories, the more realistic and believable you can make them.

Do you have to create a backstory for every character? No, I wouldn’t say that. I would say it is most important to have well-developed backstories for your main characters, and at least a good idea of the backstories of the minor characters make regular appearances in your story.

Even though you need a thorough backstory for your characters, you won’t include all of their backstory in your novel. You will only include what you need for your readers to understand your characters.

For example, your twenty-eight year old female character is terrified of being outside in a thunderstorm. Why? Maybe in her backstory, when she was a little girl, she witnessed a tragedy that took place during a thunderstorm – maybe a tree struck by lightning fell on a relative and they were badly injured or killed, maybe she was raised by an abusive parent who locked her outside during a thunderstorm, or maybe lightning struck a tree stump near her and it burst into flames. I’m sure you can come up with more possibilities that would cause her to still be afraid of thunderstorms as an adult woman.

Why might this be important to the story? Well, maybe a thunderstorm begins quickly, with little to no warning, and her little boy is outside and she has to go out to bring him into the house or maybe she’s on her way home and there is no where to go to get out of the storm along the road she’s traveling and her only option is to get home.

I hope, by these examples, you can see how important your character’s backstory can be and how it can add tension to your story.

Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.

You can find her online at:

Website: https://kellyfbarr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kellyb_26

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