Fiction Writing Made Easy | Top Creative Writing Podcast for Fiction Writers & Writing Tips

#145. How To Develop Your Character's Backstory

40 snips

Jun 4, 2024

Uncover how a character's past shapes their present identity and actions. Delve into the significance of wounding events and inner obstacles that create meaningful conflicts. Discover essential elements for crafting compelling backstories, including emotional wounds and current behavior. Explore practical exercises to develop rich character histories. Plus, gain insights through a detailed character analysis from a popular book. Elevate your storytelling by understanding the depth behind your characters!

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Backstory's Impact

Characters' pasts shape their present.
Understanding their backstory, especially wounds, makes them believable.

ADVICE

Developing Backstory

Develop character backstory by focusing on three elements: wound, inner obstacle, and current behavior.
There's no right or wrong time to work on backstory; adapt it to your process.

ADVICE

Uncovering the Wound

Uncover your character's wound, a past event causing emotional pain and fear of recurrence.
Explore traumatic events like betrayal, hardship, or mistakes to find this wound.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Crafting compelling backstories for your fictional characters is critical to developing a cohesive story, but it’s sometimes easier said than done.

There are endless options when it comes to which details you can include in your character’s backstory, and what you do include will influence everything that happens in your story—from the plot events to your character’s motivations to your own ability to manage the thematic subtext of your story on a scene-by-scene-basis.

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through how to develop your character’s backstory in three steps, including things like:

[04:12] How to uncover your character’s wounding event that gives rise to a specific fear (or inner obstacle) that haunts them in the present-day
[06:57] A framework to help you crystalize your character’s inner obstacle—and why doing this work helps you establish where their character arc starts
[09:31] How your character’s backstory can help inform your plot (and help you create meaningful conflict to help them grow and change)
[12:55] An exploration of Simon Basset’s backstory and character arc (from the first Bridgerton book, The Duke & I)
[17:42] Episode recap and final thoughts

Developing your character’s backstory before you start writing can help you develop your theme, craft your plot, build your story world, and so much more. That being said, there’s no “right” or “wrong” time to flesh out your character’s backstory. Do whatever works best for you and your process!

Click here to listen!

⭐ Rate + Review + Follow on Apple Podcasts

"I love the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast!" ← If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing this show! Your rating and review will help other writers find this podcast, and they're also super fun for me to read. Just click here, scroll all the way to the bottom, tap five stars to rate the show, and then select "Write a Review." Be sure to let me know your favorite episodes, too!

Also, if you haven't done so already, make sure you're following the podcast! I'll be adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed, and if you're not following the show, there's a good chance you'll miss them. Click here to follow now!

🔗 Links mentioned in this episode:

Support the show

👉 Looking for a transcript? If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, scroll down below the episode player until you see the transcript.