Anyone else kinda flimsy with backstory writing?

[smokesalty]

So I uh, re-wrote two of my character's backstories for the fourth time on a whim the other day. Prompted by thinking while listening to my writing playlist (edgy music ofc)

I realised I do this very often unless the characters' backstory is extremely intertwined with the present day story. I think it may be because I focus a lot on the current day character, and as I get to know them better, I find better ways to incorporate why they are the way they are into their backstory.

I ran into this especially with this character:

Cos he is never once sympathetic or meant to be by the audience. He just is an absolute ass because he likes to inflate his own ego. His backstory isn't ever supposed to make you feel bad, but I've realised through writing him that it didn't matter- the audience understands his motivations even if they hate him. I just needed to covey why he ended up joining the cult in the story- aka he needs a place to go and someone to inflate his sense of self. The first re-write was crucial since it fixed plot holes, but now I just do it to make it more interesting, honestly. So I just kinda keep fixing it up as I get to know his character better.

I do fix backstories as I go along. I'm onto volume 2 and little things are constantly being re-written. Even now I find that I learn new things about my characters that I end up incorperating into their backstory.

Does anyone else have a similar thing with their work?

[TheLemmaLlama]

I tend to start off with 'nah, that character doesn't need a backstory', so yeah; basically I only write backstory as I get to know my characters better and think of something new to add/change/etc

[Glofernwolfe]

I love writing back stories. The moment I create a character my brain goes off-track to their backstory rather than their main story lol.

[thepenmonster]

My view on backstory;

Tolkien wrote some deep and detailed backstory for Middle Earth.

The books didn't become legendary because of that. It was because of the characters and clearly written story. The fellowship were all awesome and Sam Gamgee is the fantasy novel G.O.A.T. They are some of the very few books ever written (and movies TBH) worth revisiting every few years.

The Silmarillion was that world building he did. It was boring as fuck.

tl;dr - Make The Hobbit. Not The Silmarillion

[LostKelp]

It depends, main characters could get a whole mini series to themselves about their early life's but random background characters or supporting cast who show up every now and then? Idk sometimes, but more as a thought experiment than anything solid. They don't matter most of the time. If the thought experiment goes on for long enough they become main characters for a different story.

[darthmongoose]

I'm a "Forever Dungeon Master" and as such, have had to develop a knack for coming up with a character on the fly and then retrofitting them with a life and backstory when players decide to delve into it.

Most of my comics, characters have only as much backstory nailed down as is absolutely necessary. Some of them don't even have names!

Errant is the exception, because I made those characters originally in my teens, when I didn't churn out nearly so much content and thought the inner lives and characteristics of my characters were really interesting and important, unlike current me, who cares more about using those characters more as a device to tell a story. So the cast of Errant, I know a lot of detail about their lives, like for example. Rekki's full name is Elrekia Susan Lune, she's a Scorpio, she's left handed and slightly long-sighted so needs reading glasses, and her best subject in school was Maths. This is actually helpful for a story like Errant, because it's got this big ten year timeskip that we keep dipping into to flesh out the story of what happened. Knowing so much about who the characters are makes creating what Rekki's bedroom looked like when she was fourteen relatively straightforward:

I also had to make a timeline generally, for things like, "When did Rekki's grandmother end the Fourth Age?" (answer: When Rekki's mum, Juniper, was about five), and that informs things like on this photo, everyone's kind of 1970s-ish, and Sylvia is about 25 years old, in contrast to being an older lady in the "present".

(You don't even want to know how much I know about Rekki's mum, Juniper Lune, who will probably never be more than a minor background character... oh my god....)

How much do I think about backstory? Usually not so much, but in Errant, way too much

[BoomerZ]

Truthfully, unless the backstory is part of the main story you are telling, it doesn't matter. Until it does become part of the main story, characters are things to push your plot forward. Change it as much as you want, the readers will never know. You might have a story arc that you need something from a character and if you are firm on everyone's backstory, you don't have some one to plug into that arc. Keep it loose until you need it in the story.

[UrMom]

Eeeeh honestly, I rarely care about doing backstories, the mindset being what happened in the past stays in the past. I'll do a little backstory stuff for myself, just to delve into the character's psychology, but readers will only get what's necessary. Some characters don't even have backstories beyond what can be good for small talk, like I have a trans lady who has no backstory beyond being born in Georgia, and being raised by her mom. That's all she needs.

Even stories where the backstory is intertwined with the current story I'll only develop what's needed, knowing every detail would be too much. I'd say don't sweat those details too much, while it can be fun for psychoanalyzing your characters, if it's not necessary for your plot or the lore than it doesn't really matter.

[powerplantanimations]

THIS LITTLE GOOBER

For those of you don't know, this character has been around since I was 16 (I'm 23 now). I've been revising his backstory from Hell and back in order to make him stand-out. I've attempted to write his series like TWENTY TIMES NOW. When I put him in That Stick Figure Isekai, I assumed he was going to come from a full-blown super hero universe but UH-OH... SUPERHEROES DON'T DO WELL ON TAPAS. ON TOP OF THAT HE'S A STICK FIGURE NOW... MEANING HE DIED.

THAT was probably the biggest rewrite I've done. I had to figure out who was going to take his place and revolve the series around that. I'm not sure if I would call his universe a superhero universe anymore. If I were to describe it it's probably a more cosmic horror-street-Game of Thrones-Steven Universe thingy.

His design for that comic makes him look like some sort of deranged hip-hoppy person. NOTHING LIKE what he is now. In That Stick Figure Isekai he's like "YIPEE! MY DESIGN IS SO SIMPLE AND REFINED! LOOK HOW VIBRANT AND FUNNY I AM!" meanwhile the other one is more like "I ACT LIKE A HUMAN JUNKYARD DOG AND LOOK LIKE CAME FROM HELL. Life is pain and I'm ready to take another hit. Also I'm funny.".

My only excuse as to why he looks like a superhero in That Stick Figure Isekai that is he sorta sees himself as a Captain America-type since he was spreading propaganda for the Red Giantess, a vain being claiming to be the god of his universe. He has the same thing going for him like Naota, who GASLIT himself into thinking he was a harem protag when he actually comes from a BL universe. The Date Arc already explored themes of identity so why not?

We're still changing him to this day since my friend and I are creating this official bible for the Red Giantess just to set the record straight.

I'm still wondering if I should retcon him into having an irish accent or no? He has a gap tooth and spoke with a lisp whenever he turned into a superhero (Mike Tyson reference). Luckily stick figures have different anatomy so it wouldn't make sense for Quincy to speak like that. We're allowed to sneak that in his comic.

One thing I'm mad about is that he said he fought "A planet". We just DID EDITS A WEEK AGO REGARDING THE PLANET THING.

[KevinReijnders]

I generally write a baseline backstory for my characters, so I can have an idea who they are in the worldbuilding, why they are in the places they are and why they do the things they do.

Granted, the backstories are there to support the main storyarc and are never set in stone until the main story calls for it.

[harlan]

You bet. Backstories evolve as the book gets written. Heck, the plot evolves.

[kalmia]

I like to have a general idea of my important characters life before the story, but I don’t feel like it’s necessary to figure out every single detail. As a reader, I like to be given clues and hints and study a characters actions and speech and decide what may have happened to them in the past instead of it being outright told to me, so I like to write in similar ways as well. It’s much more fun to give the audience an Idea instead of a fact and let them come to their own conclusions. Only things that I make certain about a characters backstory is what’s necessary for the audience to know in order to understand and plot.