Fiction Scribe

Never much one for packing, when I prepared to move, I shoved all of the writing things I thought I would want in the box and thought nothing more of it. As I was unpacking my things weeks later in my new home, I came across a twenty page “guide” I had created as a way to remember all the little ticks of the world I had created. Originally meant to be just one book, I didn’t make the guide until about book three (hey, it happens to the best of us, right? Just one more story to squeeze out of this world…).

Anyway, it was in looking over the pages and pages of backstory - most of which didn’t make it into any of the books - that I realized just how much the reader doesn’t read. The reader can assume the world you’ve created has a history and a future, well beyond the piece of time you’ve decided to snatch and write about. How much of that past and future you know of is up to you, but exactly how important is backstory? Do you really need any at all?

Considering I want this blog to be a help for even the newest writer, I’ll start with what exactly backstory is.

Courtesy of Widipedia, backstory is:

“…the history behind the situation extant at the start of the main story. …A back-story may include the history of characters, objects, countries, or other elements of the main story.”

Furthermore….

“Back-stories are usually revealed, sketchily or in full, chronologically or otherwise, as the main narrative unfolds. However, a story creator may also create portions of a back-story or even an entire back-story that is solely for his or her own use in writing the main story and is never revealed in the main story.”

Your character Susie despises the color pink. The reader knows this and may or may not question why. You as the author may or may not decide to reveal that Susie grew up with a bubblegum pink bedroom, and that’s why she can no longer stand the color. Either way, that’s backstory.

So why is that important? Gravity.

(Yes, you may go ahead and say, “Huh?”)

The rule of gravity. At least, that’s what I like to call it. On Earth we have physics, a sort of rulebook for the way the Earth works. The same goes for most any sport - you have a rulebook. If you’re going to create any sort of realistic world, you have to follow the rules. All the rules may be your creation, but they are still rules you have to obey. If you break the rules, then you have to explain how it is the rule(s) could be broken as they were.

You potentially have an entire world in your hands, depending on what you’re writing. Imagine how confused the reader is going to be if you don’t know how your world works.

You don’t have to explain everything; as is said in the quote above, most if not all of the backstory may never be revealed. However, if you know what you are talking about, your confidence will show through in your words and your reader will take it for granted you know what you’re talking about.