How To Develop Your Character’s Backstory

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 post, I’m going to walk you through how to develop your character’s backstory in three steps. I’ll show you how to uncover a traumatic event in their past that gives rise to a specific fear (or inner obstacle) and then how to marry their past to their present-day behavior and motivation. Let’s dig in!

How To Brainstorm Your Character’s Backstory

Step 1: Find Your Character’s Wound

Just like real people, fictional characters are products of their past. If we want our characters to come across as authentic and believable, we need to understand what happened in their past to make them the way they are today. 

A wound is the result of something that happened in a character’s past that caused psychological or emotional pain and gave birth to a very specific fear that an event like this could (and will) happen again. 

Wounds can come from anywhere:

• Traumatic events
• Misplaced Trust and Betrayals
• Childhood wounds
• Injustice and hardship
• Crime and victimization 
• Disabilities and Disfigurements
• Failures and mistakes

They damage a character’s self-worth, change how they view the world, cause trust issues, and dictate how they interact with people.

This can make it harder for a character to achieve specific goals but easier for you to create meaningful conflict for them to face (since you know more about what specifically gives rise to conflict for that character).

If you’re looking for an excellent resource to help you brainstorm and flesh out your character’s wound, check out The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

Step 2: Crystalize Your Character's Inner Obstacle

When in a vulnerable state (from the wounding event), your character will try to understand or rationalize their painful experience, only to falsely conclude that somehow the fault how lies within.

Through flawed logic, they will reach a conclusion about themselves or the world that is not true. Usually, it's tied to disempowering beliefs that the character is unworthy, incompetent, naive, defective, or lacks value.

This is your character’s inner obstacle—the lie, misbelief, or worldview that’s born from their wounding event and that's still impacting them by the time your story starts on page one.

And it’s this inner obstacle that causes your character to hold back, making it difficult for them to love fully, trust deeply, or live life without reservation. It gives rise to flaws, dysfunctional habits and behaviors, biases, and a negative outlook or attitude.

You can use this framework to crystalize your character’s inner obstacle: "Because of WOUND, my character believes INNER OBSTACLE / LIE / FALSE BELIEF.”

For example, "Because my character got tangled in underwater debris and almost drowned, they believe that the world is too dangerous and that the only safe place is their home." Or, "Because my character's brand-new business idea was stolen by their best friend (and now they're a millionaire), they believe no one can be trusted."

This inner obstacle will often clash with your character’s effort to achieve their goal because, deep down, they feel unworthy of it and the happiness or fulfillment it will bring. It’s only when they're able to shatter their false belief (overcome this internal obstacle) that they’ll genuinely feel like they deserve whatever it is they seek.

Once you understand your character’s wounding event and inner obstacle, it’s time to think about how these pieces of their backstory will show up in the present day.

Step 3: Brainstorm Current Behaviors and Motivations

In the present day, your character will make choices and actions to avoid situations where their fear will come to pass. The result? An unmet need. 

For example, the character who got tangled in underwater debris and almost drowned (wounding event) believes the world is a dangerous place (inner obstacle) might be hard-pressed to leave their house (present-day behaviors and motivations). Because of that, this character might lack connections or intimacy with other people (unmet need).

You can use this information to flesh out your character’s flaws, behaviors, traits, and more. Consider how your character (who has lived with this internal obstacle for x-amount of time by page one) might act on a daily basis. 

• What is their specific fear (based on their wounding event)?
• What events trigger their wound and/or inner obstacle?
• What does their “emotional armor” look like?
• What behaviors, traits, and flaws have they developed?

All of this work can help you brainstorm the plot of your story, too.

The plot of your story should constantly challenge your character's internal obstacle. It should force them to choose repeatedly between upholding their flawed belief (their inner obstacle) or dismantling it. And each time they fail to change, there should be consequences that further complicate the plot.

Plus, here’s the really cool thing…

Your character’s inner obstacle can help you define the beginning of their internal character arc—and it can help you express your theme.

For example, If a character believes the world is a dangerous place, their arc might revolve around learning to leave their comfort zone and/or realizing that they can’t control everything. The theme of a story like this might be something like, true love is possible when you learn to let go of control and/or open up to others.

You can use this information to brainstorm secondary characters and antagonists, too. 

The best side characters and antagonists mirror or challenge the protagonist’s internal obstacle or flaws—plus, side characters who have already learned the lesson (or theme of your story) can help teach it to your protagonist. 

Antagonists are often the most effective when they struggle against the same internal obstacle as the protagonist but fail to overcome it.

Let’s take a look at a few case studies to bring all of this to life.

Case Study: Simon Bassett (Bridgerton)

Simon has a positive arc, meaning he grows and changes throughout the story. Let’s see how that unfolds using the three ingredients presented in this article:

• WOUND: Simon grew up with a speech impediment, and his father, the Duke, insulted and disowned him. After being taken in by Lady Danbury, Simon worked on improving his speech, but despite his progress, his father still shunned him.
• INTERNAL OBSTACLE: Because of his father’s hatred and reflection, Simon grew up believing that he’s not worthy of love because he’s not perfect. He fears growing close to someone because the same thing could happen again.
• PRESENT DAY BEHAVIORS: Simon vows never to marry, swearing he will never sire an heir and that the Duke’s line will die with him. He turns into a rake and travels often (to avoid attachment). Meeting Daphne Bridgerton forces him to choose between his unmet need (intimacy and connection with another person, despite not being perfect) and his internal obstacle. This is what makes fantastic conflict and expresses the theme—love conquers all!

Case Study: Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars)

Anakin has a negative arc, meaning he fails to grow and change throughout the story. Let’s see how that unfolds using the three ingredients presented in this article: 

• WOUND: After Anakin leaves Tatooine to train as a Jedi, his mom is captured (and tortured) by Tusken Raiders and reaches out to Anakin for help. Anakin arrives too late to save her, and she dies.

• INTERNAL OBSTACLE: Because of this, Anakin believes that he wasn’t strong enough (or powerful enough) to save his mother. He fears this happening again, so he vows to grow strong and powerful.
• PRESENT DAY BEHAVIORS: Anakin trains and does grow powerful, but he’s also arrogant. After Padme gets pregnant, Anakin starts to have visions about her dying during childbirth. When Palpatine offers him a chance to join the dark side in exchange for the power to save Padme, this forces him to choose between what he wants (Padme’s life) and what he needs (to accept that death is a natural part of life). He fails to learn the lesson (or theme) of the story and pledges himself to the dark side, becoming Darth Vader. 

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you can see from these two examples that taking the time to develop your character’s backstory before you start writing can really 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. Some writers brainstorm their character’s backstories before they have a fully formed plot, while others go back and flesh out their backstories after writing a first draft. Do whatever works best for you and your process!

If you’re curious about how to weave your character’s backstory through each of your scenes, check out this article, which is all about how to handle a character’s backstory in your novel. Enjoy!