Backstory: The Stuff People Usually Will Never get to Know

Ah, backstory. It's all that junk that happened to the characters to get to get them to where they are today, the events, objects houses and acquaintances they've made over the years before the plot even starts. It's all that good stuff we love to know, and it makes for really great short stories.

But as comics go, more often than not you'll never get to learn the full backstory of most of the characters. Unless it's pertinent to the plot or otherwise warranted, you only get to know the character as they are during the story. You don't get to know where they came from, what formed them, where they've lived, or anything of that nature. None of that will ever be relevant in your stories.

For now, though, we're going to completely ignore that little fact and forge on in the name of interesting little short stories and characters with substance. We'll assume you haven't thought much into your character's backstory, just to make this easier. Also, we'll use Remy as an example, seeing as how I've been working on his story a lot lately.

Backstory, more or less, shows up in little blips as you go. Thing is, you've got to flesh out those blips and connect them so they make sense. Say,

for example, you know what your character's job is, but not exactly what said job entails. So doodle up something like this:

Aside from the awesome shoulder-armor bits, I've listed just what Remy does, along with some other things. Right from here, I've got a pile of ideas for stories. I could go on about one of the jobs he's done, or where he got that sweet armor. That could be an epic one (actually, he saved his money for two months and had a contact of his hold them but HEY).

Well now we've got all that established, but how did Remy get such a weird job in the first place? THAT is backstory. This job he has as a paranormal something-or-other isn't a normal one, that's for sure. It's part of a sort of underground, actually. So now we need to know how he became a part of this underground, and we keep going backwards from there.

To sum it up, this is basically the process we've used:

o1: Flesh out an aspect of the character.

o2: Go back to elementary school. Who, what, where, when, why, and how are your friends. Your best friends ever who will help you learn everything. Ask those things about #o1.

o3: Lather, rinse, repeat; until you get to the end.

o4: Go back to #o1, using a different aspect, and repeat ad nauseam.

Easy, yes? It helps to keep notebooks for this sort of thing, or sketchbooks if you like pictures to help your words or vice-versa. Write lots, preferably as often as you can, and before you know it, your character will have a nice, full, backstory. Then you can branch short stories off of that, see how this character connects to others, and be well on your way to building up an entire world o people with epic backstories that no one will ever read. Yay!