Character backstory?

I do tons of character work before I beat out the story. I not only flesh out their backstories, I also fill out a character questionnaire that deals with everything from values to religion to I.Q.

I figure out how a character's flaw and wound has impacted him throughout his life.

In addition I write diary entries for my characters at several key points in their lives - so I can view their experiences from their point of view.

Many of the things I discover about my characters are irrelevant to the plot, and never winds up on the page.

For me it's about knowing my characters so they are multi-dimensional from the first time they appear on screen.

When I first started writing, I didn't do a lot of character work, and they were flat and uninspired in my early drafts. But since I changed tactics, my characters - even the minor ones - pop immediately.

You should know more about your characters than what appears on screen so that what appears on screen makes sense.

If you know that Bob Characterman was locked in a shed for thirty hours while spiders crawled up and down his legs when he was eight, then you know he has adverse reactions to small, dark spaces, and that his palms sweat whenever he sees cobwebs, so he's a neat freak who lives in an open loft. You also know that he still harbors hatred for the big brother who locked him in and forgot about it when he started playing a video game ten minutes later.

None of that experience has to show up on screen, but it gives you a touchstone for Bob's idiosyncrasies.

Character backstory is essential for building a multi-dimensional character. Trying to write a character without an idea of who they were before "Fade In" is a bit like trying to build a skeleton without a backbone or a tower without a foundation. Something's going to be off in the final product, and one wrong move will unravel the whole thing.

In terms of how backstory is created and used:

Some writers create the screenplay with backstory in mind. Case in point, IN THE LINE OF FIRE.

Eastwood's backstory fuels his actions, and the screenplay was conceived with that backstory, which is interwoven throughout the drama. (The writer refused to allow Tom Cruise to star because his age demanded the backstory be removed.)

Look at how important the backstory is in MINORITY REPORT. It informs all the protagonist's actions and the plot points too.

In these examples, the backstory would be created early on in the birth of the screenplay. These scripts are excellent examples of backstory use because it's more than just incidental and expositional (like birth place and medical history). The backstory is infused into the narrative. (In these two movies the backstories are actually stories.)

Often, a rewrite of a screenplay adds backstory to bolster the character and create motives and emotionality. For instance, early drafts of THE PATRIOT (with Mel Gibson) went light on the backstory. Subsequent drafts beefed up his heinous (legendary) reputation in the French & Indian War - creating more irony in his present search for revenge.

I just finished reading a rewrite of a new Walter Hill script. The first draft was very heavy in backstory. The new draft removed it all.

So, the process can vary in terms of how backstory is created and used.

I agree with everything said so far, in terms of the importance of character and the stuff that doesn't make it onto the page.

However, personally I tend not to write any character backgrounds down before I start the first draft. I just figure out all that stuff as I go along. Characters must serve the story, not the other way round, so in writing the story I get to know my characters, rather than deciding every detail about them first and then shoehorning them into my plot.

If I get stuck part way through my story then stopping to delve a little deeper into a problem character often solves the problem, however. And as creativexec said, rewrites often lead to a little more character work.

I tend not to write any character backgrounds down before I start the first draft. I just figure out all that stuff as I go along. Characters must serve the story, not the other way round, so in writing the story I get to know my characters, rather than deciding every detail about them first and then shoehorning them into my plot.

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Looking at IN THE LINE OF FIRE again, the writer conceived his character with the backstory. Often it is the character's backstory that interests the writer. How does his past create conflict in the present? Yes, "character serves the story." And without Clint Eastwood's backstory, the character cannot serve the story.

Look at Tom Cruise's backstory in MINORITY REPORT. His son was kidnapped and never found. He lives in agony not knowing what happened to the boy (and feeling responsible too). How has this affected him? He is a divorced drug addict.

MINORITY REPORT deals with pre-crime - an invention that allows society to capture criminals before they commit the crime.

Cruise, a cop, is a huge supporter of the experimental program because by capturing criminals pre-crime, he can vicariously prevent others from suffering his kind of loss. His belief in pre-crime allows him to get out of bed in the morning. It offers him some sort of solace.

At the end of the first act, he is framed for a murder he did not commit. His external goal in the screenplay is to prove his innocence. However, the only way he can do that is to prove that pre-crime got it wrong (it's flawed), but by doing that the controversial pre-crime program will be destroyed.

In other words, Cruise proving his innocence will destroy the very thing that allows him that solace.

He's a dead man without pre-crime. Yet, he's a dead man with it.

The ultimate conflict.

The backstory helps to create the apotheosis of drama - the conflict of the protaognist's exterior goal (prove his innocence) and interior goal (solace).

Without the backstory, Cruise’s character cannot serve the story. His backstory is his character and his character is the story. They are conjoined organically.

Ironically, through the story, Cruise is changed and he gets something better than solace in the end, he gets closure.

Often, creating a backstory after a screenplay is completed gives it that shoehorned quality, because it wasn’t conceived at the birth of the screenplay.

The best backstories are the ones that propel the character through the story and inform all his decisions and actions.

Some writers will slap a backstory on with a brief flashback in the opening or provide the protagonist with a quick expository speech late in the second act, but that isn't a complex way of integrating backstory. MINORITY REPORT is an excellent example of a complex, dramatic use of backstory.

stuckupmyownera said:

However, personally I tend not to write any character backgrounds down before I start the first draft. I just figure out all that stuff as I go along. Characters must serve the story, not the other way round.

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Actually it's both - character must serve the story AND the story must serve the character, meaning the story must develop conflicts and create obstacles that allow the character to change and grow. And on top of that story and character have to serve the theme and the theme needs to serve both the story and character. The three are tightly intertwined.

Theme is often illustrated through character arc and the flaw/need is a key element to creating the arc. So it helps to have a clearly identified a theme and a handle on the character arc and flaw before you start crafting the details of your story.

You can't have a solid story without solid characters and you can't have solid characters without a solid back story. Otherwise they're just going through the motions with cardboard cutouts and I think the movie world has enough of those.

creativexec said:

Looking at IN THE LINE OF FIRE again, the writer conceived his character with the backstory. Often it is the character's backstory that interests the writer. How does his past create conflict in the present? Yes, "character serves the story." And without Clint Eastwood's backstory, the character cannot serve the story.

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Absolutely. I'm not saying I don't know anything about my characters before I start writing - I'm just saying I don't feel the need to sit down and analyse every aspect of them and write out their whole life stories in advance. You can conceive a character with significant backstory without spending hours filling out questionnaires and writing pages and pages of notes. That's all.

I have to agree with stuckupmyownera. I do the same thing. I work on story ideas for months at a time. During this period I try to analyze the story from a constructive perspective. I see what the story I am trying to tell needs and then build it from there.

During the whole process of story building, I do think about the characters and different aspects of the character so I kind of have an idea about who the character is but ultimately I try to know as little as possible. I try not to let any preconceived ideas about how characters should act or what influences them to do so get in the way of what the story calls for.

On the flip side though, once I know what the story calls for within the character I don't let that stop me from creating an original character. I do this to every character that is seen. Even if it is only for a moment. I believe that when you create a story you are creating a world and the people in it are living, breathing people. Everybody has a story to tell and I don't just limit that to the main characters.

During the rewrite phase I will check my character info against the original script (or whatever draft I am currently on) and then make corrections to make sure each represent the other accurately.

But like Icerose said, you can't have a solid story without solid characters and you can't have solid characters without a solid backstory. I agree totally, I just take a reversed approach to it.

I'm just at the beginning.

But one thing I started right away was to give the characters a background, a history, motivation.
And I knew that all this information would never be laid out in the script.
But it's important to give the character determination. And in writing the story, it can tell me how the character will react.
I cannot imagine it any other way.
And some posts above gave me ideas how much more I can learn about my characters.

There are writers who might have their own approach,
but you have to know the rules before you break them.

Herb Minsky said:

There are writers who might have their own approach,
but you have to know the rules before you break them.

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Very true sir. Welcome to the boards.

Idkwiaowiw said:

I'm sorry if this has already been asked, but I was wondering how much backstory you do for your characters. I'm just curious to compare methods. Do you write all the backstory first, and then do the script, or write backstory as you go along, or save it to the end, etc? I'm sorry if this isn't phrased correctly.

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This is my opinion on "backstory."

Personally, I don't believe that there's really any such thing as backstory.

There's only "story."

If something in a character's past is relevant to what's going on on screen, if it's going to show up in some fashion, then it's part of the story.

And if it isn't -- who cares?

Because (and I know a lot of people disagree with this) -- your characters come into existence when they are first introduced all in CAPS on the first page when they show up, and they all cease to exist on the last page of your screenplay (barring sequels).

That hundred pages or so, for the reader and ultimately, if the movie gets made, for the viewer, is the some total of that character's existence.

If, in the course of that hundred pages, you choose a collection of specific details and behaviors that indicate a character's past -- then that handful of details and behaviors is all the past that that character has.

You may have made up a detailed biography of who his parents were and where he went to school and who he dated and all the rest -- and if you, as a writer, need that stuff, in the same way that an architect needs to construct a supporting framework in order to build an arch -- then by all means build it.

But in the end, you have to realize that all that supporting timber is going to be stripped away and the arch has to stand on its own -- and the arch, without all that supporting stuff is all that anyone will ever see.

Now, that supporting structure may have been a brilliant of architecture in itself.

But in the end -- who really cares? For that matter, if you can build the arch without any supporting structure, so be it.

In the end, the arch -- the story itself -- is what matters.

What you need to do -- how much supporting structure you may need to get there is strictly a matter of your process. Some people need a lot, others very little.

You just need to remember to remain focused on what's important, which is the end result which, depending on the story you're telling, may require a great deal of history for its characters, or very little. And it's not as if one kind of story is intrinsically better than another kind.

NMS

I write down information about the character like gender and age, write down their flaw, write down their objective, write down their relationships, and that's it.

I'm more of a freeform writer. I usually have my treatment, basic character structure, and an idea of where I want it to go, otherwise the characters take on their identity as I write.

Idkwiaowiw said:

I'm sorry if this has already been asked, but I was wondering how much backstory you do for your characters. I'm just curious to compare methods. Do you write all the backstory first, and then do the script, or write backstory as you go along, or save it to the end, etc? I'm sorry if this isn't phrased correctly.

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When I start writing an outline for a screenplay, I usually begin in the middle of the story. Sometimes I have an idea for a really cool scene or a really good idea for a movie, from there I just begin layering. I decide whether I want the main character to be male or female, throw in some friends/family and an environment, then from there I start building conflict. I ask myself, "Okay what's going on to bring this person to the middle of the story?" I just keep adding on more and more details of the story until I have (what I see as) a solid beginning, middle, and an end. When it comes to what a character looks like, how they speak, how they act...I kind of leave that for when I start writing. It might be the reason why I have such a hard time describing my characters.