Backstory Isn't the Past

It’s how everything that came before shows up in the present

One of the more interesting aspects about writing fiction, at least as I discovered when I dove into it a few years back, is understanding the characters.

Who are they? Where did they come from? What kind of life have they lived up until the moment they appear on the page?

Why do they do what they do?

Each character that a writer brings to life on the page is, hopefully, represented as a realistic, living, breathing person. At least that’s how he or she should be imagined by the reader.

As a writer, it’s important that every character that shows up on the page wants or needs something. They’re motivated. It may be a big thing or a little thing. It may be important or maybe not so much. But something must move them. Unless the reader gets at least a glimpse of that motivation, they might wonder why the character is doing what they’re doing. And why.

It all comes down to that character’s backstory. What I’ve discovered is that the more a writer knows and understands their characters, the clearer their motivation for what moves them when they appear on the page.

But here’s the part that took me a while to really understand:

The reader doesn’t need to know all of it.

The writer does.

Take a character like Ellen. On the page, she might come across as overly cautious—double-checking details, hesitating before making a decision, asking one too many questions. It’s easy to read that as indecisive, maybe even a little frustrating.

But if the writer knows that Ellen grew up in a household where one bad decision unraveled everything—where financial stress and instability were part of daily life—then her behavior starts to make sense. She’s not stalling. She’s protecting against something she’s seen before.

The reader may never be told any of that directly. But they’ll feel it in how she moves through the story.

Or take Marcus. He’s the kind of character who pulls away just when things start to get serious. Leaves relationships early. Keeps people at a distance. On the surface, it might look like he’s incapable of commitment.

But maybe the writer knows something else—that Marcus once gave years of his life caring for someone, losing himself in the process, and when it was over, he made a quiet promise not to do that again. Now his distance isn’t coldness. It’s self-preservation.

Again, the reader doesn’t need the full history. But without it, the character risks feeling thin, or worse, inconsistent.

Ji-Won, the trickster, one of the main characters of “Forged in Ancient Fire”

That’s really the point.

Backstory isn’t about what happened in the past—it’s about how the past shows up in the present. It shapes how quickly a character reacts. What they notice. What they avoid. What they’re willing to risk, and what they’re not. It lives in the pauses, the choices, the things left unsaid.

And it’s also where a writer has to show some restraint.

Because, I’ll admit, there’s a strong temptation to explain it all. To lay it out so the reader understands exactly why Ellen hesitates, or why Marcus walks away.

But most of the time, that’s not necessary. In fact, if the reader can clearly see the backstory laid out in front of them, there’s a good chance that too much has been said. What matters more is that the writer knows it—and lets that knowledge quietly inform everything the character does.

The reader sees the surface.

As a fledgling novelist, I’ve discovered that slowly introducing bits and pieces of a character’s world is one of the more interesting aspects of writing. It can appear in a brief dialogue exchange. Or a short exposition to get a character from Point A to Point B. The challenge is to bring those bits into the story so subtly that by the end, you know the character pretty well, without having to have to have read through a big info-dump.

Jia, the main protagonist of “Forged in Ancient Fire,” is wearing the Triquetra amulet, which is the cause of a lot of the hubbub in the novel.

The writer builds everything. When you look at my novel, Forged in Ancient Fire, and begin to understand the main character, Jia, you slowly see how her past shapes the way she moves through the world.

She grew up somewhat sheltered. Raised by a loving, protective single mom, Sandy, Jia learned early on to trust the people closest to her. That kind of upbringing leaves a mark—it creates a sense of safety and a belief that people generally mean well.

But there’s another layer.

Even in that protected environment, Jia sensed that something wasn’t quite right. There were gaps. Things left unsaid. A feeling that parts of her life didn’t fully add up. That curiosity—quiet at first—became part of who she is.

Then her mother dies unexpectedly, leaving her adrift.

So when the opportunity comes to travel to Seoul and meet her Korean family, she accepts. On the surface, it might seem like a simple decision, even an impulsive one.

But it’s not.

It’s the result of both sides of her past working at once. She trusts easily because she was raised to do so. And she questions things, because something in her life taught her to. That combination—trust and wariness—is what drives her forward.

And when she arrives and begins to realize that some members of the Korean side of her family have their own motivations for bringing her there, her reactions aren’t random. They’re rooted in everything that came before.

That’s where backstory lives—not in long explanations, but in the choices a character makes, and how they respond when things start to unravel.

Next time you read a novel (and I hope you’re reading one now or will soon!), pay attention to how a character’s backstory shows up in bits and pieces, and how seamlessly the writer (one hopes) brings it into the main story.