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For me, a character’s backstory comes as I write with the character. I plan, but I don’t rely on the plan because sometimes a really good idea pops into my head and I decide it’s better than the original. Plot points, events, family, it all falls into place in time. If it’s a quick piece of work that needs to be submitted in a short amount of time, I don’t spend much time on backstory. Maybe one or two scenes that affect the character come to mind, but I would spend the majority of the time developing the character in the present rather than in their past.

I use backstory in a way that it affects the character in the present, like in real life. For example, I have a character – an orphan – who was scorned and bullied by everyone in the orphanage she lived in, including the caretaker. So that’s why now she finds it difficult to trust people and would rather be left alone.

Backstory is like the hidden secrets, problems, events that a character’s been through and because of it has changed them – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Character arcs 🙂