How to Create Relevant Backstory that Drives (Not Stalls) a Novel

Author: Sandy Vaile 
Originally published in Hearts Talk eZine's March edition 2023

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Creating compelling backstory is essential for developing rich well-rounded characters that capture the interest of readers.

However, the wrong backstory can turn into an information dump that slows a story’s pace to a yawn. Read on to find out how to create backstory that is relevant to the plot, so it won’t detract from what’s important: the story.

It’s not enough to know everything about a character’s past, like where they went to school and what kind of cake they had at their 10th birthday party. While documenting your character’s entire life might be fun (for some) and knowing it certainly enables you to have a comprehensive understanding of who they are and where they came from, a lot of it won’t be relevant to the book you’re writing.

Say what?

Authors get chastised for information dumping when readers don’t see the relevance of the information. You can’t just throw information at the wall to see what sticks.

Backstory must be:

• Purposeful; and
• Relevant to what’s currently happening in the story.

But how can you make it so? 

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