Every character we meet in a story has a backstory, even if it’s not always elaborated on at first. Voldemort has a history, though we don’t get the full grasp of it until around the sixth book or so of Harry Potter. Han Solo had an entire career and a few debts to Jabba the Hutt before he and Chewbacca met Luke and Obi-Wan, though we only find out about it in the Expanded Universe. And before Alex Cross battled his first psychopath, he had lived in Virginia, grown up in DC, and gone to college to study psychology and psychiatry. Heck, James Bond probably has a full history, though I’m not sure if Ian Fleming ever went into great detail about it.
This evening I wrapped up a major part of the Snake’s history, and how he went from a regular–okay, not-so-much regular, but still relatively regular compared to what he became–teen into a serial killer who hunts members of a certain powerful mafia family. It was probably the longest chapter yet in Snake (which is saying something, seeing as thrillers have very short chapters), and I had a lot of fun writing it and exploring the Snake’s disturbed psyche. I’ll probably go over it again before I move onto the next chapter, but it’s still a chapter that’s very important to the story and a chapter that, if all my dreams ever come true, will be reviewed by future generations as a memorable scene in the development of the Snake.
Now that I think about it, the Snake’s modus operandi was the first thing that I created for the Snake and his backstory, including why he’s kiling (which is the major driving force of the plot, if truth be told), came afterwards. At first he was nothing more than the archetypal bloodthirsty killer, but when I gave him backstory he seemed almost like a character that, while most people would condemn his actions if he were a real person, would identify with him on an emotional level. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed writing his character so much, and why I think as people read more and more about the Snake and the mystery of his is peeled away, they may come to enjoy the character more.
That’s the hope anyway.
For my fellow writers out there, how do you develop character backstory? Do you create the character first and then create a history to match? Do you think the backstory influences the character, or the character decides the backstory? And what sort of backstories do you like to create? Let me know if you don’t mind sharing.
Rami Ungar The Writer 