RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist#WordWeavers 20260403: For which characters do you come up with a backstory?
There's an implication in the wording of having come up with a backstory for various characters before writing.
I've come up with a backstory before writing so rarely, I think I can say I never really do that. As I write a story, backstories suggest themselves by the actions of the characters or reflections of the narrator, who's usually in 1st person. Almost every character has a backstory in my stories, and often some of it gets into the novel.
In one story, the narrator remembers being "used" by gangsters and inducted into the mob, and explains her PTSD, that can be triggered by what to them is analogous of the sounds gunfire, as having lived through a gang war, having lacked the courage to prevent it when she could have. I later wrote a full length novel about that one sentence induction and her PTSD as a prequel to the novel I was writing.
That's how I end up with backstories.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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