The Problem with Backstory Stories

Backstory is important to characters. Most of the time, the thing that has caused their Lie is rooted in the past. As readers, we're often curious to see what happened in person, rather than being told. But stories revolving around backstory can have a lot of issues and if you're going to write one, you'll want to think through it carefully. Today we're going to look at the problems with them and how you can avoid them.

Problem #1: Readers know the ending

The most obvious problem with backstory tales is that we already know how it's going to end. The plan does succeed. Anakin becomes Vader. If you already know the ending, it's hard to surprise readers. We can see where it starts and can guess how it will get from point A to B. This takes away suspense and can leave the story feeling weak.

How to avoid it: If your backstory is that important to the story, maybe consider backing the story up to include it. Or if you're only writing the book because you think you should, maybe just skip it. As long as we know what happened in the past, we can leave the rest up to our imagination.

Problem #2: Limited options

This goes hand in hand with the first problem. Due to the aforementioned knowledge of the actual series, then readers can guess a lot of what will happen. Those characters are in the series, so they'll survive. The main character obviously survives 'til the actual series, so nothing can happen to them. That character over there is new. They're definitely going to die.

(Random side note, but this happens a lot in The Clone Wars. You'll meet a Jedi that's not in the movies and they always seem to end up dead.)

How to avoid it: Perhaps you can subtly subvert your readers expectations, like the end of Monsters University. You know that they end up as Scarers, but the path they take to get there is not what you expect. Think of other ways you can get people where they need to be that might not be what readers thought.

Problem #3: Characters change

The Cruella movie was awesome, but she's not the same Cruella as in the old animated movie. They tried to convince me of that, but it didn't work. I'm not mad about it, because I like this version, but if they wanted you to believe she's the same, they should have done it differently.

That can be a big problem with backstory stories. The characters get written differently, but still have to end up the same, so they either don't feel the same or make a massive personality change in the last pages. Neither option really works well for the story or the character.

How to avoid it: Be deliberate with your character change. Even early in The Clone Wars, you can see Anakin's dark side coming out, more and more as he follows his path into darkness. It's not abrupt, it's gradual until he reaches Revenge of the Sith. That's the kind of care you need to have in a backstory.

Do you like backstory stories? What's your biggest problem with them? Tell me in the comments!

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