Backstory: How to Avoid Boring Your Readers to Death

 

Backstory is one of those things writers know they shouldn’t overdo and then immediately overdo anyway.

We all start with good intentions. We tell ourselves we’ll sprinkle it in lightly. Just a hint here, a memory there. Next thing we know, we’ve written three pages explaining a character’s childhood trauma, their parents’ divorce, the summer they learned to hate boats, and the exact emotional significance of a chipped mug.

And the reader? The reader has quietly left the room...

The core problem with backstory isn’t that it exists. It’s that writers treat it like a moral obligation. As though the reader has paid for a full psychological report and will feel cheated if we don’t deliver.

They won’t.

Readers are not here for your character’s résumé. They are here for what’s happening now.

Backstory is seasoning, not the meal. And like seasoning, a little improves everything – too much ruins it.

The first rule of backstory is brutally simple: if it isn’t affecting the present moment, it doesn’t belong on the page - yet.

Or possibly ever.

This is where writers often get confused. They say, “But this is important.” And what they mean is, “This is important to me because I worked hard on it.”

The reader does not care how hard you worked. They care whether the story moves.

Think of backstory like a drunk uncle at a wedding. He may have fascinating stories. He may even be relevant to the family history. But if he grabs the microphone during the vows, someone needs to escort him outside.

Timing matters.

The second rule is this: never stop the story to explain the story.

The moment you pause forward motion so you can “just quickly explain something,” you’ve already lost ground. Readers experience story in real time. If nothing is happening, they feel it instantly.

This is why opening chapters full of backstory are so deadly. The writer hasn’t earned the reader’s curiosity yet, so the information lands with a dull thud. It’s like being introduced to fifteen strangers at once and expected to remember their childhoods.

Instead, start with pressure. Let something be at stake. Let the reader wonder. Curiosity is what gives backstory permission to exist.

If a character flinches when someone raises their voice, that’s interesting.

If you immediately explain their abusive upbringing, you’ve killed the mystery. Let the reader lean forward first.

Another useful principle: backstory should answer a question the reader is already asking.

Not a question you want to answer. A question that has naturally arisen from the scene.

Why does this character avoid intimacy?
Why does that name shut him down instantly?
Why does she refuse help even when she clearly needs it?

When backstory responds to curiosity, it feels rewarding. When it arrives uninvited, it feels like homework.

And for the love of all that is holy, avoid the dreaded As You Know, Bob approach.

No one talks like this: “As you know, Bob, ever since our father died in that tragic lawnmower incident in 1998, I’ve struggled with authority.”

If characters already know the information, they will not explain it to each other. If they don’t know it, they won’t politely wait while someone delivers a monologue.

Dialogue is not a filing cabinet.

One of the best ways to handle backstory is to embed it in action.

Show us the effect, not the cause.

Instead of explaining that your detective was betrayed by a former partner, show us how he never fully trusts anyone in authority. Show us the way he double-checks information, the way he reacts when someone says, “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

Backstory that lives in behavior is invisible – and that’s exactly why it works.

Readers don’t need to know what happened. They need to know what it did.

Another trick is to deliver backstory in fragments, preferably when the character is under stress. Memory is not a tidy archive. It surfaces in flashes, often at the worst possible time.

A smell.
A phrase.
A place.

These are far more powerful than a neat paragraph beginning with “He remembered when…”

And they’re faster.

Speed matters. Backstory should move at the same pace as the scene it’s embedded in. If the story is urgent, the backstory should be sharp and minimal. If the story slows, you can afford slightly more reflection – but only slightly.

This brings us to an important distinction: backstory is not character depth.

Depth comes from contradiction, choice, and consequence. You can give a character a traumatic past and still make them boring. You can give them almost no backstory and make them compelling.

Depth is created by what a character does now in response to who they’ve been.

Which leads to the golden rule: only include backstory that is pertinent.

Pertinent means it changes how we understand a decision, a reaction, or a relationship. If removing the backstory changes nothing about the scene, it doesn’t belong there.

This is a painful rule because it requires cutting things you like.

But that’s writing.

If you’re ever unsure whether a piece of backstory earns its place, try this test: remove it completely and read the scene again. If the scene still works, congratulations – you’ve just found something to delete.

Writers often worry that without backstory, readers won’t “get” the character. In reality, readers are astonishingly good at inference. Give them two plus two and they’ll happily make four. Give them the entire multiplication table and they’ll resent you for it.

Trust them.

Finally, remember this: mystery is more engaging than explanation.

Some of the most memorable characters in fiction are memorable precisely because we never know everything about them. Their past is hinted at, not itemized. The gaps invite imagination.

Backstory should illuminate, not suffocate.

So use less. Much less.

Bring it in late. Bring it in sideways. Bring it in only when it matters. And when in doubt, leave it out and see if the story breathes easier.

Your reader will thank you.

And if you ever feel tempted to explain a character’s entire childhood on page three, step away from the keyboard, make a cup of tea, and remind yourself of this simple truth:

The story is happening now.

That’s where the reader is. Stay with them.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell