On Writing: The Difference Between Personal History and Backstory

As writers, we immerse ourselves in the lives of our characters. We get curious and ask questions about them and to them, searching for clues as to who they are, how they are, and why they are.

In this process, we amass information about them. That’s a good thing. But too much information can be a bad thing as it can overload us with details and bewilder us about what to do with all that content.

This is where I find it helpful to draw a distinction between personal history and backstory. Here are my definitions:

Personal History is everything we discover about a character and their lives leading up to FADE IN.

Backstory are those narrative elements drawn from a character’s personal history which will come directly into play in the story we are writing.

For example in the movie A Quiet Place, screenplay by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Kransinski, story by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck, the personal history of Lee and Evelyn would include how they met each other… how they ended up buying the rural property on which they live… the birth of their children Regan, Marcus, and Beau… the arrival of the aliens… the descent into a post-apocalyptic scenario.

We do not need to know all that. What we do need to know is this:

• The family has cobbled together a way of co-existing with the alien threat.
• Beau dies at the hands of the aliens.
• Regan believes her father blames her for Beau’s death.

That is backstory, narrative elements from the family’s personal history which have a specific influence on the story explored in the movie.

It is important to spend enough time with our characters to learn as much as we can about their personal history. Even though much of that content will not come directly into play in the story we write, it can inform us about the nature of those characters which can in turn be reflected in the characters’ actions in the script, their emotional subtext.

Then by zeroing in on each character’s backstory elements, that can help shape and focus their storylines.

Personal History can lead to Backstory which can lead to Story.