Back Story Advice For The Storyteller

I love telling about my back story.

But, admittedly, that is just because I find it interesting.

After all, it’s my childhood – my Eden – if you will.

But it is true that most people’s pasts are not interesting.

Or, maybe said better: Most are uninterested in other people’s pasts.

In the case of storytelling, the counter-intuitive technique that is difficult to avoid is that 100% of a back story is often not needed.

I first saw this omission with Quentin Tarantino in his movie Inglorious Bastards.

The movie starts with soldiers shooting through the floorboards at a hiding family. Only a young woman escapes. Blood soaked, she runs into the horizon with only the clothes on her back.

The next time we see her three years have passed and the woman is operating a movie theater in Paris.

Some time later, I saw Tarantino refer to this in an interview.

He said he had pages and pages of back story describing what happened to the girl during those three years. But he wrote it for character development.

It was unneeded for the story.

What is true for writing in general is also true for a back story: Less is more.

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get carried away with the rest. Long life stories are best received in bars, and only then an hour or so before closing time, and if you are buying.

-Stephen King, On Writing