creative

Backstory Building Questions for Your OCs

Solar

• 5 min read
Light and regular blue gradient background. Text reads "OC Backstory Questions". A doodle of Solar explaining some lore is present in the image.
Let's give our OCs some backstory lore!

Questions to help develop your OC’s backstory

Backstory isn’t always a crucial part of an OC, but it’s part of what makes your OC interesting and exciting for others. Sure, cool art is one thing, but learning that your OC has a cool scar because of a specific event in her childhood? That adds a whole new layer to your design choices! This article will ask some questions about your OCs that you can think about, along with some custom Solar-made randomizers that you can use to spark ideas with a six-sided die. I’ve organized everything in specific, easy to find sections. Let’s go!

Relationships

Here are some questions about your character’s friends and family. If you’re feeling extra artistic today, I’d recommend drawing a relationship chart or web for your OC’s family and friends. Drawing cute little versions of your character’s family might give you more inspiration to develop them too!

  • How is your OC’s family structured? (For example, a nuclear family of two parents, divorced parents and a blended family, etc.)
  • What about your OC’s extended family? (Uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents)
  • Or instead, if your character has found family, which character fills what family role for your OC?
  • How many friends did your character have in their childhood?
  • Did your OC have a best friend?
  • What about childhood pets? 

Developing these relationships might create a whole new OC with their own personality and relationships, or help explain why your OC acts a certain way. The possibilities are endless, especially with found family and adopted family!

Home

Your OC’s childhood bedroom can say a lot about them. Look around your own bedroom for inspiration. Do you have any old toys or items that bring to mind important memories? Keep those memories in mind when you consider these questions.

  • What does your character’s childhood bedroom look like?
  • Does your OC have a favourite childhood toy? Have they kept it until today?
  • Has your character moved around a lot, or have they stayed in one home?
  • If your character lived in multiple homes, what are the differences between each home? What made them unique?
  • Are there marks on the home that bring back memories? (Pencil height markings on a door frame, melted metal on a microwave from a candle placed there during a blackout, burn marks on the ceiling from a cooking experiment gone wrong, the possibilities are endless!)

Your environment can shape you as a child or young adult. If your OC grew up poor, maybe it drives them to seek a more comfortable life. Or the opposite, if your OC grew up wealthy, maybe it makes them uncomfortable to be in conditions they’ve never been in before. Try to connect the answers and little details you came up with to your character’s personality, or turn them into anecdotes to help show off your character's personality. 

Connecting Design to Story

Maybe you’re an artist first and a writer second, or you just got a cool new design from a trade and you want to come up with a backstory as cool as they are. These questions aren’t as direct as the others, but they should help you consider why your OC looks the way they do!

  • Why does your OC keep their hair the way they do? (Short because it’s easier to manage, long because it makes them feel feminine, braided to keep it under control, there are lots of possible reasons)
  • Why does your OC dress how they do, and would they dress differently if they were able to?
  • If your OC has any scars or tattoos, what are the stories behind them, if any?
  • Are any of your OC’s accessories or clothing pieces sentimental, with a story attached?
  • Is there an accessory your character is never seen without? Why is that?
  • Where does your character get their clothing?

People always wear clothes for specific reasons, and your OC is no exception. Even if your OC wears something because you thought it’d be cool, there are lots of potential opportunities to add more character facts through little design decisions. Give it a try! 

How Did They Get Here?

Whether your OC is casual or in a dramatic story, these questions are broad enough to fit both! What path did your character take, intentionally or not, to get to this point? It could be the start of your story, or just where they are now in terms of what backstory you want for them. 

  • Did your character want to do what they do now as a child? Could they even have imagined where they are now?
  • Did they have to go to school for it, or did it just happen? If they needed an education for their current job or status, what sort of education was it?
  • Did your character miss out on other opportunities because of their current life? Maybe love, a job, or other things important to them.
  • Does your character miss their childhood?
  • Would your character have chosen a different path if they had the chance?

Maybe these questions don’t fully cover your OC’s potential story, so if they don’t, try coming up with your own list of questions! What do you want to learn about your character? These are just a few ideas to get your creativity flowing. 

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Hopefully these questions helped you come up with a few ideas. If you didn’t see a question you think would be important to ask to develop a good backstory, make your own list of questions and post them under #backstory! At the end of the day, every character’s backstory is personal to them, just like our own histories and stories as writers and creators. Think about your own life and your own backstory as a creator, and use that as inspiration!

Solar’s Backstory Randomizer

Coming up with a backstory from scratch can be tough. So, I’ve made a little randomizer for you all! It’s 100% Solar made, and something you can do anywhere. Even if you don’t have a 6-sided-die, you can use an online dice roller; or, you can just pick whatever idea excites you! (I won’t judge)

Family

  1. Your OC has two parents.
  2. Your OC was raised by a single parent. 
  3. Your OC was raised by a parent’s sibling (and their spouse, if you’d like).
  4. Your OC was raised by their grandparents.
  5. Your OC was adopted by a group of people and raised communally.
  6. Your OC was raised in a blended family with divorced and remarried parents.

Home

  1. Your OC was born in their childhood home and has lived there ever since.
  2. Your OC moved into their childhood home shortly after they were born.
  3. Your OC moved into a family member’s home at some point in their childhood.
  4. Your OC moved around a lot, and has lived in multiple homes.
  5. Your OC’s home was destroyed at some point, and the family moved into a new home.
  6. Your OC’s home is their family, and wherever they travel is home.

Story in Design

  1. Your OC has a cool scar from a misadventure as a youth.
  2. Your OC has an special piece of jewelry gifted by an important person.
  3. Your OC has multiple sets of the same outfit.
  4. Your OC loves a certain kind of accessory, and collects them.
  5. Your OC wears their hair the way they do to honour an important person.
  6. Your OC makes their own clothing.

How Did They Get Here?

  1. Your OC was chosen by someone, causing their current life.
  2. Your OC chose to be where they are, meticulously planning every detail.
  3. Your OC accidentally stumbled their way into their current situation.
  4. Your OC has always had good/bad luck, and their current situation is obviously a manifestation of that.
  5. Your OC followed a childhood dream to get where they are now.
  6. Your OC fought against their current situation, and hasn’t managed to avoid it.