Advice/Help Do you write your character around their backstory or the backstory around the character?

[natsukashii]

I like to decide on a rough concept and see what happens. Sometimes writing my character's backstory helps immensely with everything else: powers, personality, little appearance things that almost nobody will remember five days after reading the sheet. Or sometimes doing it in chronological order would get the job done. But really, I just try and let my muse guide me the best it can. It might send me on some wild paths of headcanon, Pinterest-surfing, and the occasional inspiration nap, but I almost always get my desired results.

 

[BackSet]

Generally speaking I make a character and then a backstory. I often reboot my RPs using the same character, resulting in several characters undergoing backstory changes over the years. Sometimes it's only minor tweaks and sometimes it's a complete overhaul.

I also occasionally retool characters for other RPs but only when I never actually got to use that character in the first place (one character in a Sci-Fi Roleplay set in an original world started off as a Pokemon OC).

 

[Melpomene]

Hmm

That's a bit difficult for me to answer as whenever I create my characters it tends to be me dabbling here and there until I find their root so I can cultivate them and let them flourish.

Often times I am making the character and th backstory at the exact same time. I find it hard to imagine a character in their entirety without at least having a hint of a background because we are the result of our history and I find it important to reflect that in the character's current state. From their relationship with their mother to the smells that are nostalgic to them. And then I usually have to write with them for a few posts before I can feel them really come to life. That is usually the point when I actually solidify their character and backstory.

So I don't usually write one around the other. Usually I let them have equal influence over one another depending on what I think is natural to happen in their backstory, or in their character.

TL; DR: I write them at the same time for the most part, I find that is what comes natural to me.

 

[sevyn]

there’s no solid answer for me since i tend to work with random burst of inspiration, but i’d say my best work is when i have the backstory in mind first. sometimes i’ll get ideas for character backstories, but i don’t have a character who it’d really fit, so i build a character based on that idea; and much of the time, i like starting with a backstory because it’s better to shape who they’d be in the present day, how their personality was formed by their life story.

when i’m filling out oc forms, i rarely ever work in order i think my style is more like just… having so many correlating ideas buzzing around in my head at all times, mapping them out and then placing them in a coherent sequence before i start to really sew the character together— and whatever doesn’t fit well enough can just be placed to the side, either to use in a different character or to see if i can’t tweak the concept to fit the character in question, without forcing it. all this to say, i tend to quickly bounce between working on different parts of a character, and tweaking the smaller details to fit whichever concepts i enjoy the most and make the most sense.