Backstory

A backstory, background story, back-story, or background is a set of events invented for a plot, presented as preceding and leading up to that plot. It is a literary device of a narrative history all chronologically earlier than the narrative of primary interest.

It is the history of characters and other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start. Even a purely historical work selectively reveals backstory to the audience.

Usage

As a literary device backstory is often employed to lend depth or believability to the main story. The usefulness of having a dramatic revelation was recognized by Aristotle, in Poetics.

Backstories are usually revealed, partially or in full, chronologically or otherwise, as the main narrative unfolds. However, a story creator may also create portions of a backstory or even an entire backstory that is solely for their own use.

Backstory may be revealed by various means, including flashbacks, dialogue, direct narration, summary, recollection, and exposition. The original Star Wars movie and its first two sequels are examples of a work with a preconceived backstory, which was later released as the "prequel" second set of three movies.

Back-story (production)

Back-story, in the production of consumer goods, is information about the effects of their production.

As of June 2007 sustainability advocates had begun evoking literary backstories to refer to the "backstories" of goods: that is, the impacts on the planet and people, caused by producing and delivering those goods. Without knowledge of the full backstory of a product, a consumer cannot accurately judge whether the impacts of purchasing it are good or bad. Some environmentalists and consumer-protection advocates argue that greater corporate and governmental transparency would be a critical step towards sustainability, enabling consumers to make more informed choices, and activists to bring public opinion to bear on practices they consider unethical.

References

Back Story

Back Story is a crime novel by Robert B. Parker, the 30th novel in his Spenser series.

Plot summary

The novel begins with Spenser receiving a large payment for a case he worked for Rita Fiore. Due to this, Spenser decides to work a case pro bono for an aspiring young actress named Daryl Gordon who is trying to find out who murdered her mother, Emily Gordon. She tells Spenser that her mother came to Boston from California to stay with her sister, and was then murdered by The Dread Scott Brigade; a revolutionary, anti-establishment movement in the 1970s, during a Boston bank robbery in 1974. Despite the case being decades cold, and her only payment being six Krispy Kreme donuts, Spenser likes the challenge and decides to take the case. He starts by getting the case files, and speaking to the original investigators. None remember anything significant, but Spenser soon realizes that an FBI report on the case is missing. So he questions the FBI about this missing file, and they claim no such report was ever written. Soon after two FBI agents accost Spenser in his home and tell him to leave the case alone. Soon after that a couple of goons working for mob boss Sonny Karnofsky threaten Spenser and also tell him to stop investigating the cold case. The FBI and the mob not wanting Spenser to investigate the case only serve to pique his interest. He wonders what it is they are trying to hide and questions Sonny directly, who then orders his henchmen to kill Spenser.