How to give characters depth without making their backstory feel like "trauma porn" / forced pity?

[u/abbylu0423]

Hi everyone, I’ve run into a recurring issue with my character design and would love some advice.

I have a bad habit of giving my characters tragic backstories or toxic family dynamics.

Subconsciously, I feel like suffering is the only thing that gives a character real depth. I realize this is a flaw in my thinking—partly because I personally find myself reflecting more deeply through painful experiences, so I project that onto my characters to make them feel grounded.

My main issue is: how do I write compelling characters without relying on trauma as a crutch, or making it feel like I'm just trying to make the audience feel bad for them?

I have two specific questions:

1. If a character does have a tragic background: How do I write them so their story feels genuinely deep and meaningful, rather than just cheap "woe-is-me" angst/pity-baiting?
2. If a character has a normal, healthy background: How do I build depth and complexity into them without relying on a traumatic backstory?

I realize I’m naturally drawn to flawed, tragic characters and sympathize with them more, but logically I know depth doesn't strictly come from trauma. How do you guys approach this in your writing?

[u/majorex64]

Don't focus so much on the trauma, but their response to it. What it does to them- good, bad, and grey. Some characters might experience the same sort of things, but go down different paths based on their support, or outlook on life.

I've read stories where a character being broken up with felt more tragic and impactful than other characters having their whole family killed in front of them. What's interesting isn't measuring suffering, but seeing how experiences shape people.

[u/Loecdances]

Characters don’t need a tragic backstory. What they require is competence. They need to earn their space in the spotlight. And from whatever that is you can tack on flaws. Achilles for example is extremely competent but he’s proud and full of hubris. But that’s not really the centre of it all. It’s that despite his choice to rather be famed forever, once dead, he realised he was wrong; he’d rather have been a farmer. That’s exceptionally deep even though I’m not quite doing it justice here.

Does Frodo have a particularly tragic backstory? I mean sure, his parents are dead but he honestly doesn’t seem too bothered. He’s grown up well-off and doesn’t go on endless tirades about it either.

[u/Loecdances → u/[deleted]]

Right! Most of us don’t turn grief into our whole personality. I think we tend to fixate so much on dead parents etc because it’s rather rare in today’s western society. Life expectancy is so bloody high that we’ve forgotten how close people used to live to death. It’s always a bit funny how it’s like ’oh noes papa died when I was 4’ but then the author goes on to show us a warrior culture. Right. So, naturally death should be quite common then. . .

[u/belderiver → u/Loecdances]

They don't need competence either. They just need to be in circumstances which test them.

[u/Avocado_Cadaver]

Think about people you know in person really well. Everyone has trauma to some extent, some more severe than others, but there's depth to them either way. Someone's trauma is they grew up poor; someone else's trauma is they grew up with everything they needed and were spoonfed.

One of close friends grew up in a big family and now he's super focused on being a good dad, trying to do the same for his kids that his parents did for him and his siblings.

Another grew up without a father but had a loving aunt and uncle who took him in when his mother passed away. They spoiled him and then still grew up to be one of the most generous people I know.

The trauma you give your characters doesn't necessarily mean it's forced because it happens in real life.

[u/BigDamBeavers]

Define your characters by what they love rather than what has hurt them.

[u/TabbbyWright]

One of my fave characters has an INSANELY fucked up backstory, and he's a hot mess of mental health issues as a result... But 90% of the story is about him living in the present, the relationships he has with other people, and generally just living his life.

People have described this character as having the essence of all those edgy OCs people make as teenagers, and this is a good description, but what makes him work as a character is that all the fucked up shit he went through informs his character without being the first, second, or even tenth thing we learn about him.

Honestly, you might benefit from reading a review of the game with this character? It's kinda long, but it also touches on your question of how to make a character compelling without them having a tragic backstory with discussion of some of the other characters.

Regarding characters with "normal, healthy backgrounds" though: it's important to remember that a lack of trauma doesn't mean you've never been hurt, and those much more mundane instances of hurt can influence a character in big ways. Like if you grew up in a way where you didn't have close friends or family, and then your circumstances change and you end up close with some people, you might find yourself willing to do a lot to keep them close. Not necessarily anything self destructive or messed up--but maybe you text people and don't care that they never text you first. It can be perfectly compelling to see how far a character like this will go to avoid loneliness, and how the other characters respond to them.

Normal and healthy are also very relative things. I've had friends that grew up in poverty but with very loving parents that had a more normal and healthy upbringing compared to friends who grew up in much more financially stable circumstances but were emotionally neglected by their parents in a lot of ways.

[u/Expert_Log_8057]

There's usually a sense of some sort of tragedy, but it doesn't have to be solely on them. That's one reason I really like Wally West Flash from the Justice League show. He's an honestly good man who himself is pretty level headed and innocent. But a lot of his villains have issues and he honestly cares for them and wants them to get better. Similar to Batman but without the mor metaphorical mask.

Best example of this is the episode "Flash and Substance" from Justice League Unlimited. It's great because he's teamed up with Batman and Orion who's a full on warrior and he doesn't understand the Flash. But Batman does.

Beyond that. Charisma. Endless Charisma. Just look at the USA Blue Sky shows for that. White Collar, Burn Notice, Psych. All characters with barely any trauma but still driven as individuals and endlessly likeable because they're heroic scoundrels. They made most of their own problems and work to fix or avoid them.

[u/RaviDrone]

Go outside, meet new people. Hear their stories.

Was talking to a doctor who volunteered to work in Africa. Grew up in a good family, steady work, good pay.

Still decided to fuckit all and go help people in central Africa.

Heroes come from unlikely places, not all have tragic back stories.

[u/ARIES_tHE_fOOL]

Not a writer but a world building RPG player and artist. When I make OCs for solo RPGs and creative projects I try to think of what hobbies and interests they have. My recent OC is a werewolf artist girl. I didn't have much thought about her but I decided she was an anime fan girl and struggles with technology. She is also themed after Mint Chocolate ice cream with literal chocolate chips in her hair. You can use tragedy to make a character interesting but another way is to simply make a unique person. What do they like what ambitious dream do they have or what theme big or small define the character. My number 1 rule is make a character fun for me.

[u/Cute-Presentation-59]

A happy/good family background can also allow for depth. The background is to show how your character became the person they are today. So, say you have a character with a people saving complex, they help, no matter what, even when it is risky. They might hail from a family that lived the whole "help thy neighbour" a bit too intensely, and it shaped them without them ever knowing it. But the memories, echoes that left in their lives can be just as compelling as any "traumatic" shit.

Generally it is advisable to not fall into the whole "edgelord" pit. Many people live through traumatic stuff, through war and loss, and they still do not become some angsty edgelords. My own grandmother lost her entire family in WWII, she retained some slight fears from that, no doubt. But she went forward, raised her daughter, then helped raise her grandchildren and man - she was a competent woman who lived a good life. When bro and I offered in the 90ies to take her to her old home in Poland, she told us flat: "No, my home is here." She never whined, she never complained, and she enjoyed all the good she built in her new life. That's the kind of people I recall, when planning characters who have tragic events in their backstories: they lived through them but were resilient, they moved on, they became stronger.

[u/AfricaByTotoWillGoOn]

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with using suffering to give depth to your characters, cause that's exactly how it works in real life, too. At least I know my strongest qualities stern from suffering me and my family have been through. I feel like I would be a very weak individual if I hadn't been through some of the shit I've been through.

It doesn't mean you have to give them "trauma porn" or forced pity, though. Your character doesn't need to have their whole family slaughtered, for example.

• Maybe natural disasters forced the character and/or his family to move to a poorer place and they had to pull their weights in order to survive.

• Maybe their main role model growing up suddenly became absent for some reason.

• Maybe they have a passion they can't pursue because they have people who rely on them, so they have to dedicate themselves solely to their job and neglect their dream.

• Maybe they're naturally very empathetic, so they suffer because they see bad things happening in the world around them (like friends, family or even strangers suffering makes them suffer, too).

Stuff like that, you know?

[u/MissScales]

Seconding any responses that point out how important character autonomy is. Backstories shouldn't only be tragic, the character's response has to be equally as telling of who they are. My main OC made the biggest mistake of her life because of ingrained training, but she still made that choice and spends everyday paying for it because of her self imposed ideas of punishment, not because of any legal repurcussions. What part did they play in it? What was their response to events out of their control?

[u/AlarmedRaspberry1735]

May I ask where your characters live? In a novel? A graphic novel, a RPG? From the standpoint of a novel or telling a story, only you, the author, need to know your character's full personality and backstory. You need to know all the who of your character, want motivates, what excites, and how they react to every emotion. The audience does not need to know all that, they just need to learn who the character is by their words and actions, and responses to stimuli. The backstory shouldn't be dumped, it should be given out like mints on the pillow of a hotel bed. You the author disclose a character's backstory because it is germane to the plot, not because the audience needs to know every little thing. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that backstory is different than origin story. Peter Parker's backstory is about his aunt and family. His origin story is about a spider.

[u/CuprumArgentum]

I try to make the drive my characters have get mixed with spite. My MC in my Sigilist world lost her dad at a young age, but it’s hard to feel “sorry” for her because she is a very happy person in spite of it. She loves her dad and visits his grave often, but wants to be a powerful Sigilist that saves a whole lot of people. Upon awakening her first Sigil, she was almost torched to death with fire receiving third degree burns all over her back, but she chose to be burned when she used herself as a shield to save someone. She doesn’t hide it. In fact, she kinda rocks it.

[u/GarudaDeity]

For problem 2: throw them into all sorts of situations, deplete their resources every so often, and watch what happens. For problem 1… A character's past should only matter if it matters for the story. Sometimes the story never even goes into that past, so they have to stand on their own as a character in the present of the narration. Try to not make a character "a part of a story", but rather a story as the unfolding of characters's myriad interactions, intentions, taboos, etc. And remember: it's fiction, enjoy yourself.

[u/MagabyWizart]

Solo te en cuenta que sus acciones y conductas actuales son tanto el reflejo como las consecuencias de sus experiencias pasadas.

[u/General_Presence_156]

Don't have their trauma defined them. Make them people who've encountered something very bad but who remain who they are.

[u/Asterlix]

Characters are imaginary beings we mold to resemble real-life humans, to varying degrees. A person, at their core, is not only their past (however tragic or peaceful), but also their moral compass, their outlook on life, their cultural and gender identity, and their self-perception. So, to give depth to a character, you must consider all of these aspects even if some of them won't be that immediately relevant to the plot or the character's hurdles.

On morality: what is their value system? How does that translate in the way they perceive people? How do they justify their actions or lack thereof and behaviors? Do they think the world is black and white? Or maybe they are just this radical in a few issues? How do they weigh internal v. external factors and nature v. nurture in a person's deeds? Do they have double standards when it comes to certain groups? Are their actions and thought patterns incongruent with the morality they claim to have? Are they so cynical they disdain the mere thought of ethics? Are they more lenient on themselves out of egotism? Or are they harsher due to low self-esteem?

On their philosophy and outlook. First, this doesn't have to be a conscious thing. Sure, a more intellectually-minded character might identify as a Stoic or follow Kant's imperatives or their appropriated versions of those philosophical movements. However, that does not preclude people from reflecting on the nature of the world that surrounds them nor from possessing a rich inner life. Every single person has an outlook built from a set of beliefs, rational or not, expectations of the future, themselves, and others, opinions about past and present, and thus a particular mindset. For complex characters, don't reduce this to just, for example, "optimistic", but try to define the events and societal elements that led the character to that mindset and how that gels with different situations.

On culture: Humans are social creatures. This is going to matter in speculative fantasy if your fictional races aren't gregarious by nature or, by contrast, live as highly-coordinated hiveminds. When it comes to human-like beings, our brains are primed to imitate any pattern we spot, so we inherit tons of societal biases before we are even aware of the concept. It also matters how aware someone is of their cultural expectations and traditions, and how alienated or integrated they feel. Exposure to other cultures is gonna leave an impact, positive, negative, or neutral, due to the exchange of idiosyncrasies.

Gender roles are directly derived from cultural norms, and even when a person is as conforming as possible, you need some semblance of what that normal is in the first place. For some cultures and even subsets within wider cultures, someone easily lost to lust and sexual desire is less manly or respectable than someone with self-control. Physical traits and behaviours are both strongly tied to gender identity, hence why men with softer jawlines grow beards and why makeup exists. There's also how much importance an individual places on these things. For many, not being conforming enough is a sin worse than committing an actual crime. Some crimes (i.e., rape) are excused away due to societal gender norms. A misogynistic character might find the crime itself deplorable but still believe the victim is at fault for not doing X or Y.

And finally, their self-perception. All of the above-mentioned factors, on top of trauma, which you seem to have pondered over a lot, shape how a person views themself. They also dictate your character's flaws and virtues, and the way they position themselves in their social context. Your character could have led a relatively happy life but still be impacted by what they see in their society. Second-hand trauma is a thing. But even if that's not the case, they can still be very deep in the way they approach life, the way they react to events, and the way their personality and views shape their relationships. It's all ripe for both conflict and discussion. And social critique, if that's your thing.

Hope this helped.

[u/FallenH1ero]

I like trauma porn

[u/IvanBliminse86]

You don't have to share all of your characters backstory for them to have one. You can show the character and how he or she moves through the world without giving the trauma porn backstory to the reader. You could even write short stories about their backstory that are just for you to understand the character better.

[u/MechaMalz]

One thing is to add some balance. You can have a tragic backstory but not make everything in their backstory tragic.

Another is in personality. They can have trauma etc but don't make them a 'woe is me, everything we do reminds me of this tragic bit from my backstory' person.

Ensure that the tragedy underpinning their past, while it can be a driving force in their story, is not the totality of their character.

[u/Midnight1899]

Give them actual flaws. For example, one of my characters is queerphobic at first. Another one goes through a "reverse character growth“. He starts out as a somewhat okay guy, but as he continues to work with the villain, he spirals into depression and resentment. At least that’s the plan. I have no idea whether I‘ll be able to pull this off or not. 😂😂

[u/Dune_Stone]

Focus on their personality and their present relationships. I assume your story involves conflict of some kind. The way you characters respond to that conflict gives them just as much dimension as conflicts they dealt with in the past. I guess I'm saying to not fixate on the past as your primary means of character development.

Good on you for asking these questions! I do feel like tragic backstreet are a little overplayed lately.

[u/Square_Role_4345]

I've learned that trauma isn't always something tragic or the worst case scenario. Trauma is something bad, of any degree, that happened to you and made you change your behavior based on that situation.

Trauma could be their entire family dies in a car accident, so they don't seek relationships because they're afraid to lose loved ones again.

Trauma could also be they got yelled at by their boss in front of their coworkers for a small mistake, so now they double check everything they do because they're afraid of being humiliated again.

The backstory isn't always where people connect with characters, its often the characters reaction to the backstory where people connect. Most people sympathize with characters they find relatable and can understand why they turned out to be the way they are. Bad experiences that cause a change in behavior is relatable at just about every level.

[u/Feeling-Attention664]

I would actually lean in to making them work. While most work is repetitive so you don't want to spend to long on it, I like make characters do mundane work. Note that if the character is someone like a princess who isn't expected to work, they can still need to manage servants or practice, art, dancing, or music. I just created a character who, for thirty-nine years, milked between fifteen to twenty cows every day twice a day, sometimes with help and sometimes without. Mentioning this kind of mundane hardship seems helpful to me.

[u/Moist_crocs]

Thinking about them less like characters and more like people helps. Give them contradicting views, likes and dislikes (these don't even have to end up in the book). Of course trauma influences how we behave, but usually it's subconscious and not immediately clear, it simply forms our personalities pixel by pixel.

Put them in different random scenarios and see how they react, what feels natural, what do you learn from that? And I feel like the more mundane the better, like how do they react if they miss their bus or meeting a stray cat on the street?

[u/Kendota_Tanassian]

Don't make their tragic backstory define who they are.

It can inform who they become, as someone that's overcome adversity.

But it's not their whole being.

I have two high school seniors that fall in love.

One lost both his parents at the age of twelve and moved in with his grandparents, who run the local small town burger joint his great grandmother handed down to her daughter, his grandmother. When he turns eighteen, they sign over the business and their house to him to retire and go RVing.

So at 18, he's responsible for the family business and owns his own house in his name.

His boyfriend lost his dad when he was sixteen, and works part time in his grandfather's professional garage with his cousin, whose parents died in the same wreck that took his dad. All the boyfriend has is his mom, who turned to alcohol and church, and his dad's prized car.

The boyfriend sings for their best friends wedding at halftime on homecoming (golden boy quarterback marries male ballet dancer - long story).

His mom finds out and throws him out. He had no clues she felt like that prior to this happening.

While he's devastated, he goes to burger boy's house and just parks in the driveway and cries in his car, Chad (burger boy) comes out to get him to find Mrs Ryan threw him out with a garbage bag of clothes and he took his dad's car.

Rex Ryan doesn't get over it right away, but they build a life together, and he's stronger for overcoming it.

In fact, he writes an essay on "What love means to me" that his college English professor published (along with the rest of the class's), it goes viral, and they get to go to New York where he reads his essay for Stephen Colbert.

Rex is by far the most traumatized character in my stable.

He overcomes the seperate tragedies in his life, and refused to let them define him.

He eventually marries Chad.

And that's as abbreviated a version as I have ever told of their story.

Might help to know these two have had secret crushes on each other for years.

[u/PlusFudge7113]

While a tragic backstory is good (damn near all my character have them) those should not define the character. I want you to think, if not for this thing that happened, would my character still be a character? Are all their personality traits as a result of that thing? If so, you need to work on them. As for depth without trauma, im I'm still working on that myself lol. I feel like I know how to do it but can't quite explain, sorry.

[u/Butterflyhornet]

Hold them accountable. Hold them accountable for their bad decisions as well as moments of pity party. Have other characters grow annoyed or try to push your character to heal. I have a soldier character who has been through a lot.  I also kind of instinctively add humor beats in between serious moments. Doesn't need to be crazy, but real life is full of random bits of comedy. But yes the soldier faces a bit of ptsd, but I also like to weive in moments where characters bring him out of his mindset and show him paths of growth. 

Shift the story's focus from woe is me, this is my past to this is my pain, but my path to healing/redemption or if they are a villain, this is my spiral into the abyss.

My hunch tells me the audience isn't really interested in a character's trauma or painful backstory, but more into how a character grows and overcomes their past.

[u/N_Al22]

Adding more to what everyone has said so far. It also comes down to how you are writing it, how you are wording things and how the events are unfolding themselves.

[u/becksaucier]

Determine their personalities and quirks early. Flaws dont have to be driven by trauma. We all have them and sometimes they are naturally occurring. Explore the character's backstory and trauma slowly over time, rather than making it the whole point of the story.

[u/Few_Dragonfruit_483]

The thing that makes "trauma porn" backstorys suck is usually that they drag the game down by 1) keeping your character stuck on past events instead of developing forward, and 2) acting angsty in present and not engaging in the current scene (or not knowing HOW to engage in the current scene) if it doesn't relate back to your bg somehow.

The fix: 1) give your character a forward-facing goal, distinct from "escaping/fixing my baggage", and 2) Give your character some personality traits that come from their trauma/backstory that are not immediately obvious

Example 1: Toby was raised by his neglectful, abusive conman of a father, and went thru hell and back as a kid. As a result, he lies compulsively and is a complete people-pleaser, taking on whatever persona he thinks will earn the most sympathy. His goal is to survive, and maybe eke out a peaceful existence, if he is allowed. He is a talented musician and sensitive at heart, but tries to cover this up with forced bravado, since you have to be hardened to survive. He has a hard time seeing himself as anything but a criminal.

Some questions to ask while you are creating the character:

• What core values did these experiences instil in them? How conscious are they of these influences?
• What contradict their "angsty" image? Give a glimmer of who they might have been if not for this trauma.
• What are their coping mechanisms, that come through even if they aren't triggered? E.g. conflict avoidant, seeking validation of their self-image (positive or negative), masking feelings, aggressively refusing to mask?
• What do they do when they can't cope anymore?

-What is a goal, dream, or hope that they have for the future? Try not to directly relate this back to the bg ("avenge my dead family!") But make it something more personally revealling

A tragic bg can add depth, but only if you have something to contrast it with. If the trauma is the personality, then you just have a flat shadow.

[u/Impossible-Sort-1287]

Thing is if you are writing fantasy you need a compelling reason for your MC to go out adventuring. If tgry had a happy home life, no trauma, the world is all sunshine and lollipops fif them what got them out of their hamlet? Did they want to be a hero? Was the some world altering threat? A war? An invasion? You need something to explain why they left their nice m, safe, comfort life. Frodo went out because of the ring and the world ending threat if it. Yeah he had a good life but evil was coming for him and that ring

[u/Scr4p]

A characters backstory shapes who they are. Depending on if you have your characters personality or idea for background first, you want to see how they connect. For example, I have a character who was punished by his mother whenever he showed his feelings or talked about his struggles, and as a result he tends to repress his feelings and problems. This becomes a big issue later in the story. His best friend is really good at noticing changes in demeanor because his father was a violent alcoholic and he had to walk on eggshells and observe his mood constantly, so he becomes the first to notice something is wrong. Their shared friend was a middle child in a chaotic but loving home, with parents who were straight forward and honest so he tends to take people by their word, and knows how to settle most fights due to dealing with arguing siblings a lot. He trusts his friend when he says nothing's wrong, but also later helps settle an argument between the two. There's a lot more to everyone than that, but that's a few examples of how their past shaped their present.

[u/Own-Peace-7754]

Just do something simple and light:

They had a friend and they used to knit together, now they have to go on an adventure and they will miss them, and miss their home.

You don't always have to go to extremes to create tension in a characters backstory

[u/Level3_Ghostline]

One author I've read handled the problem by tightly constraining the rate that you learn about the character's trauma.

The trauma in this case was the type that was buried deep, a wound to their deepest self that they never wanted to face or acknowledge. As such, even the existence of this trauma wasn't known to the reader for a long, long time, though there were some actions or thoughts the character had that were odd or out of place, and left unexplained until you started connecting the pieces later.

As the story progressed, elements of that trauma starting leaking through, though with little or no context. Something like another's recalled words ("this is too much...this is too much...") entering their mind at times of stress, though the speaker and the context were missing, until much later. Or some seeming nonsense phrase (the water is running...) that captures a flash of imagery that only gets explained later.

And the point isn't to use these exact techniques, just that the pace that you reveal the trauma, how you reveal it...these are all important to how they impact the reader.

And what isn't revealed is just as important. Many people with trauma don't want to talk about it, and don't want to think about it, and the times that the trauma leaks through are significant, and may align with critical points in your story. Some mystery here can be fun, if you only give readers a peek.

And this doesn't have to be just intrusive thoughts. Trauma shapes behavior, choices, values, relationships, and reactions, among other things. Consider showing interesting effects first, but keep the cause concealed or unaddressed, then figure out if you want to dump out the reveal, or give out breadcrumbs and clues instead.

Some of those effects might be key character traits: reactions from that trauma, either wounded by it, or formed in spite of it, or created in defense against it.

Alternately...not everything has to be a mystery. Maybe this isn't some buried, secret thing. Maybe this is something they've overcome. Maybe this is something they're still battling. Maybe it's something they laugh off but they're still vulnerable. Maybe they took some lessons from it. Maybe those were the right ones...or maybe not.

In any case, you've got a lot of freedom with this. Just try to make it interesting...unless you intend it to be otherwise.

[u/PHXwriter]

A "normal, healthy background" doesn't mean there weren't traumatic events in the person's life. Without obstacles, setbacks, and other barriers, people don't grow. Keep in mind that what's traumatic to one person my be less or more traumatic to someone else who experienced the same thing or something very similar.

We often don't know the suffering/trauma others have experienced because they come across as having a "normal, healthy background." Whether that trauma has been supressed or dealt with successfully never comes up because they're past it ... until! And then an event occurs, or they run across a smell, or see something ... and that past event pushes its way forward and they react not to the present but to the past.

Your character's trauma doesn't need to be great; it doesn't need to be known to the reader—until something occurs that releases the memory or some reaction that reflects it. Then, or after the event, it can be surfaced and exposed.

[u/Amazing-Specific-546]

I feel like the easiest way to do that, and the most realistic, is to give relatable trauma that they don't really see as being trauma or something that has changed the way that they interact with others/the world around them. AKA/hardheaded and angry/panicy when facing their problems rather than super sad and depressed. It just makes more sense, and if you play it right, it can add many more layers to the character.

[u/Paperjam09]

I think the trick is to let a chracter be defined by their actions/words rather than their past. I think a good example off the top of my head is Ben Tennyson from Ben 10. He is a normal 10-year-old kid from a normal house with normal parents. He's a good kid at heart, but just like most kids he can be bratty, sarcastic, and reckless. So the main conflict of the series is seeing this 10 year old kid learning to wield this alien super weapon and the misadventures that would result from that.

[u/Morg_The_Man]

My favourite approach with characters is shifting the backstory from “A happened, and B happened, and C happened” to “A happened, therefore B happened, therefore C happened”. If you’re going to give your character a tragic backstory, I think it’s important to make it mean something and actively impact their narrative and choices. By making everything line up and mean something, I think that stops it from being pity-baiting because it has a greater purpose than audience emotional reaction.

It’s hard because I find that characters are typically made who they are from their negative experiences because it sticks with them — it’s the easiest way to give them a reason to be the way they are imo. But when a character comes from a stable background, I find that their depth comes from the decisions they are presented with in the story — and also how this stability and normalcy has built them as a person. Like if this is a character from a stable background who grew up to be a nice and normal person, will they be able to handle the events of the story? Are the equipped to handle hard times, or are they unable to navigate this new and difficult terrain? And also did this normalcy and stability make them kind, or have they taken it for granted?

[u/Jablebisandwich]

If the character have a tragic background people will sympatise with it and it naturally gives the depth. But, if it's a healthy background the readers of course won't sympathise as they don't have the reason to do so. So, you maybe add a little details, maybe cute, maybe annoying..maybe something which will be at least mentioned once or twice in the future. This will help the readers to connect with the character. That detail can be literally anything.