Bloodshed and Backstories

[Shadow_Tempest]

So what I want to tell is ...
IN EVERY BACKSTORY THE MC HAS A MESSED UP LIFE!!!
Or at least ones I have read/watched

I mean everywhere the mc's loved ones have died and will turn badass
or the mc killed a lot of people and now wants to be a saint
or the mc had a near-death experience and becomes a powerful being
or the mc killed someone accidentally and grew a trauma
or the mc witnessed a random robber killing a random stranger and grew a trauma
or ... I'm tired of typing. Think of ones yourself.

Why? isn't there some backstory without bloodshed and made the mc's life go dark? I don't want the ones where lovers break up...
I was writing a new series and pondered for a while...ok, one whole month and can't seem to find anything suitable.

If there are ones you know/made please tell me.

 

[Nahrenne]

So what I want to tell is ...
IN EVERY BACKSTORY THE MC HAS A MESSED UP LIFE!!!
Or at least ones I have read/watched

I mean everywhere the mc's loved ones have died and will turn badass
or the mc killed a lot of people and now wants to be a saint
or the mc had a near-death experience and becomes a powerful being
or the mc killed someone accidentally and grew a trauma
or the mc witnessed a random robber killing a random stranger and grew a trauma
or ... I'm tired of typing. Think of ones yourself.

Why? isn't there some backstory without bloodshed and made the mc's life go dark? I don't want the ones where lovers break up...
I was writing a new series and pondered for a while...ok, one whole month and can't seem to find anything suitable.

If there are ones you know/made please tell me.

I think it's mostly due to those situations being relatable/understandable motivations that the reader can get behind.
I mean, it's a bit hard for me personally to follow a happy MC who has never suffered any kind of hardship to motivate them to strive for power/fame/strength, etc...
Of course, I could be wrong about this assumption.
That's my take on it.
'-'

X

 

[averagewriter]

Try writing a comedy or a romance novel then. These back stories or moments you are talking about are mostly in action and adventure novels.

 

[GDLiZy]

Hard world makes hard men.

 

[ConTroll]

So you want a character whose backstory had no rational or justifiable reason for turning dark?

A person's life doesn't go dark on its own unless they were already messed-up in the head.

Edit: Granted, my story's MC doesn't have much of a backstory other than being experimented-on while unconscious.

That said, the MC does experience one of the common tropes you listed, early-on in the story, giving him motivation to continue, purely out of spite...but I suppose you can consider that part of the backstory of the character.

 

[Karver]

It is easier to explain the motivations/abilities of the MC if they have a larger traumatic/dynamic event that occurs to them, something that will lead the reader by the hand so that they understand "Oh, I get it, if that happened to me I would turn out the same". A strong example of this is in Goblin Slayer wherein after his village is wiped out by goblins he is driven by the single purpose of killing all goblins.
On the contrary, we have characters that have a rather bland backstory (no offence to QuillMoniker), such as Matt from They Call Me M.A.D., and the MC rises to the occasion alongside the rest of the cast.
I find that my MC's backstory is right down the middle, it's pretty bland aside from getting isekaid by bullet-chan. My characters backstory, in this sense, is only utilized to explain why he has the skill set and knowledge base that he does/abilities that he possesses.

 

[NotaNuffian]

So what I want to tell is ...
IN EVERY BACKSTORY THE MC HAS A MESSED UP LIFE!!!
Or at least ones I have read/watched

I mean everywhere the mc's loved ones have died and will turn badass
or the mc killed a lot of people and now wants to be a saint
or the mc had a near-death experience and becomes a powerful being
or the mc killed someone accidentally and grew a trauma
or the mc witnessed a random robber killing a random stranger and grew a trauma
or ... I'm tired of typing. Think of ones yourself.

Why? isn't there some backstory without bloodshed and made the mc's life go dark? I don't want the ones where lovers break up...
I was writing a new series and pondered for a while...ok, one whole month and can't seem to find anything suitable.

If there are ones you know/made please tell me.

I dunno, I am writing a story of a moron (village boy) and he is dull as plain cracker. The only redeeming point is that with the power he has, now he is like the hulk, all the anger management and strength but none of the invulnerability.

I am literally shoving sadness and injustice into his peaceful life just to make him grow from a dull human being that I can just grab from the street to someone who gets sharper and stronger as he now have a motivation in life instead of just living day by day like most folks in NU and SH.

Give nothing to a human being to strive and he will just waste his life away.

 

[Discount_Blade]

I dunno, I am writing a story of a moron (village boy) and he is dull as plain cracker. The only redeeming point is that with the power he has, now he is like the hulk, all the anger management and strength but none of the invulnerability.

I am literally shoving sadness and injustice into his peaceful life just to make him grow from a dull human being that I can just grab from the street to someone who gets sharper and stronger as he now have a motivation in life instead of just living day by day like most folks in NU and SH.

Give nothing to a human being to strive and he will just waste his life away.

Indeed young master. Indeed.....(twirls long magnificent beard)

 

[Shadow_Tempest]

Thank you guys

 

[SailusGebel]

So what I want to tell is ...
IN EVERY BACKSTORY THE MC HAS A MESSED UP LIFE!!!
Or at least ones I have read/watched

I mean everywhere the mc's loved ones have died and will turn badass
or the mc killed a lot of people and now wants to be a saint
or the mc had a near-death experience and becomes a powerful being
or the mc killed someone accidentally and grew a trauma
or the mc witnessed a random robber killing a random stranger and grew a trauma
or ... I'm tired of typing. Think of ones yourself.

Why? isn't there some backstory without bloodshed and made the mc's life go dark? I don't want the ones where lovers break up...
I was writing a new series and pondered for a while...ok, one whole month and can't seem to find anything suitable.

If there are ones you know/made please tell me.

"The Second Coming of Gluttony" is kind of matches your criteria, mc didn't have any problems with the law nor with his parents. If i remember it correctly Japanese novel "The World of Otome Games is Tough For Mobs" doesn't have mc with a drama-like backstory. There are a lot of such novels if you look into translated works, not original. That's why I think people got tired of it.
The thing with the dark backstories is how it goes over to how our childhood shapes us. The things that we experience as a child leaves the biggest mark on our character and personality. So, it isn't realistic if MC has normal parents yet turns into a maniac or something like that. Because normal parents won't let it happen. They will track down the root of the problem.
Almost every person carries some kind of dramatic experience. And using the most flashy one helps you to reduce the amount of explanation done. You can write lots of chapters, carefully describing and unveiling how the mc became twisted because of one little thing. Or you can just say that he is an orphan and be done with that.

 

[LostLibrarian]

The overwhelming majority of stories are about change. In fact story as a medium is often used to help other people cope with similar change. The mainstream success of Thriller's is often accredited to the "threatening atmosphere" of modern news and the global situation where many readers don't feel like they are in control...

But even if we go to the really basic stuff like the hero's journey, it is about change. And change doesn't happen out of nowhere, but because the main character is externally forced.

In a love story the rival or the break-up or whatever forces him to decide what is more important/change his ways. In a classical adventure no farmer with a happy life will go out and risk his life slaying monsters just because. Even in modern life people have their standard routine until they are forced to change it.

Those tragical backstories are a way to force the main character to leave the Status Quo and change. And as a lot of stories are action oriented and about physical growth, you also need an external reason that forces him to improve his strength. Which are stronger enemies, armies, dark lords, etc...

Of course you can also create a character without any tragic background where nothing bad happens and he just lives for the sake of it. But those will often feel bland or off, because things "just happen"...

In addition, there is also the need to explain the character's "speciality", make the reader more sympathetic towards the hero, etc pp...

 

[K5Rakitan]

My MC has been through pretty much the same things I have, both the good and the bad. I count being a sex worker among the good things. I enjoyed that a lot more than the job where my coworkers urinated in my coffee cup. I changed a few details for the sake of fictionalization, but the feelings are all the same. The story starts on a very good day for me back in 2015, and then I made it even better by throwing in the Kaiba brothers. If they existed in real life, that would have been my best opportunity to meet them. Yes, Joan is a self-insert, and this is a wish fulfillment story.

 

[YeetusFeetus]

So what I want to tell is ...
IN EVERY BACKSTORY THE MC HAS A MESSED UP LIFE!!!
Or at least ones I have read/watched

I mean everywhere the mc's loved ones have died and will turn badass
or the mc killed a lot of people and now wants to be a saint
or the mc had a near-death experience and becomes a powerful being
or the mc killed someone accidentally and grew a trauma
or the mc witnessed a random robber killing a random stranger and grew a trauma
or ... I'm tired of typing. Think of ones yourself.

Why? isn't there some backstory without bloodshed and made the mc's life go dark? I don't want the ones where lovers break up...
I was writing a new series and pondered for a while...ok, one whole month and can't seem to find anything suitable.

If there are ones you know/made please tell me.

The first novel I made which is literally below this message, the mc has a dark backstory which literally happen on chapter 10. And as for your question, if you're asking me on how to make a backstory that made the mc's life go dark without bloodshed or anything. Then, what you can do is give him a traumatic experience, or show how the world surrounding the mc is. For example: Imagine the mc listening to his parents talking about him behind his/her back, and due to the mc maybe having bad grades and them talking about how maybe he/she is a failure. That scenario will shape the mc's view on itself and make him/her become depressed and make them start thinking they're 'useless' or even a 'bother' to their parents. (depending on what type of personality you gave your character). This is juts my opinion, btw. But, I do hope you find it useful.

 

[Deleted member 29081]

Cool, mysterious MC: "You don't know darkness of my past. One day, my mother took me out to the toy store. And then..."

Character: "She got killed trying to protect you?"

Cool, mysterious MC: *trying to hold back his tears* "Worse! It ended up being the dentist! I have not been able to trust anyone since."

Character: "..."

 

[lnv]

To be honest, I hate backstory arcs. I've rarely seen a backstory done right. Most of them just feel like they drag the story down rather than progress it.

At first I wanted to start at a point than do a backstory, but after some thought I just decided to start at the beginning.

It just feels so different when you grow up with a character over say, "oh, hey that happened". You just feel like you lose immersion with the story because you kind of know what happens.

To put it simply, backstories feel like you read the spoiler already and just reading the details of the spoiler you read.

Out of the decent backstories I've seen, the better ones were of side characters or some historic character as it gives a new perspective. But the MC backstories just feel dull.

 

[Maple-Leaf]

Because we like watching other people suffer and struggle to climb their way up the world for entertainment.
Now that most forms of it are illegal, our only solace is in literature. (and, y'know, T.V and stuff.)

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

MC's without backstory is like listening to a sad life of an SJW. At first you would be sad about the life they had but as they continue to ramble on, you notice they are just BS and could barely stand listening to them.

While it is good to read an MC without any sad backstory, you would feel even more distant with that character as he isn't any without pain or suffering and acts like a btch most of the time. Examples being Shield Hero. Do you know what happens to the other Three who didn't suffer? Useless AF and no worth other than either being comic relief or the annoying baggage the MC carries.

Backstories are like building your character to suit to a certain audience and what makes them feel special to others.

Writing a lone MC making friends? Welp, i relate to that char being awkward if i didn't have any friends.

I think the best example would be Superman as he didn't witness his planet exploding, he had a good family and the only thing sad about him is being alien. That pretty much it and people rarely like him that they prefer Batman who struggles with enemies than a man who can do sht easy.

 

[YuriDoggo]

Any happy ending feels more earned due to the contrast and any sad ending feels all the more tragic.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Why do I want to read about average joe in an adventure when I can read about hard boiled men doing hard boiled stuff?

Congratulations, you discovered that conflict maketh the man.

 

[Stratothrax]

Isekai seems generally bloody back story free, it's mostly about blankslate characters.