backstory

Or back sto·ry

[bak-stawr-ee, ‑-stohr-ee]

noun

plural

backstories 

1. a narrative providing a history or background context, especially for a character or situation in a literary work, film, or dramatic series.

2. prequel.

Word History and Origins

Origin of backstory¹

1980–85; back ¹ ( def. ) + story ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

She married that expertise with the kind of hardscrabble, up-by-her-bootstraps backstory that a calculating political consultant might have spun from whole cloth, had it not been so.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The backstory was I left, knowing that he was in an episode, but I had to go.

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“You could just tell from Page 1, how much care and thought he had about the backstory of every single character and what every moment should look like,” she says.

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And I agree with her: The best places to visit often have an interesting backstory.

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I can do a little more backstory, or hop into characters’ heads.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal