Should I flesh out this characters backstory?

basically, he's the main character's elder brother, and, one day just flipped and slaughtered their family (as a werewolf). When he's reintroduced as one of the main antagonists, he's shown to be cruel and sadistic, and suffering from a Lack of Empathy. Does he really need a bakstory, if so, how would it work out?

Uh... yes? I mean, if the last time the main character saw him was right after he turned into a werewolf and killed their family, only for him to disappear for years and then resurface in cahoots with the main villain, I'd probably want to know what the hell he was up to in the meantime.

I imagine a psychopath werewolf who occasionally flips out and kills people for no reason would really struggle to live a normal life. How has he been making ends meet over the years? Everyone needs to eat - what's he been doing to get his daily bread? Did he get a job where being a murderous monster would be a plus? Did he go feral and live in the wild?

Did he meet and/or kill anyone else since the last time his brother saw him? Did he try to get his lycanthropy under control somehow? Does anyone besides his brother know about his abnormality? There's all kinds of encounters and conflicts he could have gone through in the time he was "off-stage", and every single one of them should ultimately inform who he is when he finally re-enters the narrative.

edited 29th Dec '14 4:32:51 PM by Tungsten74

Well, as one of the few werewolves that can transform at will, he acted as the perfect mercenary/assassin fo some years. After that he became the figure-head leader for a terrorist organization.

I would say yes. Yes, you should definitely explore and flesh out that backstory. I'm not too sure if my advice would be welcome, but its something I do with my characters. At the moment, I'm working on a project that features a pretty large cast and with every addition I always asked myself, "Do I care what this character did before this?". "Do I care what happens to them next?".

If no, than I leave that character be and allow the reader's imagination to fill in the gaps. Don't under estimate how powerful your reader's imagination is and the stories they could weave. If yes, than I think about the character, what impact they could have to the other characters and to the plot. Can you use the backstory to provide context to their actions and thoughts or to allow them the chance to grow?

I hate to use one of my own examples, but I had a similar dilemma so I think it's valid. The Big Bad Wolf was a minor character in my project and though he still is, it wasn't until I actually asked myself as to whether or not I was interested in his past enough to write it down. Turns out I was and I even gave him a few chapters of his own because of it, which ended up serving as a microcosm of the plot itself.

So in short, yes I think your character is very much deserving and always ask yourself questions like these whenever you're faced with a similar dilemma.

The more you understand your characters the more they will appear realistic to the readers, so even if you're not planning on putting the character's backstory into the work itself (because it'd break the flow or just isn't relevant to what's happening now), it pays to have a firm idea of it in your head so that the character responds to the situations in a consistent and realistic manner.

I've lost track of the number of times when something about the character's past has enabled me to know what they'll do in story.

If the character has no back story, they tend to come across as "flat" or "2-D", "unrealistic" - the readers can pick up that they only do what the plot demands they do rather than being active participants in the events (I sure as hell can with badly written characters).

I'm not saying you should bloat your story with minutiae of every character's life prior to the action, but just being aware of their past makes you an Authority on them and that will show - just as being an Authority on the world and the stuff the characters use enables you to write about it "realistically" and consistently.

Case in point: My Post-Cyberpunk story had a Big Bad who was just "the Evil Corporate Boss" and he did things because he was "the Evil Corporate Boss" and the plot demanded he do things for the protags to react to.

Consequently, on rereading what I had written, he came across as a waxed moustache and a maniacal laugh away from being a Victorian Villain from a Penny Dreadful. Turned out he was a pretty good juggler - he managed to keep both the Villain Ball and the Idiot Ball in the air at the same time.

So I started thinking on his motivations, where he came from, what he wanted, why he was doing what he did.

Consequence: complete rewrite of everything because he changed dramatically, he did different things, he affected outcomes differently, and became a credible threat. I didn't waste a lot of space on explaining everything he was doing and didn't write in his backstory (well, I did, but I deleted it when I was removing stuff not directly relevant to the action) but the brief description of what he wanted and his actions in achieving it, his dialogue with his subordinates and his plan of action were all consistent and he became greedy, expedient, driven, amoral and callous rather than just a Card-Carrying Villain.