Say who the character is, and add the story they belong to, what you already know about them and what the backstory needs to explain. Hemmingway writes 200 to 300 words of past: where they come from, one event that changed them, what they want now, what frightens them and one thing they hide.
Whatever you type in the fields is treated as fixed. It fills the gaps around your facts and is told not to contradict them, so a character who never learned to swim stays that way.
What a backstory is for
- Work backwards from behaviour. Pick one thing they do now, such as lying to the police or never sitting with their back to a door, and ask for the reason.
- One wound is enough. A pile of tragedies reads as none. One event, told exactly, does more.
- Give them a contradiction. Kind to strangers and short with family is a person. Kind to everyone is a label.
- Leave something hidden. A secret the character keeps is a scene you get to write later.
An example
Asked for a backstory for a ferry captain in his forties on a northern lake, in a quiet crime novel, who never learned to swim and sends money to someone every month, the opening of a backstory along these lines is what to expect:
He grew up beside the lake and was kept off it. His father ran the same ferry and wanted no second man from the family on the water, so nobody taught the boy to swim, and by the time anyone noticed it was too late to admit.
The money goes out on the first of every month. He has never said who it is for, and he has never missed one.
Ask the chat for a different cause, a darker version or the same past told in his own voice.
Common questions
Is the character backstory generator free?
Yes. Hemmingway has a free trial with no card needed, and this tool opens it with your answers filled in. You sign up once, and the backstory is written in the chat.
Can I use it for a D&D character?
You can, but the D&D backstory generator is made for that. It asks for race, class and background and adds hooks for your Dungeon Master.
How long should a character backstory be?
A page or less for your own notes. What reaches the reader is usually a line or two, placed where it explains something the character does.
Can it write a backstory for a villain?
Yes. Say what the villain believes they are right about, and ask for a past that makes the belief make sense. A villain who was simply born bad gives you nothing to write.
What do I do with the backstory once I have it?
Use it to decide how the character talks and what they will not do. The dialogue generator puts them in a conversation, and the plot generator builds a story around what they want.
Will it sound like AI?
It is built not to. Hemmingway-1, the model behind it, came first on sounding like a person in our own blind test, Human-Likeness. It still helps to read it aloud and change any word you would not use.