Back when I was a wee lad and just starting to write, I used to create huge, sprawling backstories for my works: Complete histories going back thousands of years, maps and other archival documents, diaries for characters—none of which was ever meant for the book itself. It was just for my sense of realism and to convey a sense of history to the work through the casual dispensation of details that were vetted against each other and thus quietly consistent.

Obviously, I could also have begun this essay with the sentence, Back when I was a wee lad and just starting to write, I had few friends other people could see, but let’s not go down that road.

For an example of my childhood obsession with backstory, here’s a map I drew by hand for an epic fantasy novel called Cravenhold:

This book will never see the light of day because a) its hero had the inexplicable name “Kyle Hudson” and upon reflection I appeared to have inserted the character of Saltheart Foamfollower from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant into it wholly and without alteration. Let us not speak of it again.

As I’ve aged, however, yellowing like a fine cheese, I have done less and less backstory for my books. With the Avery Cates series of books, in fact, I not only did not prepare any formal backstory, I purposefully did not even think too hard about the previous history of the universe it’s set in or the character. I did this to accomplish two things: One, I wanted to get into the character’s head, and the character simply doesn’t know much about the history that precedes his existence—as a matter of fact, very few characters in the book do—and I wanted to keep my options open in case I decided to alter some history along the way.

This isn’t to say that I have no idea what the history of my universe is, I do, I just choose to skip the detailed and labored creation of backstory documents. Not having a codified history, either of the world or of the characters, achieves a real sense of immediacy and being present in the moment for me as I write, which I think is conveyed nicely into the work itself. It also makes me hesitate any time I have a desire to have a character spend 15 pages making a speech that clarifies the Events That Led Us Here, which I think we can all agree is a Good Thing, especially since I don’t think people sit around pondering recent world events, even if they aren’t being shot at by brain-hungry cyborgs.

On the other hand, in preparation for being a world-famous author, I have prepared a detailed backstory for myself, which includes Ninja training, the CIA, plastic surgery, and multiple cats. This epic backstory is neatly arranged onto flash cards so I can keep my story straight when being interviewed, and, yes, I have drawn a map for it as well. And no, you cannot see it.