Talk:Backstory

message: Many Christian theologians consider the Old Testament to be the back story for the New Testament. - isn't that a stretch of the meaning of the term?  Considering that the OT was written, and published, before the NT, it doesn't seem to fit the definition of "back story" Nik42 08:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Nik42 and have removed the section on the Old Testament. It seems to stretch the definition of 'back-story' quite a bit. Tocharianne 14:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Old Testament

message: Removed the external link to www.alwaysabackstory.com. This is just a website where people upload pictures and others invent backstories for them. It is not relevant to the usual literary use of backstory. Tocharianne 23:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alwaysabackstory.com

message: The whole "Examples" sections seems like original research to me.  It's full of speculation and weasels words like "arguably", along with definite pronouncements without explanation.  I suspect it functions as a magnet for everybody's personal theories.  As such, I've tagged it with .  Wikipedia isn't about things "everyone knows"; it's about verifiable information derived from reliable sources.  If people can add some citations or sources, that would be great.  Otherwise, I suspect it needs some serious culling.  —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 05:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example section - original research? 

message: I have added an appropriate section to allow for citations to support assertions in the article.
(MihalOrela (talk) 14:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes and references

message: In my opinion the lead-in text
The term "backstory" has a slightly different sense when used by the contemporary news media. For a reporter, the "backstory" is, generally speaking, any information that does not make it into the story as reported in the news media. 
is not the reason why journalists use the backstory. The  real reason is similar to that for the whole article on backstory. The backstory is used to provide background, context, for the news article. (MihalOrela (talk) 14:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Journalism BackStory

message: I was confused by the fact that this article switches back and forth between "backstory" and "back-story," seemingly at random.  Would it be better to stick to one form or the other? 207.179.248.160 (talk) 01:31, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I see the term "back-story" is back in place of the simpler "backstory". I have added in a separate bibliography section for the text. The current reference to the CNN page is no longer functional. I will comment it out.--Михал Орела (talk) 16:26, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Hmm! I notice that the ref I gave to the NY Times is not the best. Much better is  Backstory 2009-07-25. I note that the NY Times also writes "Back Story With The Times's David Herszenhorn (mp3)".--Михал Орела (talk) 16:49, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Backstory or back-story? 

message: I am thinking that it might be a good idea to list some significant journalistic references
to the practical use of the backstory in modern times:
* Matt Schudel, The Washington Post:  Michael Jackson Obit, the Backstory, June 26, 2009; 10:44 AM ET.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by MihalOrela (talk • contribs) 17:39, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Backstories for our times 

message: I removed the following refs 
:  
: 
which link to the same advertising-heavy site, one that also offers to pay the authors who contribute to it and to refer for-pay writing assignments to them. It raises concerns in my mind for several reasons:
# The author of the cited pages uses the same name there as does, at WP, one of the heavy contributors to the accompanying article, including the refs and the original (and until my edit, insubstantially changed) version of the section containing them. I don't FWIW detect signs of copy-vio, but there's a strong suggestion of COI-vio, which undercuts the value of the contributor's implied assessment of the appropriateness of the refs.
# The ad content is likely to be a burden to users who consult the ref'd pages; we should live with that only if we cannot find other refs for suitable content.
# The site appears to differ from typical blogs (which we reject as unreliable) in paying writers, without accruing the increased reliability one hopes for, when the typical sites that employ journalists edit their content with an eye to facts. We only know one of the ref'd author's sources (the Card excerpt), and we can still draw on that -- and on its context beyond what the ref'd pgs provide. 
I am therefore replacing those refs with "citation needed" tags.--Jerzy•t 06:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rem'd refs 

message: "Literary device" seems like the wrong term to me, given that a backstory – used to help define the characters in the writer's own mind – need not appear in the finished product at all.  Is a writer's plot outline also a "literary device"? —Tamfang (talk) 01:48, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "literary device" 

message: "Backstory" is also a term used by actors to describe their own efforts to fill in details about their characters while preparing for a performance. This meaning is not literary, it's dramatic. Even though it's a standard part of an actor's toolkit, it is rarely communicated to an audience directly. 
 Therefore, backstory is often key to the creation of complex, multidimensional charactershttps://books.google.com/books?id=oMVIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT46&dq=backstory+acting&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidle6NjvHeAhVBjlQKHbq6C4UQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&q=backstory%20acting&f=false
The article should be changed to say that it is a literary and dramatic device, and a paragraph or two about the it. Mobi Ditch (talk) 03:28, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Acting