We're Alive REP-ivia!!!

[Witch_Doctor]

This is the definition of backstory

Noun

1. A history or background created for a fictional character in a motion picture or television program.
2. Similar background information about a real person or thing that promotes fuller understanding of it.
   

Both of your examples fall into the definition of the word.

Further, your example of story is anecdotal narrative. Is that what you were looking for when you asked the question, or are you just being frustrated by the confusion that it has caused? Anecdotal narrative relates events of the character's past, while backstory tends to provide information that has formative value to the character in question. Why he's afraid of the dark or why he can't go into small spaces. How his father used to beat him, and even though he screamed and cried for her to help, his mother would just close the kitchen door and turn up the radio, which is why he doesn't give a shit that he's dying of lung cancer and is refusing to see him. Also why he doesn't blame his mother; she was going through the same abuse with him.

However, why is he so good at reading people? He was an insurance salesman! You say that it's fact, I say it's backstory. You say his brother drawing on his face is backstory, I say it's a past event and therefore, fact.

If we're going to split hairs . . .

Sooooooooooo, do you understand the question, or not?

However, why is he so good at reading people? He was an insurance salesman! You say that it's fact, I say it's backstory.

Does he tell it like a story? Is there a 'Once upon a time' at the beginning or a 'Happily ever after' at the end? Also, your conclusion that he reads people well due to his occupation as an insurance salesman is not a story told by the character but a profile of the character inferred by you. (Please don't start parsing the word 'profile')

You say his brother drawing on his face is backstory, I say it's a past event and therefore, fact.

I presented a story told by the character, not by myself. That is, the character, Duncan, tells a story, anecdote, narrative, account, testimony, big ol whopper or what ever about an event in his past.

Also, you're using the term backstory in a esoteric sense. The question states 'background story,' and is addressed to people, whom I assume are not creative writing PhDs. Two words: 1) Background 2) Story

Sooooooooo, do you understand the question or are you splitting hairs because of your frustration from over thinking it?