This was almost covered in the <A href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=14251.0">10 vs 100 words discussion and the "play before play" point, but it shied away again. 

Anyway I was thinking about the TV series "LOST" that recently started showing on Channel 4 here in the UK after a successful series in the US, and realised that HQ offers a wonderful mechanism for using the narative device of exploring characters through flashbacks, by using the "make it up as you go along" method of character creation.  So rather than start by listing 10 facts about the character, or writing your 100 words, you start off with just your keywords - "Jack Sheppard, American, Surgeon" and then when you want to add any more skills in play, you can do so, but with the potential requirement of framing the skill in a "flashback" episode to explain how the character comes to have the skill...

Neat idea. I'd have some mechanism to allow the player to opt out occasionally. Because otherwise I think that it's just not neccessary to do a flashback for certain sorts of abilities. Like, for example, if the character is Large 13, we should see that the moment the character "comes on screen." Some abilities might be implied by earlier flashbacks. Otherwise that's a huge amount of extra narration involved in fleshing out the character. Fun narration in some cases, sure. But make it neccessary only when it is, in fact, fun and not work to do the flashback.

Mike