Tag Archives: Backstory

Technique

The “right” kind of backstory

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This entry is part 2 of 20 in the series Backstory

Lots of books—especially, it seems, those of a more literary bent—focus on revealing backstory as unlocking a key in a mystery, whether it be finally understanding another person to the character finally discovering the truth about his/her own life. How is that different from “bad” backstory?

The answer may vary, but to me “bad” backstory is a.) delivered up-front in a chunk and/or b.) supposed to totally explain why the characters (especially bad guys and fractured protagonists) are the way they are, and thus justify their poor choices.

“Good” backstory, on the other hand, often isn’t something the main character knows yet. The main character is searching for the rest of the story right along with us. If a POV character does know the whole story, s/he should have a reason to hide that from the other characters and the reader, instead of just withholding for withholding’s sake.

This backstory must also be something worth waiting for. The premise of the novel rests on this character’s search for the truth—so that truth had better be worth reading the whole thing for. Trick endings might sell one book, but betrayed readers might be turned off forever.

But most important, perhaps, is what the backstory does. No matter what the specific events of the past or present in the book, discovering the truth should reveal some truth about the present story. It should help the character—and hopefully the reader—make sense of the world, and inform the character in some way greater than just the facts do.

That is, after all, the point of studying history, whether global or personal. We’re trying to understand where we fit in, what came before, and how that can guide us better. We want to know what we believe or feel or know has always been true. We want to know what truth is. And it’s not only the point of studying history—it can be the point of reading fiction, too.

What do you think? What defines the “right” kind of backstory?

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Technique

The backstory of Backstory

This entry is part 15 of 20 in the series Backstory

I don’t want to rehash too much of what we discussed last time (can you believe it’s only been three months since we discussed this last?)—I want to move into new territory. But first, I guess, we have to go through the backstory on the backstory: review what we’ve already covered so I can see where to go next.

The last series covered several topics:

So we looked at determining what was backstory and what was story-story, as well as several methods of inserting backstory. As I said before, it’s that last subject that prompted this revisit. More and more I’m noticing stories that rely heavily on their backstory, whether to propel the current action of the story or to add the suspense necessary to propel the readers through the story. In less experienced hands, those same backstory-heavy books might drag, as hopelessly trapped in the past as their characters. But plenty of excellent authors are able to pull it off in style.

There are definitely good uses for backstory—and well-written, interesting stories can even revolve around backstory. So how can we make sure our backstory is the “right” kind and the “right” delivery?

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Technique

Backstory: more resources

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This entry is part 13 of 20 in the series Backstory

So, the bottom line on backstory: your characters need it, and your story might, too. But we have to be very careful to balance backstory with the present story, which should be more compelling and only enhanced by the backstory, never impeded. (Oh, is that all? 😉 )

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Just last week, literary agent Kristen Nelson singled out backstory and minutiae as the two biggest reasons why novels start in the wrong place (and we looked at how to start your story in the right place, too).
Here are some of the great articles and books I’ve studied and referenced as I worked on this series:

(Can you tell I’m a fan?)

What articles have you come across on backstory that have helped you understand more about this tool?

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Technique

Backstory, plot and revelation

This entry is part 12 of 20 in the series Backstory

Sometimes, we have another use for backstory. I’ve seen this especially in women’s fiction and literary novels, though that may not be the only place it’s used. The present plot revolves around the backstory—and figuring out just what happened.

Okay, so that sounds a lot like a mystery. And, in a sense it is—sometimes the it’s even about discovering who really killed a victim. However, in these stories, usually it’s less about righting the wrong and showing good triumph over evil and more about finding meaning in life.

I’ve heard about a number of books that sound like they have the same kind of plot structure, but of the books I’ve read, the best example that springs to mind is The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

Now, throughout this series, we’ve talked about all the many ways backstory is so bad because we’re condemning the character/plot/conflict to be less compelling than something set in the present. So how can all these stories get published if they’re so focused on the backstory?

Let’s look at the structure of The Secret Life of Bees for some ideas. (No spoilers.)

  • The story does have action in the present. The backstory mystery—who killed Lily’s mother, Deborah—is introduced first, but we quickly get to see the conflict in the present: Lily doesn’t get along with T. Ray (her father), and there’s also the historical backdrop of civil rights.
  • The backstory fuels the main character’s quest.
  • The backstory is important to the character—and the reader.
  • The POV character doesn’t know the backstory—it’s a mystery to her. While I think this is the most popular mode, this varies in some books, though: sometimes the POV character knows but doesn’t want to think about it.
  • What is probably key (and many thanks to my friend Sarah for helping me hash this out/saying it herself): The backstory—and the journey to discover the backstory—is the plot: the character’s growth comes in her decision to reconcile herself with her past and move on to the future.

What do you think? Have you read a book like this? Why did it work (or not)?

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Technique

Backstory and character motivation

This entry is part 11 of 20 in the series Backstory

Backstory and character motivation can be a dicey topic. This is generally the best use of backstory—to motivate your characters’ actions in the present. However, conveying that backstory is still a trick—and sometimes backstory isn’t the best way to show motivation at all.

As with characterization, backstory can’t be the only way we show a character’s motivations. Again, this suggests that we’re not just products of our past experiences, but that we’re trapped by them. In the world of fiction, this is unfortunately not very compelling. Imagine a character who only ever acts based on the fact that his mother yelled at him. Is that backstory—and the motivation it creates—going to offer enough internal motivation and conflict to craft a mystery/romance/fantasy/literary novel around? Probably not.

Instead, we should look to the story present as well as backstory to create motivation and conflict. As editor and author Alicia Rasley says in “Character Motivation” (emphasis added),

Motivation (especially internal motivation) often comes out of backstory… but the story itself plays out the intermixing of motivation and conflict.

So: Be wary of motivation confined mostly to the internal or to backstory. Give the character something immediate to inspire action today. There should be a present-day event to inspire the manifestation of the internal or past motivation– for example, Heroine inherits the house where her mother committed suicide and decides to start a new life by renovating it. The external motivation is that “starting a new life”; the internal motivation might be to exorcise her mother’s ghost or to deal with the trauma of the suicide. The internal motivation comes out of the backstory, but the external motivation is in the here-and-now of the story.

And motivation, especially that created in the past, doesn’t have to remain static. It can change (and should change) because of the events of the plot.

Backstory is important because it can explain objectionable actions (which are great for increasing reader curiosity), and it gives our characters a place to grow from. But it shouldn’t be the only way we motivate our characters—and as our characters grow, their motivations (and actions) will grow and change with them.

And editor Theresa Stevens has said:

Beware the backstory used to shore up character motivations. It often points to a lack of real conflict or to other plot problems. Every time you’re tempted to reach backwards to explain why characters are behaving a certain way, stop. Ask yourself if you can fix it in the present story moment, because this will almost always be the stronger fix.

This is one of those instances where backstory can be just a little too convenient. We, the authors, need the characters to argue here so . . . let’s give one a traumatic event in childhood. (Thanks, Freud.) Instead, perhaps we should take a longer look at our characters to see if we can’t give them a better reason for conflict in the present.

Yes, backstory is important for characters’ motivation—perhaps even necessary—but if it’s the only way we choose to motivate our characters, are we weakening them? What do you think?

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Technique

Backstory and characterization (and what NOT to do!)

This entry is part 10 of 20 in the series Backstory

So we’ve talked about the methods of conveying backstory—but we also need to hit on the purposes of backstory. Generally, I see two main uses for backstory: to explain why the character is the way he is (characterization) and does the things he does (motivation). Personally, I think using backstory for characterization is the weaker of the two reasons—but both come with caveats.

It seems like backstory in characterization is usually used to try to make us feel sympathy with the character. The errors can run either way. In “Sympathy without Saintliness,” editor and author Alicia Rasley lists several common faults in trying to create character sympathy—and backstory is two of them:

4) Giving the protagonist a lot of heroic backstory. Yeah, he was a big hero in the war. Yeah, she saved a lot of lives during that epidemic. But that was then. This is now. Backstory is just background– the character exists right now, and what he/she does now is what’s important. It might work if now he/she is burned out by all the heroics, self-doubting, feeling like an impostor… oops. Now we’re getting into the fun stuff…. hang on to that thought. 🙂

sad sack5) Giving the protagonist miserable backstory. This is often done in order to excuse some unsympathetic behavior or attitude [and is also a common technique to try to make villains sympathetic]. Yeah, he hates women, but it’s because his mother abandoned him! And his foster mother beat him! And his aunt framed him for murder! And his first girlfriend trapped him into marriage by getting pregnant! And…

Gag me.

Maybe we’re just hitting a nerve here with me, but frankly, I’m so tired of seeing that in fiction that instead of feeling that desired tug at the heart strings, I roll my eyes when I read about how he’s too short and her mother never, ever loved her. I know a lot of people who’ve been through bad times: abuse, living on the street, loss, grief. None of them automatically became fractured protagonists or villains. Geez, if these characters are going to act a certain way, let them take responsibility! Don’t just blame everyone else—that character made a choice somewhere along the way that made them into this person. (Possible exception: the character’s journey is about learning to take responsibility for his/her choices and actions.)

Alicia puts it better than I can: “While we want to sympathize with the characters, we don’t want them to be victims so battered by past events that they don’t actually live in the present. There’s also that ‘authenticity’ problem. If we lose the sense that this is a whole person, if we think the author just layered all these past traumas on, we won’t believe in the protagonist.”

We don’t want our stories or our characters to be trapped in the past. We need to remember to focus on the story. As Mystery Man on Film said:

What happens in the past, off screen, good or bad, does not affect sympathy. It’s what we see the character do in the present that determines how much we will or will not care about that character.

Backstory can definitely influence how our characters are and act—they had to come from somewhere!

But that’s not the only problem with backstory and characterization. If we use backstory as the primary way to build character sympathy, we’ll probably have to stop the present story to wedge in a long story about our character’s terrible childhood. We run the risk of boring our readers right out of caring about our characters. We need to focus on the scene—and story—at hand to find a way to get our readers caring.

What do you think? What’s the right way to use backstory for characterization?

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Technique

Backstory through setting and props

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This entry is part 9 of 20 in the series Backstory

We’ve already covered the two most common ways to convey backstory—narration and dialogue—but this is perhaps the most interesting way to share backstory: through the setting (and props within it). While narration and dialogue can definitely set up the conflict that backstory enhances (or creates), using a concrete setting or prop to do the same thing can ground your characters—and vividly symbolize their conflict.

As editor Theresa Stevens puts it (emphasis mine):

Even though backstory relates past events, it sets the stage for current events. Let’s face it — if it didn’t set that stage, there would be no reason to include it. So perhaps Mark’s purple bathroom becomes important when Grace, his interior decorator, is banned from repainting it. The purple bathroom is symbolic of Mark’s inner landscape, and that’s perfectly fine. In fact, this is how we like it to work: the character’s inner state is made manifest in his outer world.

So think about how your character’s backstory becomes tangible in the physical story world. And then think about how those tangible details can be used as props while the characters are working out their conflicts. This will effectively tie the past to the present in a meaningful way. But one coat of lilac paint is all you need. No need to analyze every bristle on the paintbrush. Present your backstory and return to the present as quickly as possible. You want to sacrifice as little momentum as possible.

Note that this example exemplifies (uh, duh) a great way to do this—it only lets us see that something is up with the purple paint. We don’t stop the story—and interrupt the conflict between Mark and Grace—to spend a paragraph in a flashback explaining Mark’s neurosis. As we read from Chris Roerden last week, “You don’t want to satisfy reader curiosity—you want to increase it” (Don’t Murder Your Mystery, 53).

Editor and author Alicia Rasley (who now writes the blog edittorrent with Theresa, the editor quoted above) says something similar in her article “Backstory Problems“:

Consider how much more dramatic this opening scene might be if Emily unlocks the door of her elegant childhood home, steels herself, walks in, glances around the foyer, sees the chandelier, stops short, and then, resolutely, goes into the dining room, past the table, into the kitchen, and pulling a cell phone from her purse, calls a realtor and says, “I want to sell a house. Immediately. I don’t care how much I get for it.” The readers will be asking, “Wait a minute! It’s a beautiful house! It’s her childhood home! Why does she want to sell it? And if she sells it, why doesn’t she try to get a good price?” On the heels of those questions will come the canny conclusion, “It must have something to do with that chandelier. I wonder what.”

Once you have the readers speculating about the situation you’ve set up, you’ve hooked them. They have to keep reading to get more clues to see if their suppositions are correct.

But if you tell them everything upfront, you might lose the narrative drive that comes from posing the story question, in this case, “Why does Emily want to unload her beautiful childhood home?”

(If the suspense for these two examples is just killing you, check out their full articles for the reasons behind the paint and the chandelier.)

What do you think? How else can the setting and/or props tie in to backstory?

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Technique

Backstory through dialogue

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This entry is part 8 of 20 in the series Backstory

Dialogue can be one of the most effective ways to slip backstory into your work—but as always, there are some major, common pitfalls to avoid in conveying backstory information in dialogue. For example, as you know, gentle reader, we want to avoid “As you know, Bob” dialogue. If both the characters already know something, why would they inform one another of those facts?

Inserting a character who doesn’t already know the situation can work—but it can also backfire if it’s obvious that character is there mainly as a plot device so the author can info dump. It also leads into what may be the biggest problem with using dialogue to convey backstory—it’s still boring. Even if it’s a secret baby or rich uncle or life as a courtesan, sometimes it’s just not interesting.

Why is it boring? There’s no conflict. Sometimes it’s easy to find the conflict: the heroine calls the hero by her abusive ex’s name in the middle of an argument; if the hero finds out about his brother’s secret baby, he’ll flip, etc. But it’s not always that easy.

In Don’t Murder Your Mystery, author Chris Roerden offers a bunch of techniques for binging out, adding or just simulating conflict in dialogue, including bypass dialogue, borrowed conflict, simulated disagreement and flat-out editing (179-184). (I posted about these techniques during the tension & suspense series, too.)

Of course, the answer may also be simpler: if there’s no conflict to this backstory here, is this the right place to put it? Are these the right characters to be discussing it? If you change/add/subtract characters, does it change the dynamic?

And, as always, good dialogue technique is important. One character delivering a monologue about his or her life history isn’t any different than a regular info dump in narration. Interruptions, reticence and context (and subtext!) can add to not only the conflict, but the meaning of the words your characters are saying—and may require less jabbering to for the same impact.

What do you think? How do you reveal backstory through dialogue?

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