Thoughts on Backstory and World Building
Many of the people who've read The Balance have left almost the same comment: "Took me a while to get into the story, but once I did I had a hard time putting the book down"
This made me think about the degree of world building and backstory I threaded through the early parts of the book. It's always a challenge—or perhaps more a question—how much do you put up front and how much do you hold back and allow the reader to be lost for a while?
With The Balance—especially since it will take 3 books to tell the story—I erred on the side of early disclosure. Naturally this makes the book a bit harder to get into, but I felt the now-knowledggable reader might enjoy the story more. I'm questioning my decision now, but the book isn't going to change. The good news is that I don't plan on repeating backstory in the second book. I'll pick up where we left off, and simply weave in the three chapters I cut from book 1 as a flashback to bring the experienced reader up to date.
Originally, the book had 150K words. There was a LOT of backstory, including the history of the land, the geography and geology, the economy, and a discussion of what the Council was up to. In the end I cut most of that out and the book settled at 109K words. My fear, however, is that the book challenges readers a little up front, and that this may be a barrier to actually getting deeply into the book in the first place. Of my Beta readers, only 1 complained about too much technical info, and I did cut it back some. The editors (and there were 4 all told) seemed to enjoy the lead in.
I've actually plotted book 2 out in some detail. The story will contain 4 threads with the main plots elements of each broken into chapters. I've also developed a skeleton plot for book 3. I know what happens, but hadn't broken each thread out yet.
This made me think about the degree of world building and backstory I threaded through the early parts of the book. It's always a challenge—or perhaps more a question—how much do you put up front and how much do you hold back and allow the reader to be lost for a while?
With The Balance—especially since it will take 3 books to tell the story—I erred on the side of early disclosure. Naturally this makes the book a bit harder to get into, but I felt the now-knowledggable reader might enjoy the story more. I'm questioning my decision now, but the book isn't going to change. The good news is that I don't plan on repeating backstory in the second book. I'll pick up where we left off, and simply weave in the three chapters I cut from book 1 as a flashback to bring the experienced reader up to date.
Originally, the book had 150K words. There was a LOT of backstory, including the history of the land, the geography and geology, the economy, and a discussion of what the Council was up to. In the end I cut most of that out and the book settled at 109K words. My fear, however, is that the book challenges readers a little up front, and that this may be a barrier to actually getting deeply into the book in the first place. Of my Beta readers, only 1 complained about too much technical info, and I did cut it back some. The editors (and there were 4 all told) seemed to enjoy the lead in.
I've actually plotted book 2 out in some detail. The story will contain 4 threads with the main plots elements of each broken into chapters. I've also developed a skeleton plot for book 3. I know what happens, but hadn't broken each thread out yet.
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