Backstory: The Sum of Our Parts

Hey kids! Today I thought I’d settle back into a little bit of craft. For those of you who are beginning writers, I hope this will be of use. For those of you who are super-sonic, advanced, best-selling writers…what in the hell are you doing reading my blog? Don’t you have launch parties to go to and movie studios to schmooze? As I consider myself a perpetual beginner in all things, I will continue as if this is something you still need work on, because I do.

Backstory…ah yes, all the shit that happened to your character before they land on the page of your novel. All of those pesky details that readers don’t necessarily need to sift through (100000 words or so?) but that are essential to why your character behaves the way they do, why they are where they are, and what fatal flaw we are hoping they fix. So how do we, as writers, weave the important details in without dumping large, boring, sagas of backstory on our readers? Here’s a fine bullet list:

WRITE IT OUT, BUT DON’T PUT IT IN: One of the best practices you can do is write out all those long, sweeping, historical scenes in a separate document. It helps you get to know your character better and to be able to write them from a place true to their history. That document doesn’t have to be seen by anyone else, think of it as writing an entry on your character in wikipedia to be able to better write them authentically on the page. Backstory details will have an easier and more organic presence that way.CONSIDER YOUR GENRE: Some genres (Literary, YA, Regency Romance) tend to have more personal historical details, and if the main goal of the genre is a transition from the past to the present or future (coming of age, hero’s journey) then the past will play a bigger role and more time can be devoted to it. Readers in these genres expect as much.MOTIVATION: Everybody has a WHY. If the motivation is obvious (he’s a cop because he believes in justice) it requires no backstory. If, however, they’re in a role or position that seems to clash with their personality or values we need to know a bit about how and why they got there. (She’s a cop because her father was killed on the job by a dirty partner and now she wants to ferret out the current Commissioner). BE SELECTIVE TO ENHANCE THE FLAWS: If your main character arc is about how a closed down hunk learns to love again, then we need to know why they closed down in the first place. You don’t need to know he was the captain of the rugby team unless his heart was broken by a fellow player. Stick to the details that caused their flaw, or reveal something important about their values and personality that are essential for their evolution, or are the defining handicaps that keep them failing.BE BRIEF: In this case, a hint is as good as a paragraph/chapter. Some of the best backstory is the kind that is interwoven, seamlessly within a paragraph. Related to the current events but powerful in its small punch. “When he asked if she wanted a peppermint mocha she scrunched up her nose. She hadn’t liked the scent since her grandmother had insisted she rub peppermint lotion on her feet every night. ‘No thanks, just a latte,” she said.” Here we see that she had to take care of her grandmother and it wasn’t pleasant. Young people in positions like that have a heavy sense of duty and often resentment. We learn this from one line about grandma feet.If you struggle with how to shrink it down, see the above bullets for the most important details and boil those down further. Ultimately it’s about practice and thinking about how your own brain works; how certain smells can bring up memories, or being in a car reminds you of a trauma, etc.IF IT’S GOT TO BE LONG: Okay, I get it, sometimes exposition is too important to the motivation, character flaw, and story to get cut down. So here’s some rules of thumb, if it has to be longer:It better be full of gasp-worthy events Write it in beautiful sweeping prose and be addressing a literary audience that doesn’t mind a good wander.Make it hilariously funny

Well, there you go. I hope this helped give you a little boost on how to interweave backstory into your work. Good luck on your writing and next week I’ll have some announcements about the big ol’ month of September and what fun things are going down.