Backstory Is For Writers, Not Readers

The other day I was reading a medieval fantasy, and even before I hit the first plot point, the author launched into a multi-page explanation of the gods of that world, the different religions, and how the various races—elves, dwarves, men, goblins, etc—came to be. He tried to prevent it from becoming an infodump by revealing this information via dialogue, letting one character explain it to another, but it was still a pace-killing infodump. Now infodumps are rarely a good thing, but they can be especially painful when it’s clear we’re not going to need any of this information by the time the story’s over.

Why would an author dump all this information on us if we didn’t need it? Because he spent many a night entertaining himself by coming up with all these interesting nuggets of information, and by god, he wanted to make sure we had the chance to enjoy them too.

It reminds me of my old Dungeons and Dragon days, when those adventure modules you purchased included all sorts of backstory. I’m sure the designer of those modules had fun inventing the intricate backstories for these worlds, and I’m sure many of the dungeon masters who purchased these modules enjoyed reading the details, but 99 times out of a 100, none of those details ever trickled down to the players actually adventuring through the game. I mean, what’s the point in including notes about the unsavory hygienic habits of a long dead demigod that no one has heard of and doesn’t show up in the game?

Heck, one of my crit partners once gave me his story bible for the story I was critting for him. This tome had all sorts of info on how the races came to be, how many wars they’d fought, anecdotal stories about legendary figures, explanations as to how the languages came about… All information that would have given even the sternest of dungeon masters a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but none of which had anything to do with the story he was writing.

It’s important for the writer to know the backstory of their worlds. It’s helpful for keeping the facts consistent. It may even help to explain the motivations of one or more of the characters. But if the reader doesn’t need to know the details, they probably shouldn’t be burdened with it.

Backstory is for writers, not readers.

ChemistKen


P.S.  Hey, I love me some good backstory, just find a reason to make it relevant, okay?

Backstory in the Opening Chapter? Sure, Why Not?

I’ve been sending the first couple of chapters of my YA paranormal to my critique partners and one of the most common complaints I’ve received is that they didn’t understand why the character did what they did. I can point to many reasons for this, including a lack of interior thoughts, but in many cases my CPs didn’t know enough about the character’s backstory to understand her motivations.

Everything I’ve read says backstory shouldn’t appear until the second chapter at the earliest. The first chapter should be about the MC being in motion, solving the immediate problem, all the while keeping the reader tightly focused on the character and what’s happening to him at that point in time. Backstory can come later, after the reader is hooked.

And that’s how I began my story. I didn’t explain why the character did what they did if it required knowing the character’s backstory. I ruthlessly avoided all mention of anything that happened before the scene began, assuming the reader would be happy to wait until the scene was over before they learned the reasons. But all it did was confuse my CPs.

For example, if I had the hero come across a bomb and make the decision to try defusing it instead of running away, but I hadn’t told the reader the hero has had past experience with this kind of thing, my readers began wondering if he was stupid. But telling the reader about the hero’s past is backstory. Arg! What to do?

So I spent last week reading through the opening chapters of a dozen or so novels and noticed the books I enjoyed reading most were the ones with backstory. Even in the action-packed, fast-paced, no-time-for-the-past, in-your-face openings. Not infodumps, mind you, but scattered around in snippets, disguised within dialogue, interior thoughts, or occasionally in the narrative itself.

My conclusion? When the experts tell us to avoid backstory in the first chapter, what they really mean is we should avoid the pace-killing, paragraphs-long infodumps the reader doesn’t need yet.

So how much backstory do you put in your opening chapter?

ChemistKen

Breaking Up is Easy to Do

One skill new writers have to learn is how to provide a description of a new location or a new character without slowing down the story. Experienced writers have discovered all sorts of tricks for weaving descriptions naturally into the story, subtly slipping them in during bits of action or interior thought or in the middle of dialogue. For those of us who have yet to learn these skills, our descriptions tend to read more like lists. You know what I mean. Three or more sentences in a row whose sole purpose is to list the contents of the room the MC has just entered or to catalog the physical appearance of the character who has just shown up. I’m guilty of this myself. And while this method works fine in most cases, as long as the description is written in an interesting manner, there is room for improvement.

One trick I’ve been using of late involves breaking the description up into pieces and spreading it out over the page. Instead of starting out with four or five sentences describing the spooky room the MC has just entered, I find it works better to limit myself to two or three descriptive sentences at first, enough to give the reader the right impression, and then dispersing the rest of the description over the next several paragraphs (or pages).

Not only does this keep the story moving, but by delivering the description in piecemeal fashion, you make more of an impression on your readers. One thing I’ve learned while teaching chemistry is that you can’t drown the student with too much material at once. You need to spoon it out a little at a time and then build upon what you’ve already told them.

It works the same way when writing fiction. You can only have so many sentences in a row telling the reader the room is spooky before their effectiveness dwindles, but by spreading the sentences out over several paragraphs, their effects multiply. Every time they see another hint that the room is spooky, it reinforces all the earlier references to spookiness.

This technique works for backstory too. Although I don’t mind backstory as much as some, too much backstory all at once can be a drag. By dripping in bits of the backstory a sentence or two at a time, in small doses dispersed over many pages, most of the problems with backstory disappear, especially if you’re good at weaving backstory naturally into the narrative.

Question: Are you one of those writers who weave description gracefully into your story, or are you like me?