Last week, I started a series about mistakes commonly made by new writers (like me). The first entry focused on “information dumps.” Today, I’m going to discuss a related topic — backstory.Every character has history and we try often try to share every detail of it in the first chapter. You must know that she was born on a stormy night in late December to parents who met while they were backpacking through Europe and that her father was abusive and her mother and alcoholic… Get the picture?
This has been a struggle for me and many others. How much of this information is actually important and how much should be included up front? Too much will slow down your story. And the first chapter is NOT the place to slow down.
Author Brandilyn Collins, at the Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference, taught that successful backstory raises more questions than it answers. Weave in tiny snippets to catch the reader’s interest instead of just throwing it all out there. Use backstory to create mystery.
It clicked for me recently while endulging in my favorite guilty pleasure — Grey’s Anatomy. First, the intern/doctor gives a run-down of the patient’s situation. “Twenty-five year old female, multiple gunshots to the abdomen…” No narrator informing us WHY she was shot or how she grew up, etc. Those details come out as the show progresses.
In one scene, the doctor asked a question, the patient answered and then there was a “look” that passed between the patient and the person she was with (out of sight of the doctor). That look raised questions in my mind. What was that? What are they NOT telling us? I wanted to know, so I kept watching. No backstory. Not even dialogue. Brilliant.
So, get out your gardening gloves and start weeding out those first chapters of your story. Cut sections where you tell us the character’s history (see upcoming post about “telling”). Put them in a seperate word file so you can refer to them later. Now, read the section again. How can you “tease” bits of this information so that it catches a reader’s curiousity?
Don’t cut out the heart of your character. Put it back in her chest where it belongs — not on her sleeve for the whole world to see.
This is good, and sooo relevant. Its only when you start really looking at how other writers’ whet your interest that you begin to figure out what your own mistakes are- or that’s how it is for me when I’m writing something.
Yes, so true, Heckety!