Story Sensei

It’s been a while, but I was finally cleaning out my Inbox and got a question from Jim. He wrote book one in a series aimed at 6-9 year olds, but he had a question about the second book in the series: At this point, I used Book 2 to allow the child’s siblings to ask and receive answers about what he’s been doing the past 8 months. This was done via dialogue. Would this be considered Backstory dumping when it’s a second book and responds to a different “now”. If it’s not considered “dumping”, would it still be preferable to eliminate the 6-8 chapters in book 2 and go with the “dribble” the backstory approach? Camy here: Honestly, it’s entirely up to you. I’ve seen children’s books that have massive backstory dumps, and others where the backstory is more gradually inserted as the story goes along. I’ve also seen books where the backstory is only briefly outlined. (For example: “Harry explained about how he got somehow entered into the Goblet of Fire and had to compete in dangero...

This article originally appeared on Suite101. Additional Tricks to Make a Character’s Past History Compelling Here are some more subtle ways to present exposition without obviously telling the reader. The previous article on backstory mentioned this: The key to presenting backstory in a way that is interesting to a reader boils down to one piece of advice: Make the reader want to know the information. Aside from the points in that article, there are also some other more subtle ways to accomplish this. Connect Information to Action This is a case of using both "showing" and "telling" in order to present backstory. The writer can first "show," in action, a character's personality, trait, or proclivity. For example, show Joe's strange aversion to the barn in a few short paragraphs of action and dialogue. This action will trigger an emotional reaction in the reader. Make the reader feel Joe's fear and dread as he stares into th...

Even if you don't present backstory in the first chapter of a novel, you have to present at some time in the book. But there are a few tricks you can use to make that backstory as emotionally compelling as possible. I wrote this article, which originally appeared on Suite101. Tips for How to Present Backstory Make a Character’s Past History Compelling Here are some good tricks to use when writing backstory in a novel so that the reader is intrigued by the information. The key to presenting backstory in a way that is interesting to a reader boils down to one piece of advice: Make the reader want to know the information. As a reader gets to know the characters and become interested in them, she will naturally want to know more about them. But even beyond this natural interest, up the stakes. Make the past important to the reader because it ties together mysterious threads of the current action. Dole Out Backstory in Bits and Pieces When information is given out slowly,...

Ever wonder why you hear that it's "taboo" to include backstory in the first chapter of a novel? I always did, too, until I discovered some psychological reasons why it's best to keep it out of the first chapter for the modern reader. I wrote an article, which originally appeared on Suite101. Save the Backstory For Later Why Not to Present Backstory in the First Chapter There are three reasons why it’s usually best for a writer not to include backstory in a novel’s first chapter. Writers often hear the advice to not include backstory or the character’s past history within the first chapter of the story. Many balk at this. After all, a character’s backstory explains things, makes the character’s actions make more sense. Otherwise, the reader will be confused or, worse, dislike the protagonist for his actions because there’s no explanation for this aberrant behavior. Also, backstory sets the stage for future conflict. Past secrets often cause problems for t...

I posted on Seekerville a few weeks ago on backstory (spotting it and how to fix it), but didn't post it at the time because I didn't want to interrupt my Show/Tell example series. So here it is: Backstory

There are certain elements that can slow your pacing too much, especially in Scenes. While none of these are absolute no-nos (there are few rules in writing that are completely unbreakable), most of the time, these things slow pacing too much in a story and gives the reader a chance to put the book down. Too much introspection. In a Scene, give your character a scene goal and make it happen. Don’t spend too much time in the character’s head, ruminating over things. Focus on action rather than thought. You can have the character emotionally react to things that happen in the scene, but keep it short. Save the introspection for the Sequel. Too much backstory. While you might think the reader needs this information about the character’s past in order to understand the scene, most of the time, the reader can figure things out pretty well. Keep backstory to a minimum. Pepper it into the scene in a single sentence here and there rather than having a paragraph or three all at once. See my ar...

by Sara Mills from Double Crit editing service I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing that. Have you ever met someone who’s a chronic over-sharer? There are lots of people like that. People who feel the need to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about their life story. Writers can do that too. They can bog the reader down in a character’s backstory explaining everything, from why they hate cheese to telling about the day they got their first bee sting. And it’s boring. All of it. On the other hand, have you ever met one of those people who doesn’t burble out their life story in one sitting, but the few details that they do share are captivating. Like when they tell you about that time they were on a nuclear submarine in the Bering Sea… That makes me want to know more, how about you? As a writer, you need to do the same thing. It’s your job to make people long to hear the story you have to tell. You can’t do that when you toss in important facts about you...

I got this tip on backstory from Brandilyn Collins: Any knowledge you give to the reader has to cause the reader to ask more questions. Let me repeat that: Any knowledge you give to the reader has to cause the reader to ask more questions. What that means for you as the writer is that any narrative or backstory has to be very carefully chosen and given. Any narrative or backstory has to have a very specific purpose for the story, and that narrative or backstory should work to make the reader ask more questions about the character or storyline. You want to foster that sense of “What’s going on?” for the reader that will make the reader keep reading in order to find out. For example: He sidled up to Anna, two hundred pounds of male testosterone, smelling faintly of tobacco and whiskey. “Hey, good lookin’, want some company?” She saw through his rough-and-ready façade. He worked for the Evil Triumvirate. She had crossed three state lines to try to escape them, but they’d found her at la...

Flashbacks can be great things because they show backstory in real time, versus just narrative (which is “telling” rather than “showing”). However, they tend to slow the reading flow—either with the content of the flashback or the initial transition into the flashback. So you have to place and use flashbacks very judiciously. 1—Be careful about WHEN you go into flashback. Since the transition will slow the reading flow, specifically time your flashback for when you want to create a lull in the reading pace, maybe after a tense or conflicted scene. 2—Be careful about HOW you go into flashback. The best thing is to have the flashback triggered by a very significant event in the story. Don’t just morph into a flashback from a scene that’s already meandering, or else you could lose reader interest. 3—Make the flashback as CONFLICTED and TENSE as you can. The transition is already going to slow the reading pace, so make the flashback powerful and vivid to keep the reading flow going smoothl...

First person internal thoughts also tend to be a lot of backstory, which slows down the reading flow. It might be fun and quirky narrative, but it’s still a backstory dump however you look at it. Mom ran off years ago with the family lawyer, and while I can’t say Dad was all that great, the lawyer was worse. She finally clued in when she found him groping his admin in his office one day. Mom, being Mom, told him, “I have decided to seek new legal representation.” And then she walked out. Anyway, the entire incident has made her gunshy about hiring any lawyers, which is why she now bothers me to bother my boyfriend, who will give her free legal counsel without the inconvenience of actually paying for it. Gasp! The cure for this is the same as in third person POV: a) Give only snippets of backstory, not a whole bunch at once. b) Mention backstory only when it’s absolutely vital to the current action. c) Make a character absolutely need to know—that way your reader will also absolutely ne...

Each character in your book will have a different way of describing things pertaining to themselves and the world around them. It’s no less for their emotions. Your manly ex-Navy SEAL isn’t going to describe his surprise as a gasp and a fluttering in his chest. He’s going to feel like a hollow-point copperhead has slugged him in the gut. Likewise, your small farming town preacher’s daughter isn’t going to describe the heated family argument as the headache-inducing staccato clamor of Chinese grandmothers at the San Francisco Chinatown fish market. She’ll describe the sounds as the fierce pelting of hailstones echoing in an empty barn, resonating in her skull as if they were falling on her head instead of the roof. When describing your character’s emotions, think about their gender, backgrounds, experiences. Make the emotions you describe specific and unique to that character’s personality and backstory.

This article came out of the contests I've judged. These are some of the common things I see in most entries when it comes to hooks, description and backstory. Starting with description--pros and cons. There are two camps about starting a scene with description: 1) Most historical writers and some sci-fi/fantasy writers like the whole idea of the novel like a movie camera, panning into the scene and describing the setting in detail to place the reader there before anything starts to happen. 2) Most suspense/mystery writers tend to start with action, and to give details of the surroundings and what's happening through subtle hints in the dialogue or narrative. Each method can be done poorly. If you spend too much time setting the scene or if you don't do it well enough, an editor won't get past the first page because it's too boring--nothing going on. On the other hand, if you land the reader in the middle of action but don't do a good enough job orienting the re...

Backstory, or a character's past, is often necessary to explain a character's motivations. It can add insight on personality or create reader sympathy. However, you should try not to present it in the first chapter. When opening a novel, your reader cares more about what's going on right now than what happened in the past. At the start of a book, the reader isn't invested enough in the character to care about what happened to them previously, but later in the story, the reader will be intrigued enough by the character to want to know. As a writer, you need to be careful when and how you bring backstory into the story. When you do need to present backstory, there are several ways: 1--Flashback. This is a scene remembered by a character and written out as if it were happening again. She closed her eyes. Suddenly she was twelve years old again. The Hardy Boys ran away, dangling her Raggedy Ann doll in their grubby hands. "Stop!” They only laughed at her an...