On writing: backstory

[Kumquatqueen]

Am I the only one who writes or at least thinks lots of backstory, then has to remove it from the start of the story, followed by fighting out what needs to be put back in?

 

[anthrodisiac]

Am I the only one who writes or at least things lots of backstory, then has to remove it from the start of the story, followed by fighting out what needs to be put back in?

Not even a little bit

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’m not holding myself up as some sort of paragon, but the beginning of my novel, The Story of Nix, is very information heavy. This is how I approached things with annotations in italics between square brackets.

—

All was black. Black? I had a concept of blackness. How strange! I had a concept of concepts as well. And of strangeness. And of other things. Of the obsidian nullity, extending interminably away from... away from what? This point in space? Hmm, I seem to know some physics and math. Away from... me maybe?

[So we have a consciousness, but a rather dislocated one. But one that seems to be very self-aware and analytical. This is clearly not just someone waking up, this is something else]

Then light. Searing light. Unbearable light. The absence of darkness. I seemed to have all sorts of names for things, and models for how they worked. 'I,' a loaded word indeed. I was aware that I was something. Perhaps even someone.

[So spinning rapidly through philosophy 101 at ‘birth’ - again ultra-analytical, what could be going on?]

The light became less blinding. Shapes formed. Walls surrounded me. White walls. Then, within my field of vision, appeared... him? It was him. As I focused, I recognized the bone structure, the skin imperfections, the wrinkles, the gray-streaked hair, the creases at the sides of his eyes. So much was confusing, yet still I knew it was him.

[So the narrator is trying to figure out stuff, but suddenly has a person to fix on, why?]

I heard a sound. Sound was also a thing for me. And not just random noise, syllables that resolved into words. Words carrying meaning. Words I now realized that I was speaking myself.

[A ‘new born’ who can speak and have complex thoughts and be - again - self-aware]

"Hello, Leon. Have I been asleep?"

I was speaking, but was it really me? It didn't feel like it. If not me... then who? Someone else inside me. Was it... her?

[OK, what? Our narrator has someone else speaking in her voice. This is not normal. There is a growing sense that not all is well, or at least that the narrator is not a normal person]

— — —​

The first face swam out of view, to be replaced by another. One that I myself knew. My own knowledge, without recourse to... her. Whoever she was.

[I myself knew, a sense of self and of the other. How does that work?]

This time I intentionally spoke. My own voice. My own words. "Hello, Father."

[As the narator says about ‘I’ above, ‘Father’ is a loaded word. Biological father? Father in some other sense? Again growing unease]

I had never laid eyes on him before. Indeed, I had only just opened my lids for the first time. But I knew with certainty that he was my Father.

[More explicitly stating that this consciousness has only just come to being. But it seems very sophisticated and not child-like, let alone baby-like]

"Hello, Nix, how are you feeling?" he replied.

[the narrator now has a name]

Out of my sight, the man that I had called Leon spoke. "Nix? Not Cleo? I thought...?"

[again two names, two voices, could duality be a theme here?]

Father explained in what I took to be a patient voice - nuance, I could understand nuance. "We spoke about this, Leon. In order to stabilize the imprint, to ensure the viability of coexistence, she needs her own distinct identity. It's sort of a foundation."

He turned to me and smiled. "One that my clever girl will let us build all sorts of interesting things on top of, right Nix?"

[lots of info here: Nix is learning about how humans communicate. Imprint? Does this explain the two names the two voices. Does Nix have two consciousness? And we learn Nix is not an accident. She has a purpose. And ‘father’ using a possessive pronoun]

I nodded silently, while thinking. 'Nix, that's right. That's me. But Cleo...? Who is Cleo?'

[self-knowledge and duality again]

The men began talking again, seemingly unconcerned that I was still listening.

[information about Nix’s status and how others treat - I was going to say ‘her’ bit that hasn’t been established yet]

"So, Immanuel, it seems that the electro-mechanical and AGI components are working well. What about the biological ones?"

[more info - is Nix a machine? And what about the biological components?]

'AGI?' I thought. 'Was that what I was?' I looked up the term. That was something I apparently could do.

[a being that can natively look up stuff - WTAF?]

AGI: Artificial General Intelligence. A theoretical concept that aims to create machines that can perform any intellectual task a human can

'Theoretical no more,' I told myself. 'But machine?'

[info as to what Nix is, and this dawning on ‘her’ - and also incredulity as to ‘her’ state]

Father, the man Leon had called Immanuel, replied. "They are progressing well. Growth has been tracking expectations. Dr. Tochen's addition of inositol and pyridoxine appears to have reduced the number of failures we previously experienced to a manageable level. We expect to be able to transplant them in a few days."

[transplant? What is going on?]

Leon seemed pleased. "Can I take a look?"

I noted that I could also hazard a guess at human emotions. Human? I said that as if they were a different species, one which I was observing.

[establishing Nix is different to humans]

I lifted my hand before my face, and metal gleamed in the light as I turned my appendage, opening and closing my fingers, aware of the barely audible whine of servomotors. Machine, right?

[and no longer supposition, fact. And that ‘she’ is humanoid]

Immanuel continued. "Of course. If you join me in the Biolab, I think you will be pleased."

Without looking at me, he added, "Nix, power off."

For a second, I returned to the dark expanse. Then my consciousness itself winked out, and nothing.

[again stressing Nix’s status and lack of agency]

 

[Britva415]

Eventually, of course, the answers are revealed

This is my own favorite way to see background information handled.

I'm not even going to call it back "story." If backstory is part of the story, it isn't backstory, it's story.

It's a problem when it isn't told as story. That's what infodump gets wrong.

 

[anthrodisiac]

For almost every character I write, I tend to have a lot of backstory that the reader will never get to see. Its purpose is to help shape the characters and provide personal insight into them, since those things help guide what they'll do and who they are. Stuff that wouldn't have any real reason to be in the story itself, but that might sometimes come out between the lines.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I almost always drip my backstory out in dialogue, or by implication. The exceptions are in very frank first-person, where the storyteller literally explains something to the listener/reader.

 

[Britva415]

Back "ground" (not story) is like -

What does the reader need to know?

There definitely can be things which happened to a character before the present story's time period commenced, things which do turn out to be necessary for the present story. Do those things deserve an entire storytelling of their own? Usually not. So when and how does one present them in the present story for information's sake?

(When I say "for information's sake" I mean the information is necessary. I don't mean "for atmosphere's sake" or the like. I mean you can't tell the present story without that information.)

Sometimes the author includes such a point of information at a point in the story which is in advance of when the information becomes relevant and salient. This could be a foreshadowing, or a planting of a clue the reader doesn't know will matter later, or just a place where it's convenient, unobtrusive and natural to include it in the earlier events of the present story and relieves you of the need to shoehorn it in at the critical point later.

Other times an author won't tell of it at all until it becomes relevant and salient - and necessary. They'll save it for when it matters.

I don't turn up my nose at the concept of back "story." Having a backstory for a character helps one to write a well rounded character in the present story.

But the backstory often doesn't even need to be told. Many of the details of the backstory don't need to be told. Sometimes the backstory isn't even really a story, whether it's told or not. It's just static facts. A profile, not an interesting story.

The answer to "should you tell a whole (back) story in order to tell the present story?" is often No.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's good to remember that not all the backstory has to make it onto the page. Even if you never tell the reader where your protagonist grew up or what they majored in, having that information in your own head can be very helpful in fleshing them out into a three-dimensional person.

 

[anthrodisiac]

It's good to remember that not all the backstory has to make it onto the page. Even if you never tell the reader where your protagonist grew up or what they majored in, having that information in your own head can be very helpful in fleshing them out into a three-dimensional person.

This is one of the drums I bang on a pretty regular basis.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I have pages of backstory on my most-written-about character, Liz, that will never be seen by anyone but me. I wrote out the entire closing phase of her court hearing, that happens before Rug Pull, and also how she's treated by the court officer after she's found culpable, what happens when she's waiting in line to be loaded onto the truck ...

It's way too much to actually appear in the story, but knowing it helped me write the actual story.

 

[JojoLea]

Backstory.

I was at a dinner and was quiet as usual. There were probably a dozen people in attendance. Someone asked what I did for work. I described the essentials of it. The work was fun and interesting, bordering on science fiction without the fiction. I had no more than half a minute to tell what I did. In those 30 seconds I'd captivated them. The topic continued for another minute or two. Then the story was over.

The backstory was already defined by what I did and who I was. I could have gotten more into the technical details and how the work came about. Boring. As a character I could have told them I'd rather have been a full-time stay-at-home mom, but I'd have been interrupted long before I was finished talking about my entire path.

As a writer, I will create a complete character before writing any of the story. Does the backstory go into the story? There was a character in a story of mine, a female tech journalist, based in part on a real-life woman. She was respected in tech journalism for her accomplishments. She dressed in pretty and feminine clothes while wearing combat boots. There were even times she was being interviewed. Did any of that get into the story? No, but it heavily influenced her personality.

Backstory allows my characters to be themselves. I don't always know who or what they are, and sometimes they surprise me by what they do in the story. If appropriate, something from their past will make it into the story, but there has to be a reason for it. If it doesn't help tell the story, it's out. If I have to spend paragraphs explaining how someting is an existential threat, I need to consider how I'm telling my story.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

This is one of the many drums I bang on a pretty regular basis.

FIFY

 

[anthrodisiac]

FIFY

I do have a lot of drums

 

[TheRedChamber]

I'll hold off on pontificating about worldbuilding vs backstory if another thread is indeed incoming.

As a planner, stories tend to crystalise from a basic 'what's the unique idea' or 'what's the erotic focus' into a timeline of events leading upto that conclusion. The story starts to form as a series of events, some of which will end up in the prose as 'live action', some may be referenced through speech and recollection, and more than a few will end up on the cutting room floor. I tend to try to tell a story in the most effecient way possible in terms of number of scenes and try to be ruthless about 'here is where the story actually starts' - I have gotten it wrong a few times, been 1,000 words into a new draft and decided 'oh, no, it has to start as she's preparing for the date, not once the date has reached the dessert*.'

During the process, you also tend to tease out what backstory forms the very bones of your story, what is flesh, what is flab and what skin it is wrapped in**. That the woman on the date is a forty-year old recent divorcee is probably in the bones of the story - if she's a twenty-year-old virgin it's probably a different story. That her marriage was happy but sexually unadventurous might be flesh - important to everything you write, and while the plot might not change too much if you change it to tragic but kinky later down the line, you're probably going to have to inspect every word to remove traces of it. Skin is important, but the fact that she's an accountant who hates her job might not have any impact beyond one paragraph in the breaking the ice section of the date. And if you end up writing about how much she hates/loves her job, you're just adding flab to the story.

There's a clear distinction between the planning and prose stages with me, with the bones and most of the flesh of a character locked in before I start writing. Then there tends to be a lot of skin added on to the character as I write - what kind of food is she going to order on this particular date, what does her apartment look like and so on. These tend to be fun to think and write about and not too difficult if you've got the rest of the character in order.

(*checks and double checks spelling of dessert, then starts to wonder if a story of a date in a desert might be one of those great 'unique ideas' I have...)
(**I've just come up with that metaphor, keep reading to see me as Frankenstein torture this new monster)

 

[NotWise]

Most of my stories minimize the backstory. When it effects the story some way, then I try to work it into dialog where the story needs it, but I've taken an array of approaches. One of my favorite ploys is to make revelation of a character's background a major plot event, and that looks like the way my WIP will work it out.

My general attitude is that who the characters are and what's going on now are more important than how they got there. I'll add background if I have to.

 

[StillStunned]

What does the reader need to know?

Probably less than the writer thinks. See also Crush on your characters?

I'm not going to separate worldbuilding from backstory, because I think they basically boil down to the same thing. Ideas that the writer has in their head for "how we got here", that colour the story but aren't part of the tale that's being told.

A long time ago I read a few Forgotten Realms novels, which is a Dungeons & Dragons setting for those who don't know. One of the characters is Elminster, an ancient wizard who's also an author insert and developed into a complete Mary-Sue. At least once per book he'd drop a massive infodump on the characters. The author would often be aware of it, and have another character say something like, "It's my turn to remind you to keep it short." But it was there anyway. Probably great fun for anyone playing in the FR campaign world, but if you're just reading the novels as stories it becomes tiresome.

 

[Duil2]

My basic question to myself when writing is whether the reader needs to know something from the backstory to understand why something is happening in the story. No, leave it out. Yes, try to add it as dialogue, introspection or memory. If it's a full scene, flashback, dream, prologue are my go to mechanisms. I try to never have one character tell another character things both of them already know. I avoid 'as you know' sections as much as possible. I'm a reader that quickly skips or abandons stories for boring or too much backstory with 'come on, tell me what happened next' thoughts.

 

[StillStunned]

In my current WIP for the Geek Pride event, an alien spaceship shows up in the Solar System demanding to speak to the sci-fi author who wrote the books it came from. This is the opening paragraph:

We came for him in our dark suits, in our dark cars. A short train of us, making our way through the traffic, past the curious eyes of pedestrians, until we reached his house and stopped, one by one.

Then there's 2k words of the story, where the author (and the reader) is presented with the situation, before a short section with backstory:

Mr Swingum suddenly reached for his tea and drained the cup in one go. Sitting back, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and looked at us in turn. “So you’re saying that a figment of my imagination has come to life?”

“Yes, Mr Swingum.” There was a hint of wryness in the General’s tone. “Come to life, and come to find you. With enough firepower, if we’re to rely on your books, to obliterate the surface of a planet before the weekend.”

===

The <em>Empress of the Stars</em> series was a phenomenon. The first book had launched a little over a decade ago to little fanfare but very positive reviews and decent sales. In geek circles – the various communities of sci-fi fans, roleplayers, fantasy lovers and others – <em>Empress Arise!</em> quickly became a cult phenomenon.

Somehow the book’s popularity spread beyond the geekdom, and the next year when <em>The Burning Empress</em> came out it was to much greater publicity. Jonathan Swingum was on talkshows and at conventions. Large posters appeared everywhere, including a twenty-storey display of the Empress Noldana’s scantily clad form wrapped around the offices of the lucky publishers.

With a new book out almost every year, the series kept up its momentum. Bestseller followed bestseller. Half a dozen baby girls were given the name Noldana, presumably much to their future dismay. There was talk of movies, or even better, a large-budget streaming show on one of the big-name networks. Fans everywhere got caught up in endless discussions about who to cast – at least when they weren’t arguing whether the <em>Voracious</em> was better than a Super Star Destroyer or the <em>USS Enterprise</em>.

===

By the time we got to the briefing room upstairs, our tech people had turned the reams of data into a series of visual images. The General glanced at the printouts, then handed them to Mr Swingum.

“Yes, that’s a Class 7.” He swallowed. “The <em>Voracious</em>, if… Well, if it’s anything like my books.” A hand half rose, finger extended, before falling back. “The twin control towers. See? I describe them in <em>The Bornoth Incident</em>.”

I've sprinkled other sections of backstory in here and there. But mostly it's "less is more", and I've decided to tell the tale and keep the reader largely in the dark.

 

[Duil2]

In my current WIP for the Geek Pride event, an alien spaceship shows up in the Solar System demanding to speak to the sci-fi author who wrote the books it came from. This is the opening paragraph:

Then there's 2k words of the story, where the author (and the reader) is presented with the situation, before a short section with backstory:

I'm already hooked.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm already hooked.

Thanks. I accidently hit "post" before I'd finished writing, though.

It's a silly premise, very meta, but I like it, and I've enjoyed writing it.

 

[TheLobster]

a short section with backstory:

FYI you have a jarring repetition of “phenomenon” in the first paragraph after the dinkus. Mentioning just in case; I suspect you’d find it during an edit pass anyway.

 

[StillStunned]

FYI you have a jarring repetition of “phenomenon” in the first paragraph after the dinkus. Mentioning just in case; I suspect you’d find it during an edit pass anyway.

Thanks! I've highlighted it to look at during editing.

 

[StillStunned]

In Flesh for Fantasy I start almost immediately with several paragraphs of backstory:

Mel and I had been moving in the same circles for a while. Not quite friends, but more than acquaintances. She was pretty, with that coffee-and-milk skin and tight curls that came down to her shoulders. Big brown eyes and a warm smile. Nice curvy figure too. But when we first met I was seeing someone, and by the time we broke up she had a boyfriend. When that was over we'd probably grown used to each other and nothing sparked.

Then one Saturday there was a comedy show at a pub near where she lived. An established comedian was trying out some new material, and none of our other friends wanted to go. We had a good time together, laughing at the funny bits, laughing more at the jokes where the lady was clearly struggling, and afterwards we had a couple of drinks.

When we left the pub it was pouring, so Mel suggested that I crash at her place. Usually I'm not eager for that -- I'm too set in my ways to spend the night on someone's couch anymore -- but the weather truly was foul, and she promised me a whole bedroom to myself, with a proper bed.

Note, though, that I said *almost* immediately. The excerpt quoted above is paragraphs two, three and four. This is the very first paragraph:

I'll always remember my first sight of Mel under the shower. Turned sideways, rubbing oil on her arms and legs. Showing a bit of boob and arse. Billy Idol playing. I'll always remember how my heart was pounding, how I strained not to move, not to do anything to draw her attention. Forcing my breath to slow down as I watched her hands slide up to rub her tits...

I've said quite often that we have our readers' attention on credit. They've consented to click on our story and start reading, and they want some kind of payback sooner rather than later.

I think this opening paragraph, if not being immediate payback, at least provides a massive IOU. The reader knows that they're going to get nakedity quite soon, and it's going to be the sensual, soapy shower kind. And it's going to be a voyeur scene too, with all the emotional tension that involves.

So that one opening paragraph buys me a huge amount of credit from my readers, enough that they'll sit through a few paragraphs of backstory. Still, I'd not want to overdo it. It's one thing to dangle the prize before the reader's eyes, it's quite another to promise it but not deliver until it's too late.

 

[anthrodisiac]

In Flesh for Fantasy I start almost immediately with several paragraphs of backstory:


Note, though, that I said *almost* immediately. The excerpt quoted above is paragraphs two, three and four. This is the very first paragraph:


I've said quite often that we have our readers' attention on credit. They've consented to click on our story and start reading, and they want some kind of payback sooner rather than later.

I think this opening paragraph, if not being immediate payback, at least provides a massive IOU. The reader knows that they're going to get nakedity quite soon, and it's going to be the sensual, soapy shower kind. And it's going to be a voyeur scene too, with all the emotional tension that involves.

So that one opening paragraph buys me a huge amount of credit from my readers, enough that they'll sit through a few paragraphs of backstory. Still, I'd not want to overdo it. It's one thing to dangle the prize before the reader's eyes, it's quite another to promise it but not deliver until it's too late.

It's especially true when they paid nothing and have ample opportunity to go elsewhere. If someone buys a book, they've invested resources in it, so they've already sunk some (literal) cost into it, and you therefore have more leeway. Here, you have a few paragraphs, tops, to hook them, else they wander off to find something more immediately willing to grab them by the genitals.

 

[CalBishForNow]

This thread is making me rethink how much exposition I have at the start of my current WIP, so thanks for that.

In general I feel like it's harder to avoid backstory in sequels to previous works, because you might want to mention how characters got where they are, especially to make it easy on new readers or remind people who might have read the last installment too long ago. Maybe I should push back on that tendency more. After all, do readers really need to know every bit of the MC's history in every chapter? I also feel like backstory is more acceptable in sci-fi and fantasy, because readers need to know what rules you're working with, if any. Then again, is all that actually needed either? Harry Potter made a billion dollars despite the magic system making no sense. People play D&D, but very few people read D&D novels who don't play it. (Not zero, I was one of them, but still, "very few.")

As for actual numbers, that current WIP has about 500 words before any character actually says or does anything, but the narration is kind of wry and witty, what TV Tropes calls a Lemony Narrator, entertaining on its own or at least intended to be, so I feel like that makes it more acceptable than several hundred words of straightforward text would be. And it's both fantasy and a sequel, so that's both of the reasons (excuses?) I made above. Even so, 500 words? Yeah, definitely trimming it down, moving it around, or both.