The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting Nov. 2, 2016

Over here, K. M. Weiland talks about backstory for Nanowrimo! It's part of her series about How to Outline for Nanowrimo.

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/nanowrimo-outlining-how-much-backstory/

Let's see. She starts out with a bit of peptalk, pointing out that while people often think backstory just kind of happens, you don't have to explore it before you start writing, that approach often leads to missed opportunities and a lot of revision. Backstory influences everything, plot, motivation, theme… So how do you figure it out ahead of time?

This is all that stuff that happened to your character and everybody else before the story. So how do you pick out the important parts? You want the things that influence the main story, right? Take a look at these questions.

1. What brought your character to the beginning of your main story? How did he get here? From two different points of view. First, what's his purpose or reason for being here? Was it intentional? If so, what got him to that point? Second, how'd he get there physically? Intentional or not, how did the character get into this place? What goal, what delivery mechanism. This is where you might use your one major coincidence. But it's better to have a good solid cause-and-effect.

2. What is your character's motivation? What do they want? Why? The backstory is the cause for this! Sometimes the motivation comes from inside the story (e.g., the inciting incident, when someone gets kidnapped, or whatever), BUT if the backstory supports it, it gets even better. Or, the primary motivation for the main story goal may be straight out the backstory. But in that case, why did they set their heart on this goal? What pushed them into it? What changed dreaming into action plan?

3. What is the Ghost that's driving your character? It's the wound in the character's backstory, something that happened and is pushing your character. A deep, dark secret, or maybe something seemingly superficial and normal, but it's the driver.

4. Which revelations about the backstory advance the plot? Having juicy bits from the backstory it is nice, but how can you use them – discoveries, revelations, flashes of insight – to push your plot? Make a list, and think about how to use each item for mystery, building tension, and revelation.

Don't get carried away with the backstory. You don't want to get buried in it, nor do you need to put every little bit of it into the story. It's context and support, but do the iceberg thing – 90% out of sight, only 10% flashing in the sun. Only get into backstory to advance the main plot or to make sure readers understand.

And may your nanowrimo stories be wonderful!

tink

Original Posting 20 May 2010

A.k.a. where to put the background

Writer's Digest, February 2007, pages 91 and 92 have an article by James Scott Bell with the title, "The Basics of Backstory." The sidebar is by Nancy Kress and provides a worksheet to help you build the backstory. Let's take a look at what they have to say.

James Scott Bell starts out with the story of a screenwriter pitching his action opening to a producer. "The young scribe goes on and on about the chase, the shots, and the car going over a cliff and exploding at the bottom of the gorge. The producer sits back, puffs on his cigar in a bored manner and says, 'But who's in the car?' ... This opening had too much plot and not enough story -- backstory."

So what is backstory? It's the stuff, the events that take place before the main narrative, the current story. And it needs to be carefully considered -- too much of it can bog down the story, but too little makes it hard to understand who the people are and why they are in the middle of all this. You need to balance between starting with action and providing essential backstory.

Too much background. Many pieces in the slush have a little bit of action, followed by page after page of backstory, whether it's in infodumps or flashbacks or reflections by the main character. And sometime after that the story returns, but most of the readers have left. All that backstory killed the main story instead of building interest.

James Scott Bell recommends opening chapters by leading off with characters in motion. People involved in the present. You need some interesting, troubling circumstances and readers will follow right along, waiting for fuller explanations. Along the way, you can drop in some backstory elements. Small bits and pieces, not whole pages!

You can do a bit of deeper backstory. Start with a character in action, then give us a more extensive piece of backstory. Make sure it's essential, and that it makes us as a reader more involved with the character and the action. Keep it focused and sharp.

The key here is balance. The reader wants to know what's going on, but they don't want to be buried in history.

OK? The worksheet by Nancy Kress, looks at what happened before the story opened. Here are the questions:

1. What's the conflict in my story?
2. When did it start, and with whom?
3. Will my story consider one of these forces to be innocent victims and one morally guilty?
4. What major events occur in this conflict before it begins to affect my protagonist?
5. Who are the major players in this backstory, and what's the motivation of each?
6. When will my protagonist first become aware of this problem or conflict?
7. When will he first began to suffer from it personally?
8. How will my protagonist become aware of it? If the answer is, "Someone tells him," can I think of a more dynamic way to show my protagonist being affected?
9. When will the reader become aware of the conflict or problem?

It seems simple, but taking a few minutes to think about what happened before the story began and how the protagonist and the reader are going to find out about it can help smooth out the story. You need to weave the backstory into your story, to give it depth and motivation and drive. At the same time, you want to make it invisible, not huge chunks of backstory that crop out and block the reader.

So write!

Original posting 24 August 2008

Make a Scene Chapter 18: Flashback Scenes

Walking through Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld, we've been looking at part three, various scene types. The first scene, suspense scenes, dramatic scenes, contemplative scenes, dialogue scenes, action scenes -- and now it's time for the flashback scenes. Remembering the past . . .

Every narrative has a backstory -- the background history, facts, and so forth that push your characters along. It's all the stuff that happened before the current story. Growing up, past encounters, whatever happened before the first moment of the current story, that's your backstory. And when you dive back into it, that's a flashback.

Flashback scenes are just regular scenes, with setting, action, characters, plot, dramatic tension, cliffhangers, and whatever other bits and pieces you like in your scenes, but set in the past. They should:

• focus on action, information, and character interactions
• don't overdo the setting and sensory details, keep the pace rapid
• illustrate or explain something in the front story, usually a plot or character point
• help the reader understand the protagonist

Don't overdo flashbacks. They are a disruption in the flow of the story. Keep them short and sweet.

Transition into the past. Introducing the time setting is a tricky part of a flashback. A few words of transition and sometimes some verb tense can help. "A few days after they moved in, ..." can start a flashback about the current house. "He had spoken..." instead of "He spoke..." Or you can use a specific date or incident. Make sure the reader knows what the present date is, then clearly indicate the past date. Sometimes have the narrator tell the reader that we're re-creating the past. Or use remembrances. You can also sometimes use the trigger -- a smell, a phrase, or something else that reminds the character of their past. This also helps you get back out of the flashback into the present.

Using flashbacks. Keep them tightly focused on the information that's needed for the current story. Flashbacks often illustrate something that happened in the past which led directly to the present plot point. They can also create suspense, introducing tidbits from the events of the past to build up tension in the front story. There's usually a tension between the bits of the past and the current story in this case. You can also use flashbacks to help make a character deeper and to introduce dead characters. Absent characters can still affect the current story, and using a flashback to show their influence is one way to get around their current inactivity.

Ending the flashback. You need to transition back to the present, either returning the reader to be same point with a flashback started, or giving them a push into the current present. Since many flashbacks are very short, you don't want to the transition to be long, but be careful not to lose the reader. Make it clear that we've returned from the past to the front story.

Rosenfeld's checklist for flashback scenes:

1. Does the flashback provide action, information, and character interaction?
2. Does information in the flashback tie into the front story?
3. Use the flashback likely to confuse the reader about where they are in the front story?
4. Does the past told in the flashback directly affect the plot in the front story?
5. Do elements of the past in the flashback create suspense in the present?
6. Does the flashback deepen the reader's understanding of a character?

Flashbacks are kind of interesting. You may remember the advice of the King to the White Rabbit in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll? "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." This simple linear flow gets interrupted by flashbacks. Classical theater also indicated that there should be unity of place, time, and action. One setting, one day of time, and one sweep of action. Anything before that should be recounted by the actors -- a flashback in dialogue, but not in setting or action. And we still prefer that stories start at the beginning and sweep along in a reasonably continuous flow to the end, although we'll accept the fade-out/fade-in and other transitions especially if they help the story move along. But those hops back in time . . . well, if we have to, we'll put up with them, but don't do it too much.

Incidentally, I found that this was one of the key differences between TV mysteries and samurai dramas here in Japan for me as a learner. The mysteries would often have talking heads discuss something that happened yesterday, and if I got lost in the chatter, then I had no idea what had happened. The samurai dramas, though, would say something like, "Yesterday I was at the bar . . . " and pop - we'd have a live flashback scene showing just what happened at the bar. Much easier for someone who was struggling with the language to understand.

So - your assignment? Okay, how about looking at your story, and finding some point of character backstory that really needs to be explained. And then put together the flashback to show it to us. Maybe it's their anger, maybe it's the gentle way they treat children, or whatever, but give us a short flashback to show us why they act that way. Make sure that the transition into it is clear, that the essential point is made, and that we get led back to the front story.

Now where were we? Oh, yes, once upon a time . . . and it happened just that way!
Write?

Make a Scene Chapter 18: Flashback Scenes

Walking through Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld, we've been looking at part three, various scene types. The first scene, suspense scenes, dramatic scenes, contemplative scenes, dialogue scenes, action scenes -- and now it's time for the flashback scenes. Remembering the past . . .

Every narrative has a backstory -- the background history, facts, and so forth that push your characters along. It's all the stuff that happened before the current story. Growing up, past encounters, whatever happened before the first moment of the current story, that's your backstory. And when you dive back into it, that's a flashback.

Flashback scenes are just regular scenes, with setting, action, characters, plot, dramatic tension, cliffhangers, and whatever other bits and pieces you like in your scenes, but set in the past. They should:

• focus on action, information, and character interactions
• don't overdo the setting and sensory details, keep the pace rapid
• illustrate or explain something in the front story, usually a plot or character point
• help the reader understand the protagonist

Don't overdo flashbacks. They are a disruption in the flow of the story. Keep them short and sweet.

Transition into the past. Introducing the time setting is a tricky part of a flashback. A few words of transition and sometimes some verb tense can help. "A few days after they moved in, ..." can start a flashback about the current house. "He had spoken..." instead of "He spoke..." Or you can use a specific date or incident. Make sure the reader knows what the present date is, then clearly indicate the past date. Sometimes have the narrator tell the reader that we're re-creating the past. Or use remembrances. You can also sometimes use the trigger -- a smell, a phrase, or something else that reminds the character of their past. This also helps you get back out of the flashback into the present.

Using flashbacks. Keep them tightly focused on the information that's needed for the current story. Flashbacks often illustrate something that happened in the past which led directly to the present plot point. They can also create suspense, introducing tidbits from the events of the past to build up tension in the front story. There's usually a tension between the bits of the past and the current story in this case. You can also use flashbacks to help make a character deeper and to introduce dead characters. Absent characters can still affect the current story, and using a flashback to show their influence is one way to get around their current inactivity.

Ending the flashback. You need to transition back to the present, either returning the reader to be same point with a flashback started, or giving them a push into the current present. Since many flashbacks are very short, you don't want to the transition to be long, but be careful not to lose the reader. Make it clear that we've returned from the past to the front story.

Rosenfeld's checklist for flashback scenes:

1. Does the flashback provide action, information, and character interaction?
2. Does information in the flashback tie into the front story?
3. Use the flashback likely to confuse the reader about where they are in the front story?
4. Does the past told in the flashback directly affect the plot in the front story?
5. Do elements of the past in the flashback create suspense in the present?
6. Does the flashback deepen the reader's understanding of a character?

Flashbacks are kind of interesting. You may remember the advice of the King to the White Rabbit in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll? "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop." This simple linear flow gets interrupted by flashbacks. Classical theater also indicated that there should be unity of place, time, and action. One setting, one day of time, and one sweep of action. Anything before that should be recounted by the actors -- a flashback in dialogue, but not in setting or action. And we still prefer that stories start at the beginning and sweep along in a reasonably continuous flow to the end, although we'll accept the fade-out/fade-in and other transitions especially if they help the story move along. But those hops back in time . . . well, if we have to, we'll put up with them, but don't do it too much.

Incidentally, I found that this was one of the key differences between TV mysteries and samurai dramas here in Japan for me as a learner. The mysteries would often have talking heads discuss something that happened yesterday, and if I got lost in the chatter, then I had no idea what had happened. The samurai dramas, though, would say something like, "Yesterday I was at the bar . . . " and pop - we'd have a live flashback scene showing just what happened at the bar. Much easier for someone who was struggling with the language to understand.

So - your assignment? Okay, how about looking at your story, and finding some point of character backstory that really needs to be explained. And then put together the flashback to show it to us. Maybe it's their anger, maybe it's the gentle way they treat children, or whatever, but give us a short flashback to show us why they act that way. Make sure that the transition into it is clear, that the essential point is made, and that we get led back to the front story.

Now where were we? Oh, yes, once upon a time . . . and it happened just that way!
Write?

original posting: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 21:17:01 -0400

A quick (and possibly quirky) one...

Often TV shows, movies, and even the occasional short story or book will start the scene (after a romantic interlude, beating in the alley, or whatever) with a character waking up, stretching, showering, going to breakfast, etc. without any immediate indication of how we got from there to now (although there may be clues -- that sudden grin at the mirror, for example, or the pained look at some kind of bruise).

So -- something happened last night.  You decide what it was, from the mundane to the extreme (a dragon set up residence in the chimney?  all right, but you have to explain it!).  Don't tell us, but make sure you know the backstory that leads up to...

The scene starts with the character waking up.  Take us through the morning, with the occasional odd clue that something is different today (that draft of flame out of the fireplace?  well, it certainly got the pot boiling, didn't it?)

And then the point where you explain what happened, where you let the reader in on the mystery.  By then, of course, you have some other hooks into them to keep them reading and reading and reading...

Write!

Original posting: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 22:00:00 -0500

(Still turning?)

Backgrounds and Projections

Let's consider more additions to what you are communicating to your audience about the turning points in your life.  First, what is it about your background that makes the turning point you selected significant for you?  Is there an event in your past, or maybe more than one, that really provides the setting for this turning point?  Or suppose you wanted to foreshadow this turning point in something that happened to you earlier -- perhaps a similar opportunity that didn't work out?

Make a list of two or three background points that lead into this turning point.  Consider whether you want to write up one of these points as a flashback.  What would be the scene, and the action, and the characters that would help your audience understand the background of this turning point?

Or, you may want to consider projecting the results of this turning point into the future.  You may not have experienced yet all of the benefits and costs involved in this decision or choice, but you may be thinking ahead, expecting that out of this will come something special.

As with the background, think about several possible future points that may come out of this turning point.  Then consider writing one of these as a flashforward.