I’m beginning the third mystery/thriller in the series that began with BLEEDER and continues in VIPER. At this stage there are all sorts of thoughts swimming in one’s head, and one of them is ‘what happened long before this story began’? What has happened in my characters’ families, education, careers and love lives – that is, the backstory — that informs the present one? How does it explain the motivations of characters, define their relationships and affect the plot? What was ‘set up’ long ago for which there must be a ‘payoff’ in this book?
I have imposed upon myself a lofty rule about backstory in the first scenes and chapters of my novels. The rule is simple: Don’t do it. In my genre, the mystery/thriller, readers want a fast start. They want to punch the gas and roar – like Selena does with her car. Other genres may possibly be less strict about backstory. But I’ve seen lots – I mean, LOTS – of student fiction that begins with a few lines of action and then SCRREEEECH! the writer puts on the brakes with backstory, to explain what’s going on and why the character is acting this way. I can’t help but wonder how many manuscripts are quickly set aside by editors and agents because of this common flaw.
Writing backstory is a strong temptation. Writing it is easy. It gets you off the hook for having to write a compelling opening scene that shows everything and tells little. Oh, but we SO want the reader to understand what’s going on. Sorry. Get off stage and stop shouting from behind the curtain. Such author intrusion will wake up your reader from the fictional dream.
What if you obeyed the Don’t Do It rule? Would it change your first scene? Brandilyn Collins, a fine suspense writer, once said that we make the mistake of looking at backstory only as a way to answer reader questions. That’s part of its function. But, she said, we should also use backstory to raise reader questions. Often, a good sentence of backstory will raise more questions than it answers.
I like that. I tried to keep this in mind when writing VIPER, where I needed backstory early on to explain Selena de La Cruz’s past with the DEA and conflicts in her family. In fact, chapter 2 is entirely backstory, a flashback to the drug bust that sets up the premise for the novel. I tried to make it compelling in its own right so there would be no sense of putting the brakes on the story, but it would advance the story and raise questions. So, as with any rule, there are exceptions – if you know what you’re doing.
I must admit that I’m really struggling with this for the opening of this third book. I very much want to show how Selena’s family ended up in Chicago when her Papa had once been a prosperous executive with the national oil company PEMEX. Something really bad happened and they had to move, pronto. I’m asking if this is absolutely needed to motivate current action. Or will it have a less immediate payoff, serving as a foreshadowing toward the ultimate climax in the story?
So this never gets easier. Look: If you’re new to the game, stick with the Don’t Do It rule. Add backstory kicking and screaming later on, in small bits, in short sentences, or woven into snippets of dialog. Be very careful here, and don’t write “As you know, Bob” dialog where the characters wouldn’t really say that to each other (you’re using it as an excuse to inform the reader).
Sometimes you can do this in a brief (and I mean brief) thought. But young writers often have these turn into whole paragraphs of reminiscing. Ack! One way to deal with this is to make sure the thought immediately leads to a character’s action motivated by those thoughts.
Use these ‘bits’ only where needed to understand the current action. You don’t need to explain everything. What you really want to do is raise questions, increase intrigue and curiosity.
Questions and doubts keep readers turning pages. Delay answers to questions as long as you can to keep those pages turning.
I know, the Don’t Do It rule is hard to obey. It is just too easy to say to readers, “Hey, in order to understand this I need to tell you all this stuff that happened before the story started – ok, now let’s get back to the action.’
By then, they have clapped the book shut and thrown it across the room.
