BACKSTORY - the foundation of your novel

Backstory, Part One - Do's and Don'ts.

Writers DO need to know the backstory. Backstory is what happened to your characters before Page 1. Characters, like real people, are the result of what has gone before. As the author, you need to know their triumphs, their failures, their goals and their families. Skipping that knowledge as a writer, isn't a good plan.

Readers DON'T need the full backstory, especially in the beginning. Throughout the novel they  will see the results of history in the actions, beliefs and choices of the characters. Parts of the backstory may then be revealed on a strictly ‘need-to-know’ basis.

All too often beginning writers fill the first few scenes or chapters with all that happens leading up to the book, or they put in an incident from the past explaining things. These DO need to be written but DO NOT need to be in the book in the beginning, if at all.

Have you ever met someone new who jumped right in and started telling you about their miserable childhood, their terrible home life, their nasty school experiences and—about this point you leave to refill your glass and you never go back.

In real life, histories are not shared in a first meeting. So why would we share everything when we meet a character for the first time?

We may know people for years and still not tell them all our stories. They learn who we are though our current actions. For books, the rule is the same: do not dump everything that explains your character into the first chapter. It’s too much, too soon and leaves nothing for the reader to discover.

Start the story by grounding the reader in the character’s present day. As you proceed, give your readers credit for the ability to read between the lines.

Jan Heroine, normally assertive and in control, becomes tongue tied around a tall, authoritative woman. The reader now wonders why, may suspect a negative history with female authority figure and continues reading to find out. Even when the answer is revealed, Ms. Reader doesn’t necessarily need all of the nitty-gritty details.

Use the show and tell method to build to a minor reveal. Show three occurrences of the behavior spaced throughout the story. Let the events unfold without explanation until an explanation is imperative. In the end, make a brief reference explaining why the character has that behavior.

Revelations can come in various ways. You can plant clues or explain succinctly all at once. But beware the dreaded information dump. If Tom stops to tell Mary that Sue grew up poor—yadda yadda for two pages - his reveal will dump your reader out of the story.

Keep the reveal simple and relevant to the action.

Writers – know your backstory. Use it to add texture and reality to your story. Remember the ‘rest of the story’ isn't always necessary. When bits are needed, weave them in to enhance, not stop, the flow of action.

Part Two - Revealing Backstory - Flashbacks and more...Coming soon.

LY words and other adverbs -Stronger Writing #6

The Deadly –ly

“Ly words almost always catch the author in the act of explaining dialogue – smuggling emotions into speaker attributions that belong in the dialogue itself.” Self Editing for fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. Pg 51

I doubt there is a writer out there who has not been told to eliminate the -ly words, or at least to limit their use severely. The experts tell us -ly words are the mark of a lazy writer. 

Writing the first draft we use whatever easy word comes to mind to help us get the story on the page. In the editing process, we need to search out those weak verb/adverb structures, the way a cat hunts a mouse, and find more specific verbs. One common place we find them is coupled with said and in other constructions to define emotions.

 - If you use an –ly word to tell us how a character is feeling, use action to show us.

She was angry with Tom.

She glared at Tom, her teeth clenched and her fists bunched at her sides. 

- If you use an -ly word to insert emotions, use stronger dialogue.

“How should I know,” she said furiously.

“How the hell should I know?” she said.

- If you use an –ly word to enhance a verb, find a stronger verb.

She walked slowly (or unsteadily) down the street.

She strolled (or tottered) down the street.

Remember, when editing use that find function. Check your –ly words and be honest, isn't there a better way to say it?

WAS is a 4 letter word - Proven Editing Tools # 4

WAS is a Four Letter Word

by guest blogger - Diana Cranstoun

It was a cold and moonlit night.

Discussions around editing and passive voice prompted the following balanced article listing pros and cons for using the word "was." Diana volunteered to write this article in the series  on Writing Stronger - five proven areas for editing. Thanks, Diana, for these insights.

According to Michael Hauge, the job of the filmmaker is to elicit emotion in the audience. That responsibility holds equally true for the fiction writer. Our readers want to share in our characters' journeys, experiencing in a visceral way their joy and despair, fear and courage, trust and betrayal etc.

As writers, we’re told the most effective way to do this is to ‘show’ our stories rather than ‘tell’ them. A simple technique to 'show' is to use active, rather than, passive voice.

Passive voice – telling - holds the reader at arm’s length, and merely informs.

Active voice – showing -  engages the reader, eliciting emotion in both reader and character.

One of the biggest culprits of passive voice?  ‘Was’. It might only be a three letter word, but the writer must treat it with the same respect as its four-letter cousin.  Rely on was too frequently and your writing will lose its power.

The Argument AGAINST 'was':

Take this simple phrase:  He was walking.  ‘Was’ plus an ----ing verb is about as passive as it gets, and is on the 'No, no, no, no, no!' self-editing checklist for many publishing companies.  It’s boring and rarely suggests - or elicits - emotion in either character or reader.

He walked – is a little better, but it still doesn't tell the reader much.

Now try these for size. He strode. He strolled. He sauntered. He paced. He plodded. He shuffled. He waddled. He marched. He meandered. He slogged.

As a reader, can’t you see a picture in your head of how - exactly – the character 'was walking’? Doesn't that image evoke the emotion the character is feeling? And now don’t you want to use that other three-letter-word ‘Why?’ to ask why the character is feeling that way?

Get your reader to ask ‘Why?’ and you've engaged him. You've now elicited an emotion – at the very least, one of curiosity - in him.

The Argument FOR 'was':

It’s often suggested that during our final edit, we plug ‘was’ into our search option and eliminate its every use.  Maybe that’s taking things a bit too far because 'was' does have a place in our stories.

Where?

In character dialogue. " You know, she was telling me the other day..."  "I heard she was going into the army." "There was a sale at the shops today."

There is an argument to be made that too much showing can adversely affect the pace of a story. Think about the phasing or pacing of a song. If the singer sings each word, each phrase, at the same volume and with the same intensity, it's boring and turns the listener off. You need the quiet moments, the loud moments, the fast and the slow. That's one of the roles of 'was' in your book. Sometimes you just need that moment where you want to slip in a fact or piece of incidental information without making a big deal of it.

Ah, but what about the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities, I hear you ask.  In his famous opening line, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, Dickens uses the word 'was' ten times.  That's right, ten times!

As always, whenever there's a rule, it can be broken. But it's not something I suggest you try to emulate. Dickens' effectiveness has everything to do with the poetic nature of his introduction and the fact that he was a genius. That's not the case for most of us.

So what's the perfect balance?  Is there one? Check out the following links below and see how these best-selling authors from different eras deal with 'was'.

WRITE STRONGER - ELIMINATE PPCs

BEWARE THE PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE CLUSTER

Prepositions are useful but overdoing them unconsciously makes for sludgy reading. Four (4) consecutive prepositional phrases in one sentence may be too many. There are times when even two or three slow down your writing.

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition, ends with a noun or a pronoun, and answers a question such as “Which one?” “What kind” “How?” “Where?” or “When?”

There are times you might want to string things out for effect. Doing it unintentionally will not strengthen your writing.

The boat sailed on the water of the harbor behind the breakwater down at the bay.

Chances are the following version will carry your reader forward faster and easier. There are details the reader will deduce without your help.

The boat sailed into the bay behind the breakwater.

As you can see, eliminating the excessive PPCs can contribute to both more efficient and more effective writing and reduce unnecessary wordiness. 

Common Prepositions:

- about, above, across, after, along, among, around, at

- before, behind, below, beside, between, by

- down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into

- of, off, on, over, thought, to, toward

- under, until, up, upon, with, without

Use your "Find" function (e.g. Set the Find for "of" and Set "find whole words") to check your prepositional use.

How would you rewrite the following two sentences for efficiency and effectiveness?

Jerry pulled into the driveway at the side of the house on the street where his mother used to live. (5 PPC’s)

A thud sounded from the kitchen next door to the study in the house she’d bought in Smithtown, a town to the north of Hartford. (7 PPC’s)