The Backstory Breakdown by Shelley Martin

Every character has a backstory. The problem is: how do we reveal their past without info dumping or other blunders? This is something all writers struggle with, including me. Here’s a breakdown of different forms backstory can take, and tips to make it work.

The Prologue. Prologues in the past were a common occurrence. But now they’ve fallen into the backstory category. Most often than not, the prologue is backstory. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when it can be woven into the story instead of floating on its own, then do it. Yes, it’s extra work, but it’s always better to start with immediate action right out the gate.

The Info Dump. This is where something happens to a character, and the author breaks into the story to tell why what’s happening is important. For example- “George the Gladiator lifted his new helmet in salute before sliding it on. Little did he know, the helmet had been the downfall of every gladiator who’d worn it before. Malley the Masculine died from a blade to the eye, while the helmet simply slid off the head of Homer the Hairless…” I could go on, but hopefully you see that we went from the story of George, to a list of a bunch of other guys we’ve never heard of, or care about. George is about to go into battle and the reader wants to know if he’s going to survive, not how Homer the Hairless died. George could find out the info of the helmet by reading it in a scroll after the battle, or hearing about it from a friend. There are many ways to get this info to George and the reader. Be creative!

The Dream. Here’s where the character slips into a dream, and relives a traumatizing past (or silly, or revealing, you get the picture). Unfortunately, this technique has been overused in the extreme. While it can still be used as a valuable way to explore the past, I urge you to use this method sparingly.

Old Friends Reminiscing. This is one of my favorite techniques. Introduce the crazy friend from the past, or snarky ex, and open those past wounds. Two buds can share a glass of wine and say “Remember when you cast that spell that made your mom sneeze fire?” In that one line we learned the character is good with fire magic, and has a mischievous side. However, I urge you to avoid starting with “As you know, Maude, the new T-75 laser model fires at a bandwidth of…” If Maude already knew what bandwidth the laser fired at, then there’s no reason to share that information. The “As you know…” starter has also been used in excess in the past and should be avoided.

Paragraph Two. This is a pet peeve of mine. You’ve opened up with a great line, which turns into a fantastic opening paragraph. You’ve got me hooked. Then paragraph two starts with “Earlier that morning, as I ate my cereal and read the box, I would have never thought my day would have turned out like this. I brushed my teeth and chose my clothes, searching for my favorite shirt…” Anyone asleep, yet? It seems this most often occurs when authors start out with “I brushed my teeth and chose my clothes…” Then, someone tells them to liven it up. So they write this great paragraph of what’s going to happen at the end of the day, and stick it at the front to draw you in. That’s a no-no. Put in the elbow grease and rewrite the whole opener, please. I always walk away from stories like this, and they happen quite often, believe me.

Storytelling. What’s this? Using storytelling to tell a backstory? Yeppers! This works especially well in fantasy and paranormal tales. This is where one person relays a quick story of the whereabouts of a mythical sword, or the tragic life of a paranormal creature, etc.  It can be a bedtime story, a lesson, or a warning on a wall. The important thing is to remember to keep it short. One page is best (double spaced). If the story happens to be longer, then split it up. Have the storyteller get interrupted, then have the receiver of the story ask for more in the following chapter. These can also make great shorts if you want to release them in an extended version, separate from your story. Or it can be an added bonus at the end of a series.

Backstory is often seen as a villain, but it can be your friend, too. I hope these tips can help you beat that backstory into submission. And if it helps, write the backstory out on a completely separate page. Then break it up and weave it into your manuscript. Sometimes after you get it all out, you can trim the excess to make it quick, snappy, and to the point. And that’s usually what your reader wants: just enough to help them along, but not so much that it will yank them from the current story they are falling in love with.

BIO: 
Shelley Martin taught kindergarten and ran cattle; once upon a time.  She’s now an award winning author, mother and wife, and loves living in North Idaho.  Her imagination has always plagued her, the characters jumping into her head at some random song or thought.  She started writing when she was ten, finishing her first short story when she was eleven.  The paranormal has always fascinated her, and nothing draws her to the page more than the whisperings of fantastical creatures. Shelley loves to hear from her readers!  You can reach her at Shelleymartinfiction@gmail.com

For Great Characters it's All About the Wound

by Terrel Hoffman

Literature’s most enduring characters are informed by their wounds. This is especially true in romance. In a hero’s character arc, she is missing something so essential that, if she doesn’t find it by story’s end, she’ll fail to achieve her story goal.

In the hero’s backstory, her wound caused her to develop beliefs about the world around her. Those beliefs form her personal mythology. She sees the world through the veil of those beliefs. She reacts to the world influenced by those beliefs.  

But what if those beliefs are false?

What if she can’t succeed in her story goal if she continues to act under the influence of those false beliefs? And what if she can’t change those beliefs until she heals from the original wound?

That is the hero’s character arc.

To illustrate, suppose five-year-old Gracie is told by her mother to share her cookie with her baby brother Joey. Being a typical five-year-old, Gracie breaks the cookie in two and gives the smaller piece to her brother.

Her mother, tired from a crappy day at work, says sharply,  “Gracie, stop being so selfish. Give your brother the bigger half.”

Gracie is frightened by the sharpness of her mother’s voice. She now believes that she is bad because she is selfish. She doesn’t want to be bad. So she tries not to be selfish ever again.

For some people that event would barely make a ripple in the development of their character. But for others, like Gracie, the event would change them from a normal child with normal wants and needs, into a child afraid of being selfish.

If you were the author of Gracie’s story, how would you use that initial wounding as a catalyst for her character development? You could make her a pleaser, a martyr, or a wallflower. From that one life event we have the beginnings of a character trait.

By the time Gracie is an adult, she believes that character trait is intrinsic. She doesn’t realize that trait was born from a wound. You, being Gracie’s creator, do. You know she can heal and you know she can change.

As the author of Gracie’s story, how do you make that happen? You throw boulders in her path until she recognizes that make abandoning that character trait is essential if she is to complete her story journey successfully.

A strong character arc forces the hero to change and grow in a believable way. It engages the reader’s empathy. By giving our hero a wound we give her a jump start in reader empathy. We can develop a rich personal mythology and set of behaviors as a starting off point. We can then know how she must change if she is to succeed in accomplishing her goal, whatever that goal may be.

The wound gives the hero three dimensions. The wound even gives our alpha male heroes three dimensions. Without the wound, without the need to heal the wound, our alpha heroes would be bland and our novels would be forgettable, or even worse, put-downable.

The wound gives the character a reason to fear. A reason to hate. A reason to strive. A reason to fail. And ultimately, a reason to love.

The deeper the wound the more complex the story, the more challenging the road to healing, and the more satisfying the happily ever after.

To heal from the wound the hero must experience the fear, and choose deliberately to do it anyway.

Our stories are stronger, and more emotionally satisfying, when the hero chooses to heal. That choice to heal is the hero’s only path to the happily ever after.

In romance the love interest provides the beacon, the promise, the treasure that awaits the healed hero. The love interest cannot be the hero’s emotional savior because heroes have to save themselves.

What is your character’s wound? What is her personal mythology, her set of beliefs? And how have those beliefs influenced her behavior?

More About Terrel Hoffman

Terrel Hoffman is an RWA PRO, writing both contemporary Paranormal and post-apocalyptic Victorian Steampunk romances. An International Coaching Federation-trained life coach, Terrel believes in the transformative power of coaching to help clients overcome obstacles and achieve their life dreams. She is a member of several regional RWA chapters and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. She gives popular live workshops on coaching characters, nonlinear thinking, and plotting. Terrel holds a BS in Physics from San Jose State University. When she is at home, Terrel serves at the whim of two feline autocrats.

Contact Terrel at  tjterrel at gmail.com     

 

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PACING with Shannon Donnelly

PACING...

What speeds up a story or slows it down? There are actually gas pedals and brakes in story telling that help you control the story’s pace. Why do you need pace control?

Too slow a start and you never really hook the reader into the story—it’s boring before it’s even begun. Same goes for slowing things down in the middle—the reader may put down the book and never go back to it. And if the ending is slow, that reader may end up thinking the story was weak, even if you had a killer beginning and middle.

Too fast a pace and you can wear out your reader—or, worse, lose them with confusion and a lack of caring. The biggest danger of this is at the beginning of the story. But this can happen any pace where the story takes off like a rocket, leaving readers behind.

Now getting the just right pace is a unique task for each story.

Some stories need a little more leisurely opening because they are relaxed, intimate character studies—the pace needs to tell the reader to slow down and enjoy the world.

Other books need more speed. Thrillers or action stories have to sweep readers away.

To carry off the pace you need, you have to know the tools to control pace.

What slows a story:

• Backstory
• Flashbacks
• Narrative Description
• Lyrical Prose

Notice that the words “backstory” and “flashback” both have the same word within—BACK.  That tells you these techniques take the story backwards—to do that, they stop the forward pace of the main story. Put a flashback in too early and you risk losing a reader who is not yet fully engaged. Put in too long a flashback and you may also lose the reader—or you could end up with a reader more interested in the flashback than in your main story.

Backstory also stops a story’s forward pace—but you can use a little backstory (at the right place, which means not in the middle of a critical scene) to slow the pace just a touch. Backstory generally fits more comfortably into just before or after a scene—or in places where you need a sentence or two to give the reader vital information to clarify action/events, but not so much that you completely stop the forward momentum. If you think of backstory like brakes, you want to tap lightly instead of slamming the pedal to the floor and holding it there.

Narrative description and lyrical prose are also tools that can help ease a reader into scenes or smooth transitions. But they slow things down. Long sentences do the same thing. So you want to be careful with these. Put a lot of this into a scene and you’re dragging down your pace. But, if you don’t have enough, or leave them out, you can end up with incredible fast pace and utter reader confusion. I see this a lot with fledgling writers who are striving for a fast opening—they get that, but there’s so little description that the reader doesn’t get a chance to meet the characters or settle into the world. There’s not enough for the reader to have reason to care about the characters, and not enough information to start buying into and seeing the world.

Both narrative description and lyrical prose also can be a great way not just to ease readers into a world—particularly into a historical or alternate reality setting—but to also set the mood. If used wisely, they can help you slowly build tension and set the tone of the entire book.

What speeds up the pace:

• Dialogue
• Conflict/Tension
• Showing (Action)
• Clean, tight sentences

As you can see, all the things that speed up pace also create strong scenes. The trick here is not to weave in things that will drag your scene’s pace down. And this means:

* Action needs to have emotion. If you just show a character doing stuff without any emotions underneath, it tends to fall flat and leave readers not really understanding why the characters are doing what they’re doing.

* Conflict needs to matter. Tension in conflict comes from either the reader having more information than the characters have, from an uncertain outcome, or from the suspicion of a bad outcome pending. This is why misunderstandings offer such weak conflict—the reader knows the misunderstanding will be cleared up so there’s no tension. The best conflict always carries within it dire consequences that really matter to the main characters.

* Dialogue has to be punched. Fictional dialogue has to be better than the way folks really speak—you need those lines that we all wish we’d said but only thought, or only thought about later. Instead of watching your favorite movies, turn up the sound, look away from the picture and listen. Better still, go to some plays where dialogue matters more than anything else. Or listen to some great radio dramas. Listen for how the dialogue is dramatized—how every word is made to count. Snappy dialogue with layers of subtext under the words, with wit and strong characterization, takes a lot of work—but nothing moves a story faster.

The biggest danger to beware is putting backstory into any character’s mouth—you can do it, but remember you’re risking slowing a scene. (You also risk the character sounding stiff and awkward since very few folks go around talking backstory in real life.)

Some backstory in dialogue may not be a problem if it’s crafted to fit the character’s voice, mood, and comes with emotions attached. Also, if you’re at a place in the story where the reader needs a little bit of a breather, or if you’ve made the reader wait so long that the reader is ready to kill to finally get that backstory. But do this too early in your story and you could kill your story’s pacing.

This is obviously a lot to think about, and you can’t really manage all of this in first draft. This is why I do an edit to read the story aloud and look at the pacing (of every scene and of the overall story).

Am I moving too slow, too fast? Am I pushing too much detail in (too much lyrical prose or narrative description)? Are there too many characters around (meaning more description to introduce them to readers, which slows things down)?

It's easy to tell a sagging story—it gets boring and my attention wanders. If I’m bored, it’s going to be worse for a reader. I flag scenes and spots that need work—the pacing read is not the time to fix things or I’ll lose the sense of pace that I have for the overall story.

If the pace is too fast, the reader can't follow events and characters—it becomes a confused mess. That becomes another spot to flag (I also have early readers and if they flag spots as confusing, I know I need to look not just at the words, but at the overall pace in that scene).

When the pace is right, the story clicks.  The reader can follow with enough interest to keep going, and it all has an inevitable feel to it.

Shannon Donnelly's writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written." 

Her work has been on the top seller list of Amazon.com and she recently published Paths of Desire, a Historical Regency romance, of which Romantic Historical Lovers notes: “a story where in an actress meets an adventurer wouldn’t normally be at the top of my TBR pile; but I’ve read and enjoyed other books by this author and so I thought I’d give this one a go. I’m glad I did. I was hooked and pulled right into the world of the story from the very beginning…Highly recommended.” Paths of Desire and her other Regency romances can be found as ebooks with on all ebook formats, and with Cool Gus Publishing.

She has had novellas published in several anthologies, has had young adult horror stories published and is the author of several computer games. She lives in New Mexico with two horses, two donkeys, two dogs, and only one love of her life. Shannon can be found online at:

sd-writer.com

facebook.com/sdwriter

Twitter/sdwriter

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