On Writing: Backstory

A friend of mine recently wrote that she was having problems with her story. She didn't have the hero and heroine meeting right away, and her critique partners kept giving her conflicting advice about how much backstory to have at the beginning as opposed to weaving through the book.

To any of us who write, backstory is one of the most tedious problems to deal with. You, as the author, have constructed a history and a world in which the your characters live. But how much of that do you tell the reader up front, how much do you integrate into the story as you go, and how much is actually relevant to the story as a whole?

New authors--yes, I was guilty of this too--try to tell you everything at once. But a firm rule of thumb for a good story, for an author, is to show the reader what's happening, not tell the reader what's happening. For example, if Joe has a fear of heights, don't simply tell us. Show us by trapping him on the roof of a building. When he looks down, he grows dizzy, panicked. Or involve some dialogue to describe a past incident in which Joe displayed a fear of heights. But the dialogue has to mean more to the story than just to tell us what happened. By inserting that dialogue, it has to move the story forward, as well as provide some cleverly inserted backstory.

To me, there's nothing more offputting in a book than having to read through ten pages of character history when I just want to see what the heck's going on.

On my friend's other dilemma involving when the hero and heroine should meet, there's no hard and fast rule. But remember, you (the author) have to hook your reader into reading the next page. I know that I like when the hero and heroine interact. And if they don't meet until page 170 in a 200 page book, 1) it's not a romance, and 2) By page 50 I'll have dropped the book, if I can even read that far into it without groaning.

A little writer food for thought.

Marie