Oh, it's awful. The struggle to write another novel. I'm reading a book recommended to me called Hooked by Les Edgerton. In it, he says to begin with the inciting incident, the scene where the story worthy problem occurs. (Why am I tempted to say sponge-worthy here?) Sort of applies, I guess.
And I did that. I have a nice opening which introduces the problem with a bang.
But that immediately takes me into back story. How did she get to this place is the next question that comes to my mind. I know back story in huge sections is a no-no but it often feels right.
I think it's because I am interested in the psychology of a character rather than his/her actions that "back story" is my go to place when I try to write a novel. And that psychology must be put in place for me to move on.
The only way out of this is to give my protagonist a story worthy problem at birth, I guess. Advice anyone?
16 comments:
You don't have to explain all the backstory, though. Maybe give the reader a snippet or two and keep the plot moving on.
The reader will keep reading partly because they'll want to know, 'okay, what's going on here' and 'why did the character act that way?'
Think about a conversation you'd have with a new person-- you might allude to something, but you wouldn't explain your whole history about why you reacted that way to it.
What about if the backstory is just as laden with action as the front story. What if the protag is an evil seed and lots of incidents from her childhood would explain this inciting event? I guess it's the way my mind works.
"What about if the backstory is just as laden with action as the front story?"
Why not start wiht the back story then and don't view it as back story. View it as the beginning and just make a leap forward in the subsequetn chapters. If the two are inner-related enough that you feel the need to include it I don't see why this will not work.
A story can begin anywhere and you are not relegated to a certain time frame either. Lots of novels span years, decades ande ven generations.
add bs by the spoonful, like recommended for screenplays, that way you keep them wanting more, page after page :)
the birthing is an apt metaphor...
I think it comes down to deciding what story you want to tell. Within one big story there are lots of little ones.
Is the road to the story you're writing more interesting than the story you're writing?
Seeding in backstory doesn't need to be an info dump, and, in my opinion, shouldn't. It can pull the reader out of the story you're trying to tell.
I think that a line or two interspersed throughout a relevant scene can give enough backstory. Most of the time it just needs to be enough to move things along and give the reader some guideposts to what has gotten your characters to that point.
Whoa. Yeah, I have that problem.
In the end, I think you have to sort it out in editing and rewrites. I spend a few weeks outlining before I start a novel just so I can have a linear timeline that includes every event and scene I want to cover. My theory is that I can then minimize my use of long flashbacks by prioritizing my material.
And still I wind up with at least one or two long forays into the past. At that point I go with the flow and write what instinct tells me is important. Later I can move the stuff, minimize it, toss it or - sometimes - leave it just where it is.
H-m-m-m. Maybe that's why I'm not published yet.
And hey, I love the lady in labor as metaphor for novel writers, whether female or male.
I think the story I unfortunately want to tell is someone's biography. I don't make this mistake with the shorts because I know I can't. But here it feels like the whole mess has to go down on the paper.
One of the reasons I reason so little contemporary crime fiction is because there is so little character development. The old hardboiled stuff had its character cliches but so does the new stuff. You see same characters again all comepting to be cool and stylish.
This is probably my age showing here. But I grew up reading Hemingway and Falkner and Fitzgerald and John O'Hara and Irwin Shaw (short stories) and Cheever and I was always aware that some of their greatest art was in how they used backstory to enrich the reading experience. Hell, some of their best writing and most stunning observation was in the backstory.
And I found the same thing in JohnD, Charles Williams, Peter Rabe, Vin Packer, W.R. Burnett etc.
I realize that fiction has changed, in many respects for the better, but terseness for the sake of terseness gets tiresome to me.
If you want to know how backstory can be just as powerful and compelling as fron story (and not slow the action) I recommend reading Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara.
Oh, boy is "Appointment in Samara" one of my favorites and if I remember, his first book. Lit stuff still uses back story. And European police procedurals do, too (Reading Siren in the Water), but it's verboten in US crime stories. I guess it slows down the pace but what if the pace doesn't need to be fast. What if we want to luxuriate over a someone's past. I guess I'm hopelessly old and should have written a novel in 1975 and not now.
Well I think we can split the difference. I like a story that keeps moving (both as reader and writer) but I also like to know something not only about the character but about his/her context. There's no right or wrong here. It's a matter of preference. If you want to read a crime book that's both a real novel and a Jim Thompsonesque noir I recommend Dave Zeltserman's Small Crimes. It's an extraordinary book as a piece of writing and one hell of a hair curling story. And yes, there are several times when he pauses to give us backstories on various people. Or hell, look what Ken Bruen has been doing the past five years or so. He went right on through backstory to outright revery in places. And it's the revery that makes his work unique and magnificent. I'd try it myself but unfortunately my supply of Genius juice hasn't arrived yet.
I'm all about ambiguity. Love it at the beginning, especially, of a novel. Give me the inciting incident and then the barest of backstory and I'll keep on reading. :)
Hey, do you ever use The Writer's Journey by Chris Voegler?
I don't read much crime fiction and I write none, but I have the exact same urge with regard to back story. Last month I read two books I thought did a great job moving between different time periods (neither are crime fiction). I know you like Ethan Canin, so I recommend AMERICA, AMERICA. I suspect I was one of the last people in cyberspace to read THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, so you may already have read it too -- of course moving around in time is a plot device, so it's not the same thing, but it was done very well. Good luck!
oops. I guess you didn't like the new Ethan Canin...
I didn't give America, America the proper chance.
I've been meaning to read DZs book for ages. Thanks for all the help, guys. I'm ready to go back to the ms. and do some serious business.
The only absolute I can think about in writing is that your story must keep suspense and tension throughout. There have always been great writers who've avoided the use of backstories, and there have always been great writers who've used it effectively to propel their stories--in the crime fiction space Jim Thompson, Dan Marlowe, Charles Willeford, to name just a few, then you have the greatest crime novel ever written, The Maltese Falcon, including a whole different story (the Flitcraft parable). Most recently you've got James Sallis's brilliant Cypress Grove, which alternate back story chapters with the present story. Readers, other than I guess the most rigid, are not going to put down a book because you have a backstory, but because your story has hit a lull and lost momentum. The use of a backstory is just one of the many tools at our disposal to propel a story forward, and as long as it's used effectively it's a valuable tool. My advice, ignore any arbitrary fads/rules and use whatever works.
Love Sallis' Cypress Grove books.
Novel 1 had almost no back story and it's sitting on my hard drive. Maybe not using any made it feel stilted. So this time I'm gonna make my own rules within reason. Thanks.
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