backstory

Aragon said:

ok, here is a question

Why is backstory bad?

The way that Puma ctitiqued my work, he pretty much kept claiming that it was. I would love to know when that happened, as I read older authors and they love using it.

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First, Puma's a girl. She's also one of the best critiquers out there, so, truly, listen to what she has to say.

Next -- what worked before doesn't always work now. If you're going for publication now, you have to do what works now.

Backstory tends to slow the storyline down. Easy rule of thumb is if it doesn't move your story forward in some way, then you don't need it. Also, while all the backstory is fascinating to you, the author, it's not alway so to the reader. Usually, the reader is happier getting said backstory in dribs and drabs throughout the story, not in one fell chunk.

If the backstory IS the story, well then, why not write that AS the story? The moment you feel the need to spend pages and pages on backstory, then you either need to become extremely facile with active-voice flashbacks or you need to ask WHY this is so necessary to the story that is going on right NOW.

There's a wide variety of threads on things like this in the Novels Forum and the AW Roundtable Forum. Probably elsewhere, too. Just go to the main page for those forums and do a search on "backstory" and you'll probably find a lot to read.

No, it's really overall, no genre's immune. But, as with anything, if you do it well enough, you can do whatever you want. The key is doing it well enough.

And, I think most of us want to write what WE want to read. So, by that token, if you really like backstory and you want to put it in, then do it. It all depends on your goals -- writing for fun, for you, as a hobby, just for a few readers, again, do what you want. Writing for publication will demand some concessions, but again, if you do it well enough, not all that many.

Hi Aragon - A lot depends on how you handle backstory. As an example, in your post in western you mention by name and location the three women who aren't far from San Felipe Springs and that they all want to tie him down. Only one of the women appears later on in the story. Why did the reader need to know the names of the other two and where they lived?

Maired shows up later on when he's getting the apple to calm his horse. If you wrote something more along the lines of ... He took the rosy apple from his saddlebag and rubbed it against his sleeve - one of Maired's apples, its blush reminded him of her cheeks when they'd first kissed. Maired - one of the three women in his life and each of them out to tie him down. He held the apple out to Turtle; lucky they'd never run into each other. -- When backstory is presented more in a manner like this it flows along with the story - seamless is the word usually used to describe weaving it in instead of dropping it all in a paragraph by itself. And, this also creates more intrigue - how did he come to have three women in his life, how did he keep them from knowing about each other, which one would end up winning the prize? But - in the story you wrote about the storm this is all really extraneous information that isn't essential to the story you're telling.

I hope that explanation makes some sense. We all have to watch putting too much down on the paper - tidbits that we find fascinating, parts of character that were determined in character development but aren't important to the story being told (i.e., in your same story - if your MC had a limp, would it be essential to let the reader know why he limped - probably not). And, if a tidbit is important enough or interesting enough that it should be included - there needs to be enough information about it that the reader comes away with some additional knowledge - as in Parda and Panda (think those were the two names) - you mentioned them, but you could have told a little more about them, for example, you mentioned the stalagmite but didn't mention that the caves were in limestone hills (which I presume they are to have stalagmites). In my opinion, the cave description could be expanded (a bit, no more than a couple lines).

Hope that helps. Puma