I hate to hit and run, but . . .

The backstory could make an interesting stand alone novel. I would probably do that although it's worth bearing in mind the book that now becomes a sequel would probably need a complete rewrite so it feels like a sequel.

Yeah...it's a tough call. You have to think, too, that people don't always read novels in sequence. I'm a terrible one for not knowing a book is a sequel...yes...I'm a bit of an idiot. I think there must be a compromise somewhere...having backstory and the rest in the same novel? Maybe you need a sharper blade on the editing knife? Sounds like a pickle, at any rate...I wish you the best of luck.

Is there anyway to put glimpses of the back story in the story. Just bits here and there, to help the reader understand where your MC is coming from? I don't need the whole story as a reader, if you just show me flashes of his past, of his pain, I tend to me a much more sympathetic reader.

Even if you make it a sequel, it still has to be fulfilling as a stand alone novel for readers who don't read the first book (Kevin!).

It sounds like a tough call. I wish you the best!

The problem with putting all the back story into another novel is that you will still be faced with the same problem with this material. It's not enough, I don't think, to say to readers, yes but if you read my other novel you'll like him better.

I think you have to find a way to engage the reader's sympathy, as you go along, whilst writing an essentially unlikeable character. I'm thinking of the way Patricia Highsmith handles Ripley.

Personally, I don't subscribe to the school of thought that says all fictional characters have to be likeable. If the guy isn't likeable he isn't likeable.

I think the most important thing is how the backstory feels. Now you've added a proper storyline, does it feel like a novel, complex and complete in itself, does it make you want to write it as such? Or is it still an awesome bit of characterisation, is motivating the character still the best bit to it - doesn't it feel like a prequel rather than a main book? Does the flavour come from that one character or is it balanced, and how's the resolution before the second book? Sorry if this is completely useless, I'm just trying to hit every point I can think of.

Either way it means a lot of work for you. Making backstory into a novel must be hard, because you have to bring it alive in the 'now' from the past, and you'd have to edit the second book as well. If you keep it in one, I'm all for adding just enough backstory (like storygirl says, in bits and flashes) to keep your character alive and complex (and to make people understand just why he's not likable). I don't know. Can't hurt to try, though - at least to see how it would sound.

Good luck whatever you decide. Just for the record, I love characters with a heavy past. Hope you make the best out of it without going crazy with the amount of work!

roger said:

Personally, I don't subscribe to the school of thought that says all fictional characters have to be likeable.

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Is there such a school of thought?

Does the backstory have a beginning, a middle, and an end?

Two things to remember:

1) Readers need less backstory than many imagine.
2) Nowhere is it written that the main character must be likeable. All that's required is that he/she be interesting.

IMHO, backstory should not take 40K. I would try to cut it down and add it as a prologue. With your story being so long though, I am not sure that is possible.

Also if you give away too much of a characters past you lose some of the mystery of the character.
If you think it is needed slip small pieces in here and there.

Is there such a school of thought?

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It's a criticism that is often levelled at manuscripts/novels. "I didn't like the book because I didn't like the main character." And it is commonly given as a reason for rejecting, I believe - "The characters are not sympathetic..."

The crux is in the difference between likeability and sympathy. A great writer can make us sympathise with utterly despicable characters. It's all to do with what we recognise of ourselves in the character.

But maybe Erin's original post is more to do with making a character understandable.

Besides, I was just using a turn of phrase...

I've found that a little back story can go a long way and too much can clog and bog a story down. What I try to do is intersperse back story into the main story. This way you can have the back story even help push the main story forward.

Just my 2$.

I skimmed a book last night (deciding whether to buy it or not) and the back story was woven into the story by recurring nightmares of being tortured as a child. From the little I gathered while standing in the grocery store aisle, it had relevance to the actions of the character in the "present" of the book.

It was 2-3 paragraphs at the beginning of each chapter in italics so the reader wouldn't get confused.

As far as what I would do, if it were important enough to the story...such as mistakes repeated then finally corrected, then I would put it in. If it was just character development, then it only needs a passing mention. "MC still slept fetal position, a lingering remnant of his nightmare childhood."

The reader will slip over this sentence, but it will get embedded into their subconscious enough to make them go..."Oh that guy is such a !!! But with a childhood like he had, well..."

One of my current MC's flaws stems from his father's death when the character was 15 years old. This made him "act" grown up, but stunted his overall maturity. Because of this, he made some stupid choices and served time. Now, in my book's present, he has to draw upon his training in prison, overcome his lack of maturity in order to be a good parent, and make some hard choices for himself.

The point is, I only mentioned his father's death in passing. (Probably a total of 5 sentences.) It's a major back story component, but not an essential component of the present story.

(added) thinking on this more, Hemingway added a back story component (actually more than one) to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" with the suicide of Robert Jordan's father (or was it grandfather?). Because the son doesn't want to emulate the past, he is reluctant to do it as his mission fubars.

However, it becomes a major point later. The entire mentioning of it, probably 4 paragraphs scattered through the book.

Just adding it for illustrative purposes.

The reader is way smarter than we give them credit for. They'll figure it out with a little help.

roger said:

It's a criticism that is often levelled at manuscripts/novels. "I didn't like the book because I didn't like the main character." And it is commonly given as a reason for rejecting, I believe - "The characters are not sympathetic..."

The crux is in the difference between likeability and sympathy. A great writer can make us sympathise with utterly despicable characters. It's all to do with what we recognise of ourselves in the character.

But maybe Erin's original post is more to do with making a character understandable.

Besides, I was just using a turn of phrase...

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Yep, I was agreeing with you. But it does puzzle me how someone can think that, it seems too superficial unless they mean the character is not understandable. That's the only thing that could throw me off a character; I could love a villain even when what he does makes me shudder if I can understand him (in fact, he won't make me shudder unless I understand him). That's why I think writing unlikable characters and empatising with them is one of the writer's hardest jobs. S/He must really get into their head, which is not a pleasant place at all. But it's fascinating.

It's amazing when a great writer makes you discover a bit of yourself in a despiccable, but realistic character. It all depends on the insight; if the character is flat, that will never happen. I should add that an extremely likable flat character would make me equally sick. (I guess it all boils down to different people, and flat chars are just not people.)

Yay for hijacking the thread. And thanks for explaining.

It sounds to me that perhaps you cut a little too much. A few glimpses of this guy's backstory would be useful, but understanding a person comes from much more than knowing about their troubled past. Are you putting enough emphasis on his feelings and emotions? Are his goals and motivations clear to the reader? What are his redeeming qualities, and can those be played up? Just show us that he's human (wants, needs, feels, and makes mistakes) and make him interesting enough to keep us turning the pages.

Nicole

I'm with Uncle Jim on this (well duh!). Readers don't need the whole backstory in order to feel something for the MC - or find him interesting if he's not likeable. Sometimes - nah, oftentimes - we as writers feel we need that whole backstory in order to know our character as intimately as we need to in order to write them well.

We forget the reader doesn't need, and often doesn't want, that much info. They (and I speak as a reader here) like little hints or suggestions sprinkled around, enough to know there's a mystery. That there's more to this character than meets the eye. Secrets that the other characters don't know about him lend a mystery that we, as the reader, know a little more about than the other characters do. It puts us in a position to feel something for the MC that the other characters don't feel, siding us with him/her.

Anyway, that's just my view. I wouldn't make another novel of just backstory - I like mystery. I like knowing the MC has a background, but not knowing the whole background. Drizzle more of it out as you write (if you write) sequels. But never show the entire enchilada.

Wow! That's some backstory! Maybe that is the story you have to write.

But I go back to Ripley - Patricia Highsmith only drops little hints about his early life. The reader pieces things together.

The thing is, whether he's a Nazi or not, you have to find some way of accessing his humanity... I think.

It all comes down to story. The action of the story is where his character is revealed. If the full character is not being revealed in the story, then you may have to look at that.

this is all just thinking aloud... just ideas... trying to be helpful... but it's an interesting problem. Hope you find a way through it.

Erinmiller77 said:

My question is: do I write the backstory as a stand-alone first novel, and put this away as a sequel? I have 40k of the backstory already at my disposal, and I just wrote up an outline tonight for an 80k version, adding more of a storyline. What would you do?

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Why not incorporate some of the back stories (a sentence here, a sentence there, some dialogue, etc.) into your main story to give some insights into your MC to make him more sympathetic, if that's your concern?

Erinmiller77 said:

I'm not going to be able to get back to you on this until much later today, but I need a little help.

I'm in the middle of the fifth rewrite of a novel that once was 186k. It now clocks in at just under 99k. Most of the plot development that I've cut has been back story. The feedback I've gotten from readers is that my MC is not a likeable person, which I agree. He's a little more sympathetic when you have the back story of torture the kid had to endure.

My question is: do I write the backstory as a stand-alone first novel, and put this away as a sequel? I have 40k of the backstory already at my disposal, and I just wrote up an outline tonight for an 80k version, adding more of a storyline. What would you do?

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One answer doesn't fit. If your Genre is Fantasy, Tolkien's bits and pieces have become best-sellers because people want to know the rest of the story. And so there's a market.

It really depends on if there is a full story in your cut material, and whether devotion to that outweighs starting afresh?

My own experience tells me that it's likely you'll continue to grow as a writer the more you write, and sometimes fixing bits and pieces is more work than it's worth? But for the record, I did that with my stories. I took away the ending chapter of one and the opening of another, and blended them into a separate story. But that's because these stories were all linked to begin with.

From what you've described, I'd like to read both stories. I agree there's a happy medium between too much backstory and not enough. You don't want to cut everything, especially with his past. Good luck with your decision.

Erin,

When I read, "...torture the kid had to endure..." my first thought was, pulleeaaase.

In the real world there's a kid on every block who justifies his violent, hateful and criminal behavior because of something that happened 'in his childhood'. People need to grow up, and so do novel characters. Maybe the unlikableness factor is a mirror image of this character's internal goal (what he doesn't realize) as opposed to his external goal (what he thinks he wants or has to have)...getting a life, being a grown-up, stop blaming others.

Kids do wrong. They betray their parents, they betray their culture, they fall into the abyss of mental illness. Getting corrected, disciplined, punished, imprisoned...whatever you want to call it, even if it's by their friends, peers, what have you, is part of real life.

Erinmiller77 said:

The more I read your replies, the more I realize the problem I have is not so much with the back story, but with the sympathetic character. I like him b/c he's such an ass at the beginning, but he changes over the course of the novel, to become a little more human now that he doesn't have his father breathing down his neck.

Any other examples you can give where the MC was a jerk, but you still wanted to know what happened?

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Holden.

Well, I didn't want to know what happened, but apparently 80 gazillion other people did.

Shady Lane said:

Holden.

Well, I didn't want to know what happened, but apparently 80 gazillion other people did.

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Damn it, Shady! That was my post!