Backstory, when the supernatural comes out of the closet

beccamae0213

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Everything I have read about what not to do in novels says don't overload the beginning of your story with backstory. My question is when do I add it? I'm trying to write an Urban Fantasy, and the point where the supernaturals come out of the closet is critical to the beginning of my story, but it leaves the first couple of pages filled with what happened 50 years ago. Should I change the opening and work it in another way or keep going like I'm going? Thank you!
 

WriterDude

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Drip feed it in. Make the reader want to know what happened fifty years ago, make it part of the intrigue, make them keep turning the pages to learn what happened and why it mattered. If its not important to what happening on the page, ask yourself why the reader needs to know.

Are those pages interesting and relevant? Do they entertain and reward the reader for persevering with the book? If not, I'd try another approach.
 

MonsterTamer

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You can do it - if there's no other way to give us that information at any other point in the novel, keep it there. Or if it's critical to understand what's happening, by all means, keep it.

Otherwise, later is better, IMO. It's hard not to confuse the reader in the first chapter of a novel. They don't know anything about your characters, world, or plot. So don't feel like you need the backstory there. It won't anchor them. What will is a compelling character in an interesting situation.

I'm not necessarily encouraging this, but I've read a few novels lately where I didn't know what was going on until more than half way through. You've got time. Don't rush.
 

beccamae0213

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The story starts with a book signing, and people are lined up around the block waiting. I feel like the history lesson is important here because wouldn't the reader want to know why this book signing is so exciting to have everyone lined up for hours? It's the autobiography of the first supernatural to come out of hiding changing the world as people knew it.
 

MisterFrancis

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wouldn't the reader want to know why this book signing is so exciting to have everyone lined up for hours?

I would want to know why the book signing was exciting to have the protagonist lined up for hours, which hopefully is significantly more specific.
 

MonsterTamer

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Is this YA? I should have asked earlier. My apologies.

As I imagine that scene, I see lots of people standing in line. Not quiet people. Let them create the excitement for you with their dialogue. Let them do tiny snips of the most pertinent information drops you need. "Can you believe we're finally going to be able to read about how Vampy McVamperson first saved the world?"
 

beccamae0213

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It is not YA. Thank you! That is a great idea I think I can work with that and it'll make the story flow better.
 

PeteMC

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Backstory is best feathered into the narrative rather than dumped on the reader in a chunk, but even so you need something engaging happening *now*, and two or three pages of people standing in line talking isn't going to excite anyone.

Who is your protagonist, someone in the line or the supernatural waiting to sign books? Whichever it is, there needs to be something immediate happening to them to keep people reading. Perhaps they were chased there, or are worried about being seen, or attacked. Who by and why? That sort of thing.
 

MaeZe

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Make the reader want to know what happened fifty years ago, make it part of the intrigue, make them keep turning the pages to learn what happened and why it mattered. ...
This ^

I have a very complicated backstory. When I first started writing it and people would ask me what the story was about, I would start explaining the setting/backstory because I didn't think they'd understand the story without it. The story got lost in the explanation.

And in the beginning my critique group would claim things weren't credible, which was clearly because they didn't understand the backstory.

I had to work with both situations. Keep the backstory in your head at first. The author knows so much more than ends up in the book. I've even written chapters that I then set aside. In my mind those scenes happened, but the reader would only be slowed down by everything I know about the story.

Then when something comes up people reading your story don't understand, (provided they are reading along from the beginning), you know you need to tweak it, but that doesn't mean you need all the backstory. It's much more interesting to give the reader enough to understand the scene, but they don't need the whole story at once. They need to discover it.
 

MaeZe

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... It's hard not to confuse the reader in the first chapter of a novel. They don't know anything about your characters, world, or plot. So don't feel like you need the backstory there. It won't anchor them. What will is a compelling character in an interesting situation. ....
This is the other half of the equation: what to start with so the reader isn't saying they don't get it. "Compelling character in an interesting situation" is exactly how to start a story the reader doesn't yet know anything else about.
 

beccamae0213

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Thank you guys! I'm pretty sure I need to re-work my whole beginning but that's all part of the game isn't it. This I why I joined so I can have people to talk to about writing. :thankyou:
 

DancingMaenid

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Like others have said, intrigue can be good. Do readers need to immediately know all the details of what happened to appreciate why the book signing is interesting? It sounds like something that could be fairly self-explanatory--the situation indicates that people 1) know about supernatural creatures in this world and 2) that it's still something that's novel and exciting for them. The reader doesn't need all the info right away. They just need to get an idea of what type of world this is, who the main character is, and what matters to them.

It might be that some of the back story is really important to the plot, but in that case, you might still be better off revealing it a bit at a time to allow for surprises and new developments. In the Harry Potter books, for example, Rowling could have laid out the entire story of what happened to Harry's parents in the first book. But it made sense that a child who didn't even know his parents were wizards wouldn't learn all the details at once, and developments like discovering who Sirius Black was were a major part of the plot that were more meaningful than if we were just told everything from the start.

But in terms of worldbuilding, it's often not essential for readers to know everything, especially not at first. How the world is affected now by what happened 50 years ago might be more immediately interesting, actually.
 

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It would seem that you need to hook the reader's interest in the prologue or the opening pages of Chapter One. I do like your story line about a supernatural being coming out into the open. Say your story is about a ghost that allows itself to be "discovered" and it grants interviews and dictates an autobiography to be written by a ghost writer (sorry, couldn't resist) and is now sort of a celebrity. So the Prologue might be the ghost grumbling about what the living thinks it knows about death and being dead. Chapter One might start with a flashback to when the ghost passed through the veil from the living to the supernatural. Then it jumps to present time where you have the book signing. Now the ghost won't show itself in front of crowds so maybe it possesses a medium and speaks through that person's body. Perhaps the ghost wants to reach out to its own descendants or make peace with why the entity took its own life but the "living" are more interested in the afterlife and contacting the deceased, etc. It all sounds like such a promising premise. Good luck with it.
 

frimble3

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Lots of people line up for hours'n'hours for stuff the rest of us wouldn't - new Harry Potter book, latest Star Wars movie (back in the day). I wouldn't have pages of it, unless there was a some sort of a protest going on against it. But, people standing talking (possibly in costume?) would be one way to feed in a few basics.
But, keep in mind that if the supernatural creatures 'came out' 50 years ago, most people have known about them all their lives. They might be talking about the author, but they're probably not be going to discuss the history of the supernatural in the modern world.