by Shirley Jump
I once had a neighbor I barely knew show me her new boob job as I was walking by to get the mail. It was definitely more information than I wanted to have (and totally unsolicited), and coupled with some stories she told me the day we moved in, made me want to steer very, very, very far away from her and her husband. They invited us over dozens of times but I already knew way too much about them.
Avoid Too Much Information
You’re probably wondering how on earth that relates to writing fiction. It’s all about the TMI. If you give a reader Too Much Information too early on (AKA Backstory), they lose all interest in the character. There’s no intrigue left.
What you want to do is Show that your Character has something to hide, but not Tell what that something is. This is part of the complicated dance between advancing the Plot but not dumping too much Backstory on the page. You want to tease the information just enough to get the reader to keep turning the page.
Think about it like meeting a new neighbor. Jane Doe moves in next door, so you do the neighborly thing and pop over with a batch of cookies to welcome her to the ’hood.
If Jane opens her door and starts saying, “Oh, thank you for the cookies. You have no idea how much I needed them. I’ve been stress eating like crazy ever since I high-tailed it out of Michigan. The cops there were just hounding me and hounding me. They think I had something to do with my husband disappearing but you know, that wasn’t me, it was his best friend, Earl, who had one too many on a deer hunting trip and aimed for my husband instead of the ten-point buck. But then there was the whole thing with my Aunt Mary and…”
First, you’re thinking, Who is this crazy person? And then, you start thinking, How can I politely get the heck out of here and never, ever speak to this person again?
Watch for Stop Signs
Jane’s story was a whole lot of Telling and a whole lot of Backstory, which is like putting a stop sign in the middle of a paragraph. It bores the reader and creates an emotional disconnect.
Telling is dispassionate and flat. Showing, however, is connection. Showing delivers an emotional bond with the reader, the kind that makes them fall in love with your Characters, over and over again. Showing goes hand-in-hand with limiting Backstory so you can let details naturally unfurl.
Telling creates a disconnect with the reader. Showing creates a connection.
Imagine popping over to give Jane some store-bought sugar cookies (because, frankly, who has time to bake?) and when she peeks through a slim opening in the door, you see that she has a black eye and she’s disheveled and barely talks above a whisper. She says something vague about leaving Michigan in a hurry and then shuts the door. That would intrigue you. That would make you interested. That would create a connection of curiosity and empathy between you and this perfect stranger.
That is also exactly what you are trying to do on the page.
Your Characters are perfect strangers to your reader. You need to build a quick emotional bond with words, and the best way to do that is to drop in bits and pieces of Backstory and Show your Character instead of Telling everything about them.
For a year or so, I did online dating (and yes, it was as awful as people say but I also met my Mr. Right, who became my husband there, so it’s not all bad). The profiles that got me to click “like” were the ones with just enough information to make me want to know more. The ones that had no information or worse, just said hook-up now, were the ones I didn’t even bother with. I needed to know something—but not everything—if that makes sense.
No one wants to date the guy who spends the first thirty minutes of a phone conversation talking about himself. He’s dumping Backstory that you don’t even care about yet, because you don’t care about him yet (also, he may be a narcissist, so raise a red flag).
Backstory in novels usually takes the form of long, long, long paragraphs of introspection. Reading those is like watching someone think. That has to be the most boring thing in the world—like watching paint dry on someone’s face.
Let the Reader Wonder
The reader wants things to happen. The reader wants to feel compelled to turn the pages. And most of all, the reader really enjoys uncovering that mystery of what makes the Character tick. Use these tips to avoid dumping a steaming pile of Backstory into the beginning of your novel:
1. Think of your novel like an onion:
Remember Donkey in “Shrek”? He talks about how donkeys are like parfaits…with layers. Your Characters are like parfaits (or onions) too. They have layers to their personalities, their histories, etc. You want to peel those layers back a little a time, not expose the whole onion (or parfait) in the beginning of the book.
2. Don’t be that crazy neighbor:
Don’t let your characters start rambling on about their personal life, either in their heads or in dialogue. Drop just enough into the story to make the reader wonder—and keep coming back so they can piece together more of the puzzle.
3. Every element must work with the Plot:
You’ve heard me say it before, but I’ll say it again—every word in your book, every Scene you choose, every line of Dialogue, every space you describe, must impact the Plot. You don’t need to talk about Jane’s phobia of dogs if there are zero dogs in your story. But if she has to work at an animal shelter, that dog phobia will be important information. Characters’ pasts do impact their present, so reveal only the details that impact them at that moment in the Plot (more on this in a second).
4. Characters don’t blather about themselves to themselves:
Chances are good that you are either writing your book in first or third person—either way, the reader is in your Characters’ heads throughout the story. Think of that as being in your own head. Do you sit there and think, “I should have been the middle child because then Mom would have loved me more and maybe Dad wouldn’t have run off with the maid. And I wouldn’t be working at this lousy job at McDonald’s.” Chances are you don’t. When you are in your Character’s head, limit their “me-me” thoughts to a minimum. You wouldn’t sit there and ruminate about yourself and your past, and neither would your Characters.
5. Is there a TRIGGER?
If you don’t read another paragraph in this article, that’s cool, because the only thing I really want you to learn about Backstory is that there has to be a trigger for it to be on the page.
You don’t tell the reader (or hint at) the Character’s childhood fear of dogs when they are about to get on a boat. The dogs have nothing to do with the boat (unless there’s a German Shepherd in the captain’s chair). Nor do you hint at or tell about the Character’s troubled past with her sister when the Character is about to enjoy an intimate moment with a love interest. It’s not the time or the place.
The Backstory info you choose to add to the book should be triggered by that moment and be an impact on that particular Scene. If you simply must drop that information in, add an item or setting that triggers their memory. In short: The Backstory has to have a purpose for being there.
6. Does this information add Tension to your story?
The key to good Backstory is using it to increase Tension. If your Character is about to walk into a den of wolves, it might be a good time to have them recall the time they were attacked by a wolf hybrid. If the Character is about to kiss their love interest, that’s the time to introduce her fear of having her heart broken after her fiancé ran away with the fry cook at McDonald’s.
Along with that, you want to only add enough information to increase Tension. You want to look at how many paragraphs of Backstory you add, because Backstory is, essentially, the Plot’s boat just sitting in the water, circling, circling, circling. It’s not moving forward; it’s not speeding the reader’s pulse. It’s stagnant.
7. Are you adding the Backstory at the right place in the action?
Think of a gunfight. When the Characters are shooting it out, bang, bang, bang, none of them are going to pause to think about the time they were caught stealing a root beer from the corner shop or the time their mother abandoned them to join the circus. This is a tense, fast-paced moment, and it needs to be treated as such. Later, when things calm down, is the time to add that bit of Backstory. But not too much—as long as there are guns out there, there is inherent Tension, and your Character should be feeling tense and aware, not drifting off into pages and pages of thoughts about the past.
8. Is the Backstory taking over your page?
Did you write too much? Have too many paragraphs in a row of it? Look at the balance of action and narrative. There’s a concept called white space in writing, which in short means how much white space do you see on the page? When a reader looks at pages and pages of dense verbiage, they close the book. It’s too much to concentrate on and absorb, especially in today’s hurry-up content world. Trim the Backstory and see how much faster and smoother the Scene runs. It’s like having too many shrubs in a garden—you miss the cooler parts of the landscaping if it’s overrun with greenery. It all becomes one big green blob.
9. But, but, but…:
I can hear your arguments already. But how will the reader get to know my Character if I don’t dump all that information in the beginning? How will they know that she’s a nice person? How will they know why he turned into a serial killer?
Because you are going to Show instead of Tell.
Actions speak a thousand times louder than words, so let your Character act instead of think. Acting scared around a puppy shows the reader a lot more than the Character standing against the wall thinking endlessly about her dog phobia. Showing a Character snooping around their brother’s house instead of having them think about how they don’t trust their brother is far more effective.
When you Show instead of Tell, you let the reader put the pieces together herself. And that intrigues her to read more, to figure out the entire story.
Three Keys to Effective Backstory
Remember this about Backstory: it needs to be relevant, impactful, and believable. If it fails that three-part test, then take it out. Work it into another place or leave it out altogether.
I don’t use all the Backstory I create for my Characters, just as no one person in anyone’s life knows their entire history, right down to their abject fear of the color taupe. Use the details that matter and let the rest go. The book will be better and stronger for it and the Backstory you do choose to put in will have lots more impact!
Which of theses techniques do you use, or will you try, to avoid oversharing your characters' backstory? Please share or ask questions down in the comments!
About Shirley
Shirley Jump, author of Writing Compelling Fiction, is an award-winning, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and USA Today bestselling author who has published more than 80 books in 24 countries. As the owner of JumpStart Creative Solutions, Shirley also does book building, content editing, ghostwriting, and author coaching. She has worked with celebrities from The Today Show, HGTV, White House advisors, and former NFL players to craft their stories in a unique and compelling way. She has spoken all over the world about the power of narrative and how to create compelling books. A former reporter and communications director for a marketing agency, she uses her diverse background to help clients create impactful content that opens up new revenue streams.
Shirley Jump, New York Times bestselling author and owner of JumpStart Creative Solutions. We do ghostwriting, book building, and strategic content creation. Feel free to reach out at: shirley@jumpstartcreativesolutions.com, on LinkedIn, or book a meeting at www.Calendly.com/jumpstart-01.
Image Credit:
Photo is by Arlene Toney at Captured by Arlene, BTW. CC BY-NC-ND
