Creating Conflict With Backstory

We have learned how to avoid backstory plot holes and discussed how to use backstory as plot devices. This week, we look at how to use backstory to create conflict.

1. It is tempting to cheat by inserting letters, news articles, and pages from a book or diary to impart information. There may be instances where it works, but rarely. These shortcuts are generally boring in nature. Even worse, they are often placed in italics. If you insist on this, keep it short and simple. Pages of italics strain the eyes.

Backstory in the form of letters or journal entries tests a reader's patience. They draw the reader out of real time. A few readers adore them. Most don't. I scan read them. If they are too long, I skip over them. They rarely contain conflict and are a lazy way of delivering information.

If the contents can be summarized quickly through internal dialogue or dialogue, do that instead. We don't need to see a long news article about a body being found. Dick can read the article and comment on it to Sally, offering her the juicy parts. Most of us do this when we read something to someone across the kitchen table or office desk. We don't read the whole article. We react emotionally to the contents. We skip over the blah, blah, blah parts and read the good stuff.

"Reading Mom's diary is so surreal. I had no idea she was such a free spirit, a freethinker, and a party girl."

Jane reached for the book. "When did that change? She was so prim and proper." 

Sally dodged her and kept reading. "Oh my lord, she slept with Phyllis's husband before they got married."

Jane attempted to grab the journal a second time. "Are you certain that's what she meant?"

Sally turned the page. "Last night was so romantic. We walked to the back of the garden and stood under the weeping willow, my favorite hiding spot. We kissed. He slowly undressed me. The night air was cold, but his skin was so warm."

"She never! That can't be our mom, can it?"

This type of delivery keeps the reader in real time and in the presence of characters they care about.

2. Short snippets of backstory can be revealed through inner dialogue and thoughts. What a character thinks reveals character. A conversation or situation can bring back pleasant or unhappy memories. Memories can differ. This is part of interiority. Dick can think:

Sally thinks she knows everything. Even when we were in kindergarten, she thought she knew everything. No one in this town ever changes.

This reveals that he has a history with the town, he has known Sally since kindergarten, and he isn't too pleased with her. In this example, he keeps the negative opinion to himself. The same information could be related as dialogue.

In the next example, Dick shares the same information and antagonizes Sally in the process.

"You thought you knew everything back in kindergarten, too. Nothing ever changes in this town."

3. Short summary can propel the story. Jane might drive past her old house, the one she shared with her ex-husband, and think:

I pulled up to the curb and left the engine idling. God, I missed the cottage. I loved the symmetry of it, the gables, and the white picket fence. I loved the rosebushes and the neighborhood cat that used to sun itself on the steps. I should have been sitting on the front porch swing, drinking tea, and reading a good book instead of driving past it like a lovesick teenager. It wasn't the affair or the divorce that gutted me. Dick wasn't worth a single tear. It was knowing that he had taken the cottage from me out of spite and moved in that lanky-skank ho. Killing him wouldn't make a difference. It would still belong to her. I'd have to figure out a way to drive them out.

This reveals that Jane used to live in the house, her aesthetic preferences, she likes tea and reading books, and she loved the house more than her ex. It gives us the story goal. You could have spent pages telling us about Jane's past and setting up her motivation. Instead, it was summarized in a few short, bittersweet sentences.

4. Backstory can be revealed though dialogue. Avoid horrible "As you know, Sally" information dumps. Make sure your characters would utter the words in a real conversation.

"As you know, Sally, our great-grandpa started this tea business in 1893 when he came over from old England. He built the place from the ground up."

 Of course Sally knows. It's her grandfather. Let's slip this in with a little character conflict.

Dick ran a hand over the smooth wooden chest, tracing the Sinclair name and the year 1793. "I wish grandpa Mac had lived to see this."

Sally didn't look up from her phone. "He'd be 200 years old."

"Not the point." Dick lifted the lid, inhaling the sweet smell of peppermint. "He left England with a small tin of tea and a dream and look at us: international distribution, thirty varieties, new hybrids."

"And disgruntled employees, greedy investors, irrational vendors."

"Forget it. Let me buy you out. You'll never love the place the way I do."

"I'll never love anything the way you do. You're obsessed. You should leave this cave occasionally. Go on date. Get laid."

"Get stuffed."

Sally slipped her phone into her pocket. "Every chance I get. I'm hungry. Let's do lunch before I pass out."

"I'm serious. I want to buy you out."

"I'll think about it on a full stomach."

A character's hot buttons, prejudices, and conceits can rear their ugly heads during heated conversations. Backstory is best revealed through a verbal sparring match, not a lazy trot down memory lane. You add conflict when the characters block what needs to be said, reveal painful secrets, point out a person's flaws, or expose old wounds along the way.

5. Differing memories can cause conflict. Memory is fallible. If you ask three children about their formative years, each has a different rendition based on how they perceived their experience. 

"You were always their favorite," Dick said.

Sally snorted. "Me? You were the golden boy, the heir. I was the spare and an afterthought."

"They let you get away with murder. I had to be perfect. I had all the pressure of their expectations. You were free to do whatever you wanted."

"You got all the attention. They didn't know I existed. I could have paraded around the mansion naked and they wouldn't have noticed."

"Oh, they noticed. They had massive arguments about you."

"On how to get rid of me."

Dick looked at the side by side caskets. "I guess it sucked for both of us."

"Now we can't even confront them over it." Sally walked away from the grave site.

Dick followed. "Don't be a stranger, okay?"

Sally opened her car door. "That's what we are, strangers. Maybe we should officially meet some day."

Masterful use of backstory elevates you from beginner to master craftsman.

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Backstory As Plot Devices

Last time, we discussed how to avoid backstory plot holes. This week, we offer ideas for using backstory as plot devices.

1. You can reveal your protagonist's critical flaw by explaining something that happened in the past. The critical flaw is revealed near the beginning to explain why Dick is drawn into the story problem and trips him up along the way. The flaw, his kryptonite, can stem from a traumatic episode from the past.

2. The secret weapon is revealed early on to explain why Dick, and only Dick, can solve the overall story problem. It can be a talent, strength of character, belief, or an actual object. You can show him using his secret weapon, or refusing to use it, in the past before he is called upon to use it in the present.

3. Whatever skills or failings Dick has, don't whip them out at the last minute by saying, "Oh, yeah, back in school I used to (fill in the blank)." That is backfilling and it is a no-no.

4. Backstory can raise questions rather than answer them. You can show Dick doing or saying something in the past, but not explain why until later. Mystery keeps the reader invested.

5. Backstory can be revealed in layers, like peeling an onion. Each reveal adds a slightly different twist to the reader's understanding of what happened. Write the backstory then select the bits you want to reveal and order them in the most effective sequence. Slip them in when needed.

6. If Dick did something in the past, he can repeat the action or find himself in the same dilemma in the present day, only there is an obstacle this time. His old method no longer works. He knows better now and this time it's uncomfortable. Perhaps he has the skills or experience to do things differently.

7. Backstory can create conflict for Dick by presenting him with difficult choices. In the past, the decision might have been easy. The current situation, or new knowledge, makes the same choice more difficult. Maybe he used to easily run toward danger, but he has new responsibilities and has to seriously consider the wisdom of his past actions.

8. Backstory can reveal change. If Dick is afraid of spiders because he was bitten by one as a child, he may have to take on the giant spiders that invaded Earth at the climax. If Dick was a coward in the past, he can be brave in the present. If Dick denied his feelings in the past, he can embrace them in the present.

Stay tuned for our wrap-up on how to use backstory effectively.

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Backstory Basics

Backstory, when used properly, enriches a plot. Used poorly, backstory creates a plot hole your reader is forced to skip over or sludge through. Most readers skip the boring bits.

The problem with backstory is often two-fold: too much too soon or way too much information at once.

Backstory can be related through dialogue, flashback, internal dialogue, thoughts, and narrative. Over the next few posts, we'll explore the finer points of using backstory with mastery.

1. Don't begin your novel with backstory. Invest your readers in the current situation before trying to explain the character's history. Otherwise, why should they care?

If the action has already passed, we know the characters lived to tell about it. It may have bearing on the plot, but the characters survived and have moved onto what is happening now. The reader may feel there is no need to read a long passage detailing what happened in the past if the characters are clearly functioning in the present.

2. Backstory is best presented in short bursts not long-winded information dumps. The delicate balancing act is giving the reader enough backstory to help explain the current situation, but not so much that she is derailed from the forward momentum of the story.

3. If you feel a section of backstory requires a full scene with its own beginning, middle, and end, it should contain tension and a scene goal. A chapter or two of backstory loses the reader. She pages forward until she gets to the part that matters. That is not the kind of page turning to aim for.

4. Bits of backstory can be related through narrative, but keep it short and simple. Transition in and out and don't offset it. A paragraph or two should suffice. Resist the urge to insert large sections of italicized words. You should be able to transition into and out of backstory without resorting to special fonts or italics.

5. Backstory is not the same as weaving separate story threads together. A subplot set in the past has its own story arc and every scene should contain conflict. You should order the past versus present scenes in a way that has the most impact. Badly braided scenes can ruin an otherwise riveting tale.

6. Backstory should not cram in the character's past all at once. People don't tell each other everything about themselves and their lives the first time they meet. If they do, their psychological boundaries are fuzzy. They make people nervous by offering too much information. You don't need to tell your readers everything up front either. If you do, your structure is fuzzy. Once the reader has formed a relationship with your character, their past has more resonance.

7. Backstory works well in internal conflict scenes when your protagonist struggles with his personal dilemma which can be rooted in his past. It could be the partner he didn't save, the girl he didn't get, or the friend he failed. The backstory makes the current situation more poignant and should be relevant to the overall story. Resist the urge for a long memory scene. It is more powerful if the character is remembering while doing something to progress the current plot.

8. Backstory must, above all, be relevant. Don't spend paragraphs telling us about Dick's botany hobby unless he uses botany to solve the overall story problem. It bores your readers. They don't need to know about every Civil War battle, every lover the protagonist ever had, or the life stories of everyone who sank with the Titanic. Backstory that has no relationship to the current story is irritating. Readers flip past it or skim read it. If it happens often enough, they put the book down and walk away.

Stay tuned for more discussion on how to layer backstory to create conflict.

As always if you find this information helpful, share it, like it. If you want more free information, sign up to follow the blog on blogger or the Story Building Blocks Facebook Page. Free tips and tools are also available on my site https://dianahurwitz.com/.