z

Young Writers Society


A Lengthy Backstory



User avatar
88 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 2954
Reviews: 88
Mon Jul 13, 2015 10:47 pm
EnderFlash says...



So I'm writing my first chapter for LMS II, and I plan to have my main character enter a death game for his daughter/sister... Oh boy, I just realized how much that sounds like the Hunger Games >_>

My friend told me to establish a better connection between the main character and his sister/daughter, AKA write the backstory for them. I have a good one written out, but it's a little long, and I don't know how necessary it is, considering that the sister/daughter won't be appearing throughout the story. I'm afraid of not including it, since then readers can't really understand the MC's motivation, but it's a lot of exposition for a girl who's technically a minor character.

I don't want to change their backstory, either, so it's stuck at that length. Should I just give them a small, playful scene of sorts so that readers can still see their connection? Or do I just introduce their relationship and plop the MC in the main setting (the arena-thingie).
  





User avatar
933 Reviews

Supporter


Gender: Female
Points: 4261
Reviews: 933
Mon Jul 13, 2015 11:34 pm
View Likes
Iggy says...



Don't feel like you need to give it all away right from the beginning. No one ever likes an info dump, so if you just pace yourself, you should be good. Considering how this person is willing to die to save their sister, the relationship is very important, so it does need to be included, just so the reader has a general grasp on why they're in the death game.

I would just introduce the relationship at first, then include more and more about it as time goes on. Somewhere in the beginning, just say "so and so is here because they wanted to save their sister" (in prettier words), then as the story goes on, you can do flashbacks and reminiscence of how close the MC and their sister are, etc.

In my opinion, you don't really need to explain their reasoning too much, because, well... anyone who was a loved one understands exactly why they did what they did. Just touching a bit more on the relationship is nice, since we always like to know why. And if you have a good reason for including all the background, even better! Just pace yourself. :)
“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
- Lewis Carroll
  





User avatar
39 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 4842
Reviews: 39
Fri Jul 17, 2015 6:31 pm
ClackFlip says...



Hm, well, I think that a playful scene should suffice. Backstories for siblings, for me at least, aren't very necessary. If I feel strongly for your main character, I should vicariously be able to relate to wanting to protect family, that's basic instinct. Do you catch my drift?
If it's a really good backstory however I would say pace it out, like what happens in the Stormlight Archive, with different chapters being flashbacks and all. Make sense? I hope so.
There's my two cents, don't spend them on drugs.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world he didn't exist.
And like ash in the wind, he was gone.
The man who lived.
The myth long forgotten.
The legend that lives on.
*poof*
  





User avatar
1272 Reviews



Gender: Other
Points: 89625
Reviews: 1272
Sat Jul 18, 2015 3:22 am
View Likes
Rosendorn says...



Here's a secret to writing: you should know more about the characters than you reveal to the audience.

The vast majority of the stuff you know about the world isn't going to show up in the story. In fact, it should not show up in the story, because it's not relevant.

But you need to know it to properly figure out the story, so you need to write it out and know this stuff.

Writing fiction is about convincing others the relationship between characters is real. You're not going to find out that the vast majority of events that happened between the main character of my own novel and her sister because it's a backstory aside, but the relationship drives the plot forward. However, if I didn't know that she basically acted as my MC's mother figure, learned not to be a spoiled brat because she saw what the MC went through vs what she went through, and used her favoured position to make life easier on the MC, then the relationship wouldn't feel strong enough to drive the plot forward. She never shows up in story, but if I don't know what makes them so close, then I can't write about it properly.

Now, as a writer, this might be painful to hear. You don't want to put in a bunch of work into stuff that will, legitimately, never be shown to the audience. However, this is exactly what you need to do as a writer. If you put every single thing that you plan out into the story, you are not writing a story; you are writing a textbook.

The way you create richness is to write about things people don't know, then keep it people don't know them. In real life, you probably have 0 people who know everything about you, and no matter how close you are to your best friend(s), they don't know everything about you. When absolutely everything about a character is laid out on the page, the character ends up flat and boring. There's no sense of depth. There's no sense that this person has had a life that has impacted them in a meaningful way.

Also, laying everything out about the character often detracts from the story. Unless you're writing specifically about discovering who you are again or discovering why you are the way that you are, there's a good chance your plot isn't about that sort of information directly.

You don't have to include all this backstory information in order for people to understand the character's drive. So long as you build a strong enough character that readers believe that they would behave this way, then you don't need to include why they exist like that. For example, the aforementioned character who is motivated to protect their sister doesn't really mention that this is her motive, but every single scene she's been in so far shows she is very loyal and very protective. She's loyal and protective because she wants to protect her sister— but readers don't need to know that, at least not yet. It's good enough that she's loyal and protective and shown to be that way.

The thing about using backstory to establish character is: you end up telling backstory instead of showing it. If you tell us "she loves her sister and wants to save the world for her", that's weak and doesn't establish a connection. If you spend scene after scene where the character is saving the world for a selfless reason, keeps fighting because she wants things to be better for important people, then that's showing us. That's establishing her character.

When it comes to character traits, showing is often better than telling. So make scenes out of stuff. Don't rely on dialogue to tell us how a character is. Make us believe they're like that because of their behaviour.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  








In the past I would definitely say who you would find inside. Not so much today. Place is bonkers …. As is everywhere
— Greg Specter