Young Writers Society

Hi!
So, my friend had me review her work (she isn't part of YWS) and she wants to know how to add more thought and detail about her characters and their lives and past lives. I honestly am still working on that topic myself so I wasn't the best help for her but we would both really appreciate a few replies to this post
-Gymnast2801 and my friend

Is her work in first or third person? It would be helpful to know because in first person the MC can just narrate what they're thinking and let you know little things like what the smell of spruce reminds them of or something.

Honestly though, that's all you really can do, that I'm aware of. You just let things about a character's life/past/personality seep into it naturally because if you try to force it in it, well, tends to feel forced. You'll know when something needs to be put it, if it's vital for the audience to know what's happening, etc.

Could be more specific perhaps?

Advice that spans multiple styles, points of view, genres, what have you:

Step 1: make it readers are posing questions about those details.

It can be a simple "Why are they acting like that?" It can be a "How do they know that?" It can be any question you can imagine, but those details are best given when readers are wondering something about the character that makes it they practically demand to know.

Sometimes, this requires setting up actual scenes where their sole purpose is to make readers ask these questions. But planning what backstory to reveal is a part of writing, so you need to do a certain amount of building around the backstory. If it's not plot relevant, why are you including it?

Step 2: delay answering it for traumatic things and secrets.

See, these questions of why things are happening, how they're happening, who's involved— those are the questions that keep readers interested. If you give us the answers automatically, without making us work for them, then readers don't have a reason to keep reading.

Of course, there are limits to this and you can't leave readers waiting forever, but I've found over two drafts that are polar opposites (everything given easily in the first one, everything withheld till readers get annoyed), making people wait too long is often a stronger technique so long as you have other things going on in the present that makes it those details aren't mandatory to get.

Step 3: Listen to your beta readers

If your readers aren't asking for something? Don't give it to them. As much as you could want to show off what you're doing, it's not worth it if readers don't want it. Try to get a beta reader who tells you what feels wrong to them instead of saying exactly what's wrong— as Neil Gaiman has said, whenever people say what feels wrong or doesn't work for them, they're almost always right; when they tell you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they're almost always wrong.

In the end, giving backstory details is for readers. It's not for the writer to show off, or for the editor, or for anyone else. They're for readers to understand the story better.

Hope this helps!