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backstory and minor characters
If this term is unfamiliar to you, it just means the sum total of the character's experience prior to the time to story begins. A thirty three year old woman with a degree in biology, a failed marriage, a dying mother and a winning lottery ticket has a tremendous amount of complicated backstory that makes up her personality, her point of view, and the way she will react to the situations you put her in. You created her, so you have to know all about her; you know far more about her than you will ever share with your readers. That's the key: you know, but you don't tell unless it's crucial to moving this particular story along.
For example, maybe this character of yours with the winning lottery ticket (let's call her Naomi) is going to have a rough go of it because she has always been someone who likes routine and order and dislikes surprises. You could just tell your readers that, but you're writing a story and not a case history. You could let your readers see that Naomi always eats the same thing for breakfast: cornflakes, two percent milk, a teaspoon of sugar, a cup of mint tea, a banana. Every day. Day in, day out. You could show them how she organizes her books and cds by title, author, genre, color, size. You could have her interacting with a very troubled, very crazy extended family.
All these things could work, and you might use them. It's easier to pick and chose with a main character, because everything is potentially important.
But what about Naomi's massage therapist? She goes to see this guy once a week every week, same time. It's her one luxury. She talks to him the way some people talk to a therapist, and he provides feedback. His name is Jorge, he's very good at his job, he's a nice guy, he's funny. How much of his backstory do we need? Do we need to know he had a twin sister who died young, and who he misses a great deal? How about his home life, his relationship with his landlord, his politics? If you're writing this story you need to know these things, but you have to be selective about which details you supply for your reader.
Part of the issue is that in reading a story, the reader takes an active part in making it come alive. You may describe your main characters, but the picture you've got in your head of Naomi is going to be very different from the one your readers put together. This is why people are usually disappointed when films are made into movies, because it's impossible to meet the expectations of all the readers.
This is a big topic and not one to be dissected quickly, but if it's of interest to those of you who write, I'll pick at it a little more.
July 21, 2004 02:25 PM
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Comments
Hi Sara,
Actually, this topic is very much of interest. As someone who has decided to finally sit down and try my hand at writing, I would love to hear more of your thoughts on the matter. However, I would like to state that you seem to have the knack for this. In your 2nd and 3rd books, your backstory was never out of place and never interrupted the flow of the story, which I actually noticed while I was reading them. This is one of the things that always bugs me about series, which I love to read more than anything else, but yes, there is usually too much there for people who have read the previous books and it almost always interrupts the pace of the story for me. For the series I love the most, you and Laurell Hamilton do this better than anyone else, in my humble opinion.
Tracey
Posted by: Tracey at July 21, 2004 01:45 PM
Tracey, that is a lovely compliment. Many thanks.
Posted by: sara at July 21, 2004 03:57 PM
The zen side of me is often competing with my life�s �need for speed�, yet I know that a detailed or well thought out book doesn�t necessarily pace slowly. As your comment today shows, it�s really how well the detail is shown (or not). If the author has thought a lot about Jorge and if conversations between Naomi and Jorge �happen� in the story, then the more thought put behind the secondary character, the more real the conversation will seem.
Of course, I�m the goose who likes/wants to read the backstory when I am done with a book, but only if the characters are rich and intriguing. If I finish a book and want to know �more� and not just �what happens next�, then I know the author has truly engaged me in the world he/she created. Pacing and the amount of detail can correlate, but one doesn�t necessarily have slow the other down, if done correctly. I think that is sort of what you were driving at yesterday and what makes you such a wonderful writer (you think about these things and it shows!).
Posted by: Catherine at July 22, 2004 07:35 AM
Hi Sarah
I'm just reading Joseph Conrad's "Victory", and it seems here Conrad has made discovering the backstory the principal narrative of the book. You only learn it second or third hand, by vignettes told by people who are mainly minor characters themselves. You never meet the principal characters directly.
So rather than a plot given context and causes by a backstory, you get a series of puzzle pieces that lets you know about the main characters indirectly, as their backstory is assembled for you. Which seems a very clever reversal of the usual narrative dynamic of a novel, and probably why Eng.Lit. types go all knock-kneed over Conrad.
Robert
Posted by: Robert at July 28, 2004 05:31 AM
Robert -- that does sound interesting. I'll have to stop by the library today. Did you actually like the story?
Posted by: sara at July 28, 2004 07:10 AM