Apr 25 2009
How to use backstory effectively
It’s hard to handle backstory (what has happened in the past of the story). Most authors just use dull exposition. “Twelve years ago, John McGruesome was a mob hitman…” Here are a few common problems with backstory.
1. There’s less payoff now. You’re telling us about the hero twelve years ago to set us up for something interesting later, not because what happened twelve years ago is the most interesting part of this story. If it were the most interesting part of this story, why not just write that story instead? (Relatedly, if the backstory is more interesting than the present, you’re writing the wrong story).
2. Backstory–particularly a flashback– is generally much less urgent and more boring. When you use a flashback, we already know how the flashback ends: the character survives to become the person he is currently. When the reader already knows the ending, reading is much less enjoyable.
3. It’s generally harder to follow, particularly if the backstory is layered with events. (X happened 12 years ago, Y happened 7 years ago, then we learn that Z happened 10 years ago, etc.) For example, Heroes’ backstory is convoluted even before you factor in the time-travel.
Now I’d like to show an example of backstory that is very well-executed. This is how Silent Dragon #1 introduces us to Renjiro’s history. He is confronted by a ghost as he walks through a forest.
Here’s why I really like this.
1. It is focused on the present, not the past. We learn a lot of interesting details about Renjiro now. For example, he shows that he is competent and skeptical by trying to disprove that he’s actually seeing a ghost. He suggests that he isn’t comfortable about his work in the fourth panel. He minimizes his role but doesn’t claim that his work is honorable.
2. We aren’t bogged down in details. This is paced very quickly and it’s easy to follow.
3. It has conflict.
(A parting thought… I used a comic book example above, but these observations apply just as much to novels).
This is very solid article that sums up the ins and outs of handling backstory perfectly. Great advice and ideas that are all true. When backstory isn’t handled well it’s a major turnoff (as in “I thought you were a woman? What the hell is that between your legs?).
Very interesting that you use Silent Dragon as an example. I just read it and the script for issue #1 yesterday. If anyone is interested, the script for Silent Dragon – Issue #1 can be found on my blog.
I used Silent Dragon after I found it on your blog.
Hahaha, very nice. You used it well. I would love to see more on backstory and perhaps non linear storytelling.
I’ve always had an idea for handling essentially extraneous backstory, those moments in the lives of the characters that really defined them, but don’t have a place in the story, that I would like to hear some thoughts on.
My plan for my graphic novel has always been that it would consist essentially of between 6 and 12 issues, ranging between 23 and 36 pages long apiece, much like a standard comic book issue, and between each “issue” would be a few pages of bonus material, similar to the excerpts from the fictional books, and magazines in Watchmen, that helped fill out the universe, but harnessed in a more complete and hopefully less pretentious way.
The idea mentioned above would be essentially a series of long-form comic strips, that explored these incidences in the character’s histories, using out-of-continuity younger cartoon versions, similar in atmosphere and appearance to Baby Looney Tunes, Muppet Babies, or in comic books, Tiny Titans, and Franklin Richards, but the situations would actually be quite adult.
Think like a Superhero Squad Peter Parker getting molested by a local bike shop owner and then making a pun on “pederasty” as the strip ends. I think it would be quite subversive and if handled correctly, enhance the effectiveness of the situations without making the characters feel like Sues, or the book a public service announcement.
Please keep in mind, that is an extreme example, and I understand that touching on some situations would hurt my chances of getting published, but I’ve always been inspired to try to find ways to make every day tragedies hurt the reader more, and I think there is a lot of potential in this idea.
The concept sounds workable. I think Firebreather tried something similar–some issues ended with a few pages of the protagonist as a kid. It was probably useful to the author because the protagonist’s father gets killed early on but the father-son relationship is still very important. Also, the protagonist has a very unusual childhood (being half-human) and it’s harder for readers to fill in the unusual stuff on their own.
But your particular example strikes me as uncomfortably extreme. I think that making puns about child molestation could easily rub editors the wrong way. It could come off as a lot more creepy than funny.
“I’ve always been inspired to try to find ways to make every day tragedies hurt the reader more…” Child molestation strikes me as a bit more of an exotic tragedy than an everyday one. An everyday one would be like the parents angrily separating. Moreover, if the purpose is to make the reader feel hurt, why make a joke about it at the end? Let’s say you’ve achieved your goal and the readers are hurt as they approach that line. When they finally read it, what are some ways they might respond that would leave them excited to buy the next book? (This is an especially pressing concern because the line comes right at the end, right?)
Lightning Man:
I’d have to recommend A Series of Unfortunate Events for tragedy that could be dark comedy. For example, the baby sibling of the protagonist trio was forced by the main villains to set up a tent for them on a mountain’s mesa by herself, whilst the villains ate chips and watched her from the inside of a car. No one wanted to share a tent with her, so they made her sleep in an upside down casserole dish outside.
The premise is ludicrous enough that it may not occur in real life, but the blistering cold and general bossiness the baby had to face are relatable to the reader.
Those are all good points that you raised, and thanks to the both of you for the recommendations of looking at those series, I will. You’re right about the example I gave being extreme and actually a rather uncommon rare thing, I just wanted your complete opinion regarding the issue, so I wanted to use an example that went beyond a line I never intend to cross, to get a farther perspective on it then a tame example would. I don’t actually intend on ending with punchlines unless one is called for, but rather just a panel that centers on the dramatic irony of the situation.
Your example of a common tragedy is actually exactly what I have planned for one of the strips. It would focus on the lead female character, as a young girl dealing with the moving truck that has arrived at her family home in order to collect her mother’s belongings as the result of a divorce. She would be then take various eccentric steps of varying sophistication to stop the movers from succeeding, each presumably taking one or two panels to show, such as her exhaustively stacking furniture that she couldn’t possibly move by herself, in front of the kitchen door, only to realize that the kitchen has multiple entrances and she has, effectively helped them, and siphoning the gasoline from the truck using a garden hose.
The final three panels would presumably consist of her expressing relief and satisfaction as she watches the truck depart while she stands on the porch, perhaps a plastic bucket like a child would receive at Easter, with a floral pattern of some sort, hanging heavily with gasoline from her left hand. She would assume victory, only to enter her home and find the living room bare.
The fact that her father promised to give her mother, sole, uncontested custody of the daughter and the home in return for the furniture is established within the primary text, as is the fact that at that point, he had been spending most of his time in New York where he had an apartment for work purposes.
Of course, that’s just a rough summation of the idea, it is most likely going to be heavily refined before I ever even come close to writing it.
I’m not sure I would recommend Firebreather, actually. It was a trainwreck. Certainly a candidate for one of the worst-illustrated series I’ve ever seen.
I like the tragicomedy of the child trying to sabotage the moving operation but only helping them. Very smooth and believable. Also, if half of all US marriages end in divorce, I imagine this is an experience that a lot of people can relate to.