Let me tell you two little story beginnings:
A fifteen-year-old street thief runs away from his gang
leader and boards a ship setting sail for an island far, far away. He’s running
because his gang leader wanted him to kill. Again.
So the boy runs. He runs and runs and finds himself running
to things far worse than what he’d fled from.
A twenty-nine-year-old noblewoman schemes just as much as
the rest, but deep down she hates her position, a position her dead mother put
her in. Then, when she’s kidnapped and held for ransom, she realizes how much
that scheming had defined her. Perhaps the secrets she holds about her mother
shaped her more than she thought.
Characters.
Aren’t they wonderful little creatures?
They step into a story you’ve so carefully prepared for them
and they- well, they tend to mess everything up and create disaster wherever
they go, but in theory they’re supposed to create a lasting impression and
emotionally-packed story.
But… what happens before the story? What do your characters
do and think and act like? Where did their gain their skills, their fears,
their dreams?
It’s an important aspect of storytelling; good stories don’t
start at the beginning, but a beginning. They start up at a logical
point and continue on. Good stories create a sense of continuity with the past.
They pick up characters where they’re at and sweep them off on an adventure.
Because of the import of a character’s past (also known as
backstory), I’ve concocted a four-part series on Backstory, in which I shall do a great deal of talking, in the
hopes that you’ll learn something, I’ll learn something, and we can have at
least a bit of discussion. We’ll see.
Because concise is not
always specific, let me be specific: backstory is the life your character lived
before the “real” story begins. This can include where they were born, where
they grew up, what their parents did for a living, your characters dreams and
hopes and fears and failures and achievements. Backstory can be complex and
lengthy, or it can be simple and short.
The big question I hope to answer today is thus: “Why do we
need Backstory?”
A Proposition
The idea of backstory is not so “controversial” (I use this
term loosely and void of real conflict) as the idea that worldbuilding is not
only important but vital to your
story. There are very, very few writers who would claim that backstory is
unnecessary.
For those few of you who might be wondering why it is
important, this post is for you. I am suggesting what many people already
believe, plus a tad more (because if you’re going to argue in favor of one side
of an argument, you may as well take a strong stance).
My proposition is thus: all strong characters have a strong
backstory. In addition, a story where there is no backstory is a weak story.
And there it is. Simple enough, yes?
Let me divulge a bit more to clarify (again, conciseness is
not always specific).
“Strong Backstory” makes “Strong Characters”
A strong backstory is not a detailed one, necessarily. Your
character’s backstory can be very simple and summed up in no more than a
paragraph or two, yet still be strong. In reverse, you can write a whole novel about a character’s backstory
despite its obvious weaknesses and holes.
Strength does not come from length or in number (this is not
military strategy). Strength is created by a few simple ideas:
-Uniqueness
-Conflict
-Reality
Each backstory in your novel needs to be unique. Unless you
story is about a bunch of clones and/or time-traveling doppelgängers, there is
no such thing as two people living the exact same life. If all your characters
have the same fear, the same social status, and the same childhood, the
backstory is weak. In addition, backstory should be unique from those outside
your novel.
If a cliché slips into the backstory, it’s not the end of
the world. Clichés are cliché because they started out as a powerful
storytelling device that became overused. So if your character is an orphan
because the villain killed her parents, don’t sweat too much. Yes, it’s
horribly clichéd and it immediately makes me think of half-a-dozen other
stories. But that does not make the backstory weak. It simply makes it cliché.
What you do with the cliché is what makes it weak or strong.
If you use the cliché to make your story powerful, then it’s
not weak.
Nothing worthwhile happens in a tale without conflict. It’s
not worth reading about if there is no conflict. It becomes like a textbook on
herbs and the drying thereof. Not only will it smell like herbs, but it will be just as dry as said herbs.
Conflict takes all shapes and forms (not just violence,
thank you) and is a key component in every story. It extends into the future
(what sort of conflict is there after
the story) and into the past (what sort of conflict is there before the story).
If nothing bad ever happens in the backstory, it’s a boring
backstory. This is not to say you must have violence and vileness and darkness
dripping through the backstory (that is often a sign of a weak backstory; a topic for another day), but
it is to say that your character
cannot lead a perfect life before their story begins.
Finally, reality plays an important role in the creation of
a backstory. If the backstory is unrealistic, it’s hard to believe. If your
character starts out as a poor beggar, yet has a college-level education, things get a bit suspicious. Unless you provide a reason for that
education and the level of poverty your character experiences (think Crime and Punishment), the backstory
will be weak, because it is unrealistic.
There is no “Story” without “Backstory”
This is the part of this post which may be considered the
least “settling”. Few people will dispute the idea that backstory is important.
They might, however, protest the vitality I suggest.
If there is no backstory, there is no story.
Sure, you have it all plotted out, and all written down, and
all the characters take part, but you’re missing a key component if there is no
backstory. A key component summed up in a simple question.
Why?
Why does your story
happen?
Your wanting it to happen does not suffice in any version of
this universe.
A story needs to be a
consequence. It must stem from conflicts and emotions embedded deep in the
past.
If there is no backstory, there can be no reason for the
conflict that drives your story. That is the simplest way to put it. Backstory
fuels the conflict, which fuels the story, which fuels emotion, which makes
your novel good.
The Diversity of Backstory
I guess I just like that word, don’t I?
It’s a nice word, when used correctly.
Ahem.
Backstory has this tendency to hang out around characters
and anywhere else it associates is often ignored. It is not, however, stuck in
a tiny little clique I call the “Character Clique”. Backstory is a Roving
Robert, so to speak. It skips around from clique to clique without caring much
for social stigma.
It extends to all areas of story: character, plot (the
conflict clique), and setting (the capstone clique). Everything in your story
has to have a backstory.
The magical stones in your fantasy, the scientific evolution
in your sci-fi, the relationships in your romance, the angst in your YA
coming-of-age story (which I must inform you I do not condone as a genre in
general), and the strange happenings of your contemporary psychological horror
all require backstory.
As I’ve said, backstory is what happens before the novel
begins. We often think of this exclusively as a character trait people have.
But your plot has a backstory. The events in your novel are
the culmination (or should be) of months or years or decades of preceding
conflict. Plots don’t pop into existence from nothing, much a good meal doesn’t
pop into existence from nowhere.
Plots (and good meals) are woven into a masterpiece that has a beginning far
before the story begins and an ending that might not even be reached fully by
the end of the book (which is a topic for another time).
And setting. Setting is often the backstory of other things.
It creates a backdrop from which the plot’s backstory emerges. It provides
scenery for your characters as they grow into the people your reader first meet
them as. But it needs a backstory, too. Your sci-fi world needs to come from
somewhere. Your haunted house in your horror novel needs to come from
somewhere.
All good stories have backstory.
But backstory isn’t just a stagnant and static creature
hulking the background. It’s active and vibrant. It makes us wonder what around
the corner, what our beloved characters are hiding.
Backstory provides a reason for that boy I mentioned earlier
to run. It provides a reason for that woman to wish she’d never been put in the
position to scheme, yet depend so much on that scheming.
It provides a foundation to build on.
Story needs a foundation.
Shall we explore that foundation further?
What do you think? How
important is backstory to YOUR novel? Leave a comment and share!
Related posts:
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Featured Post:
Heroic Introductions, Part 1 - Externals (Brandon)
*waits semi-patiently for next post*
ReplyDeleteIt will come. *nodnod*
DeleteThe Backstory of my short story (I wouldn't consider it a novel) is indeed extremely important. I could write a whole other story on it, I suppose (perhaps I will, some day). Indeed, it could be said the the story I am writing (though most of it is still in my brain to date) is really the solution to the conflict of the backstory. Hopefully the story will continue to evolve for the better as I think it through and write it down.
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly! Backstory is a story unto itself (hence the inclusion of "story" in the word, I think). If there's no story before, why should there be a story now?
DeleteGood luck with your short story!