Once Upon A Time...

...there was a hero and heroine who had a life before their story started. They were born, had parents, siblings, went to school, got jobs, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Backstory. A necessary evil. As authors, we need backstory on our characters for us to understand what makes them tick, what motivates them. Our book needs these characters' backstories to provide them with motivation to behave as they do. But how much should an author use? When? Where? And how much is too much? Or not enough?

Boy, for me this is the most challenging part of starting a new story. It's a balancing act of getting just the right amount of backstory in the beginning to shed some light on who the characters are, what they want, and connect them to the obstacles that stand in their way. It's so very, very important, yet you have to measure it out in bite-size portions that fit the scene and situation. If you dump it in all at once, you get: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The last thing you want is to put your readers to sleep.

So what's a writer to do?

Dialogue can be a great way to disclose backstory without stopping the story completely. As long as you don't fall into the trap of "As you know, Bob..." That's the kiss of death. Never have characters talk to each other about stuff they already know. "As you know, Bob, we both dated Kathy last year and she picked me, so you're a loser." Duh.

But dialogue can reveal relevent backstory significant to the plot. I contemplated this in a story I'm just starting. As an example, here is how I reveal significant backstory that I hope doesn't slow down the story too much.

Staring at his untied shoe, she said, “The money should have gone to my mother.”

Henry slipped a pen from his breast pocket. “Your father knew you’d take care of her and your sister.”

Claire tightened her grip on the letter in her lap and felt the paper tear. “Kind of late for that.”

“Neither of us knew about the accident.”

She shrugged. “Nothing can be done for Celleste, but my mom’s still breathing.” Not that breathing always meant living, at least in her mother’s case. After the car hit the median and rolled, her mother’s injuries left her in a coma and left her sister, Celleste, without a pulse. The pickled state of Mom’s inebriated brain might have been responsible. Or the leaky breaklines. Whichever, the result was the same.


This is only an example of how backstory is "weaved" into the present narrative and dialogue. But it also serves to create tension. Backstory sets the stage for more to come, thereby raising questions, which also heightens tension. Backstory can be used to hint at secrets with the promise of revelations to come.

So how do you balance your backstory with your story's narrative? Do you have any tricks to share on how to use backstory to help readers care about your characters from the get-go? It's easy to torture a character from page one, maybe even kill off him or her, but how do you make a reader care before they even know who that character is? Do you have a method for creating sympathetic characters on the first page? Please share!

Karen