Writers Who Kill

 

Old Habits are Hard to Break: Avoiding Too Much Backstory

By Heather Weidner

I started my professional career as a technical writer for software and processes and moved on to software testing. Everything I did had to be explained in precise step-by-step detail so that it could be replicated like a recipe. That was a habit I had to break when I started writing fiction. My early drafts had too much description, especially about mundane or routine things.

Readers need to know about your characters, but they do not have to experience every moment or hear about decades of history.

Here’s what I’ve learned about backstory through the years.

• Sprinkle it in your story. Reveal bits about your characters through dialog and what your protagonist experiences instead of from giant, expository paragraphs that interrupt the story’s flow.

• Avoid sounding like a travel brochure or a marketing campaign when you’re describing something, especially a setting. You can describe something unique to the scenery or important to the story, but make sure it fits with the flow of paragraph.

• When you’re talking about characters or setting, don’t stop the action or the momentum of the story to provide details or background. Just about everyone has flown on a plane or gone to the airport. Start the action where the story is and skip the parts that are routine.

• Avoid describing something in minute detail unless it’s important to the story later.

• I do a lot of research ahead of my writing, and I have to fight the urge to add every little fun fact. Research is important, and you learn so many neat things. Don’t waste what you found. Figure out a way to use it in a newsletter article or a blog post. Readers like to know about behind the scenes things or how you research your work. Just don’t bog your story down with stuff that doesn’t really matter.

• I have to know my main characters before I write. I always create a “biography” for them. I keep it in my character list, so I can refer to it later when I need it. It has things like eye/hair color, birthdate, graduation year, friends, pets, and favorites. There is way more information in there than ever makes it to the book. This helps if you write a series that has recurring characters. It also helps me get the ages right, especially if it is a series that spans many years. (My first novel took me five years to write and another two to get published. When I wrote it, the private eye was a Gen Xer who was in her early thirties. Time passed, and I had her a bit younger than she actually would have been when the book finally came out.)

• One quick test for too much detail or history is to look for sections in your book where you would skim or skip over. If you’re bored, chances are your reader will be too.

What other ideas would you add to my list?

Through the years, Heather Weidner has been a cop’s kid, technical writer, editor, college professor, software tester, and IT manager. She writes the Pearly Girls Mysteries, the Delanie Fitzgerald Mysteries, The Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries, and The Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries. She blogs regularly with the Writers Who Kill.

Originally from Virginia Beach, Heather has been a mystery fan since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. She lives in Central Virginia with her husband and two crazy dogs.