October 28, 2020
How much backstory does a reader need in order to understand a character, and how soon does the writer need to include that information? The answer to the first part of that question is the usual—it depends. When to include the information is a little easier to pinpoint, but not always. Okay, you’re probably thinking, […]
January 17, 2018
I just spent an hour writing one paragraph, and I might end up deleting all of that. Why? Because I’m writing it from the point of view of a character I don’t really know. He’s in a bar—not an elegant one, but a hole-in-the-wall type—drinking to forget something. What? What is he trying to forget? […]
July 31, 2013
We often hear that it’s bad to use backstory. It doesn’t hook the reader. Stops the forward movement of the story. Readers skip it; editors reject it. But wait! Don’t you want to let the reader know what happened in your character’s past that’s causing him/her to act this way? Yes…no…maybe. The problem is backstory […]