Sleight of Hand Or Twist of Fate - the Deft Handling of Backstory
By K. Allen McNamara
As novelists, we strive to convince our readers that the fictional realms we create are real. In order to be considered real, the elements of our novels must be beyond real or be hyper-real.
Hyperrealism in art tricks the eye into believing that the drawing or the painting being viewed is actually the object itself. While an artist of hyperrealism employs the right paper stock, pencils, paint colors and brushes to persuade the beholder of the rendered object that it is real, a writer uses Backstory to convince the reader that the novel’s domain is believable.
As Mark Crilley, an artist of Hyperrealism states: “Painters have long understood that the key to making something appear three-dimensional is to capture the effect of light falling upon the object depicted. The wise artist devotes just as much time and attention to rendering the shadows as to drawing the object itself.”(Crilley) The same could be said about Backstory.
Backstory is what has occurred before the current state of your novel. The trials and triumphs your character has experienced before this present character arc. Being able to discern what Backstory to keep in your novel and how to add it seamlessly requires a skillset worthy of a hyperrealism artist. As the author you must sift through the detritus of your character's Backstory and decide what to keep. What you choose and where you place it will make your character and the overall novel more complete.
“But as authors, we need to be careful: Backstory by definition takes the story backward. Whether we employ flashbacks, character musings and recollections, or passages of exposition to reveal what came before, every instance of backstory stops our novel’s forward momentum, and risks leaving our stories—well, dead in the water.” - writes guest columnist Karen Dionne for Writers Digest.
Dionne is correct. Backstory is very much like a road closure sign with a detour that will take your reader so far off track that they may forget where they are going. However, Backstory can be used to advance the plot and at the same time express the main character’s yearn.
Questions to ask of your Backstory:
Does this tidbit - this memory, musing, passage - advance the story?
Will your story exist without it? (if yes, then cut this darling)
Does this piece of Backstory increase the suspense? Or make your character’s situation (with regard to her yearn) more dire?
Does it illuminate the character? And his goal?
If your Backstory piece advances the plot, connects us to the character’s goal, gives us information, and ups the ante then it’s doing its job and is worthy of being in your novel.
Controlling Backstory
Backstory needs to be managed. A sentiment also explored by Dionne and her conversation with Garth Stein:
“Rushing the backstory is a terrible waste,” says Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain. “Many writers try to get too much out too soon. If the earthquake is going to happen today, don’t start your story two days ago, even though something important happened to your protagonist two days ago. Start it with the earthquake. Then, the previous two days become the backstory that will inform our hero’s actions in the ‘now’—the fight he had with his wife, the fact that he has no gas in his car (or cash), or that his kids are stuck at summer camp and he has to get to them. Tension between what the reader knows and what the reader doesn’t know will then serve to propel your reader through your story.” (Dionne)
Assimilating Backstory into your novel - as seamlessly as possible
One author who is a master of such Backstory additions is Jessamyn Hope. In her novel Safekeeping , Hope weaves Backstory within the tapestry of five main characters, whose lives are affected by the history and the existence of a jeweled brooch crafted the Middle Ages. Each time Hope delves into the backstory of a character she does so with great finesse. Consider this:
“but the sound of the Russians bantering around the picnic table was homey. Adam had been lullabied to sleep on many a summer night by people chitchatting in a foreign tongue, ever since that first sweltering July night he moved in with his grandfather, almost twenty years ago. Several old people, seeking relief from their lonely, muggy apartments, had dragged kitchen chairs onto the sidewalk, and for hours they sat beneath his second-floor window, kibitzing in German and Yiddish. He lay listening to them for a long time after Zayde explained what had happened to his mom.”
Hope, Jessamyn (2015-06-09). Safekeeping: A Novel (p. 25). Fig Tree Books. Kindle Edition.
In order to understand what Hope has accomplished we need to recognize what parts Backstory is composed of:
a trigger, which is what sets off the Backstory.
a shift, in time and place
then we are oriented,
there is a scene,
a change in the character
and then a return to the present.
In this passage, Hope’s character Adam is trying to relax and stem his nausea (he is an addict trying to get sober). The sound of the Russians on the kibbutz comfort him because they remind Adam of his prior home (Manhattan) and his old neighborhood.
The trigger is the foreign chatter.
The shift in perspective (we are no longer on the kibbutz we are in “that first sweltering July night he moved in with his grandfather” and we are oriented in time “almost twenty years ago” so we understand Adam is a child.
Then we have a scene: child Adam is left at daycare, his mother doesn’t come but is grandfather does and he goes home with his grandfather without question. They take a cab and Adam sees the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time from a car, they eat pizza and get ready for bed. And then Adam learns of his mother’s death.
“Other grandfathers might have lied, made up a more comforting story, planning to tell the truth some day, but Zayde simply told him his mom had fallen on the subway tracks and the train just couldn’t stop in time. “It didn’t hurt her. It happened so fast, Adam, your mom couldn’t have felt any pain.
Fallen? The wondering would come years later. Drunkenly? Jumped? Sober?
The Russians around the table burst into laughter. Adam opened his eyes.”
Hope, Jessamyn (2015-06-09). Safekeeping: A Novel (p. 26). Fig Tree Books. Kindle Edition.
The change in Adam: when he realizes another’s grandfather would have done it differently and then the realization that years later he wondered about the story and about the actual truth behind his mother’s death.
The return to the present is triggered by the Russians laughing. Adam opens his eyes, we are in the present, and the Backstory is complete.
The present “[ ]is the “now” of the story, as Stein puts it. “Think of your story as having two elements,” he says. “There’s the ‘now,’ which is the immediacy of the drama that’s being played out before us, and there’s the ‘then,’ which is the ‘how we got here’ of the story—or the backstory, if you prefer.” (Dionne)
In this example of Backstory Hope satisfies the questions required of Backstory:
It advances the plot: We need this Backstory to understand Adam’s debt to his grandfather.
Would the novel exist without it? No, the case of why Adam feels this debt to his grandfather needs to be built. This Backstory illustrates the bond between them and how this bond came to be.
Does it increase the suspense of Adam’s goal? Yes, it increases the urgency of Adam achieving his goal by again showing the reader why Adam owes his grandfather this atonement. It underscores Adam’s want and his need to pay this debt.
It illuminates Adam for us. We gain insight into Adam and his substance abuse as a trait he most likely inherited from his mother. Additionally, we understand more fully why he needs to atone for his transgression.
The key to utilizing Backstory to its fullest potential requires your character to have experienced a change in the Backstory and this change is recognized in the present. Adam’s change in the Backstory is his realization of how his grandfather could have approached his mother’s death and the recognition of the path his grandfather chose instead. This truth (whether it was real or imagined) was the truth they chose to believe together and it bonded them to each other. This bond and Adam’s acknowledgement of where and when this bond was formed is what we see in the present. It is what we feel in his urgency. This instance of Backstory works well and it does so in a very small space, roughly one printed page.
Throughout her novel, Safekeeping, Hope deftly employs the use of Backstory and consistently advances the plot and illuminates her characters with these instances. Backstory done well makes the characters and the circumstances more real and Hope does this each time.
In hyperrealism art,“the sharp juxtaposition of darks and lights dazzles the human eye, and the person viewing your illustration becomes a willing accomplice to the trick.” (Crilley) In your novel, Backstory can give the reader the necessary darks to render the character more completely.
Backstory needs to adhere to the principles of moving your story forward, provide information, and illuminate your character. As the writer, you need to be judicious in your selection of what Backstory to include and to be able to blend it deftly into your novel’s structure. Remember if you see the person behind the curtain, the magic will be lost.
* how to draw hyperrealistic pomegranate youtube video
**the author gratefully acknowledges that her formula for backstory has been culled from her many exposures to backstory through teachings at GrubStreet, Providence College and deCordova and her bedside reading table.
