Origin Stories and Big Reveals: Do We Really Need Them?
By Barbara Linn Probst | May 24, 2023 |
No matter how many times I’ve tackled it, written about it, and even given workshops on it, backstory always trips me up.
Unless we begin a story from the protagonist’s birth, backstory seems inevitable (although Ann Napolitano did, in fact, write Hello Beautiful from William’s birth, but that’s rare in a contemporary novel). And that means we face the question of how much backstory to offer, and when.
Most of us tend to err on the side of too much, too soon. Surely, we think, the reader needs to know all about the character’s past—especially those Important Wounds, and quickly—in order understand motive, conflict, and goal!
Maybe.
First, let’s map the terrain a little.
Backstory as context
One kind of backstory is the straightforward relating of an “event-in-the-past”— how a couple met, for example—that gives us a context for the primary (front) story. The protagonist is well-aware of how she met her husband, so this is for the reader.
What sort of content belongs in these backstories?
Often, backstory scenes have to do with a character’s childhood—to show how a trait, need, desire, or fear became established. Trauma tales. Origin stories.
That day when George was bullied in third grade? Showing it in a scene will bring it to life, right? And then the reader will bond and care and understand why George is afraid to speak his mind, as an adult. And if we really want to show how important that pattern is to George’s actions and choices, we might want to include two or three escalating incidents.
Um. Another maybe.
To use myself as a bad example: In my WIP, I had the idea that my protagonist (let’s call her Lisa) had a really terrible mother whose behavior left Lisa feeling deeply split about what it means to be a woman. I wrote several scenes, intended for the opening chapters, to show the pattern developing in Lisa’s childhood. I thought it was great (insert mortified blush)—until I realized that it wasn’t. As a case history, it may have been accurate. But novels are not case histories.
All I really needed was a single fragment of memory: Twelve-year-old Lisa walking through the house as she left for school, a glimpse of her mother sitting on the rumpled bed, wrapped in a sheet, and a strange man urinating without bothering to close the bathroom door.
You get it, right? Readers are smart.
How to bring that backstory onto the page, into the front story?
One way is to have the protagonist tell someone else about it—for a plot-related reason, of course. For example: a friend who’s pondering marriage and wonders if “how we met” matters, or a grandchild who’s struggling to understand why her own parents are divorcing—a reason, in the present-day story, for this incident from the past to be relevant.
Another way is to have the protagonist recall the memory when she finds an external prompt, like an old necklace or photo album, that serves as a trigger.
A third technique is through interiority (thinking, remembering). That needs to be used in moderation, however. Otherwise, we get long passages of a character talking to herself about stuff she (presumably) already knows. We don’t do that in our real lives.
When to shift to the past, and how much to include?
In general, for backstory information that fleshes out a character’s past, it’s better to wait and be a little stingy.
Waiting creates anticipation and uncertainty, which are good for a story. And if we wait until the appearance of the memory right then is essential for the forward-moving story, it has a chance to do double-duty: thickening the reader’s understanding of the character, while also moving the plot forward.
Less keeps us rooted in the primary, forward-moving story. Lingering too long in the past pulls the reader out of the story and creates the extra problem of how to get in and out of the flashback in a seamless, believable way. We need to account for the passage of time while the character was busy a-remembering or, with longer flashbacks, resort to scene breaks and time-stamps that tend to chop up a narrative.
Backstory as a Big Reveal
Another kind of backstory is the Big OMG Revelation when the character suddenly remembers, learns, understands, or confesses something important about her past. It’s a before-and-after moment, a turning-point. This new knowledge changes everything. Up until now, she’s repressed, misrepresented, misunderstood, or simply been unaware of a vital fact about her earlier life. But now, after the Big Reveal, she can act, choose, overcome, or accept something that was impossible before.
What is revealed, and to whom?
The content of that revelation can be just about anything. The secret of her birth. A sibling she never knew about. A tragedy or shame or crime in her family’s history.
The information can be revealed to the reader, the protagonist, or another character. Depending on who’s been let in on the secret, the Big Reveal can serve different functions.
- To the reader: If information has been withheld from the reader, the reveal might be an effective surprise that brings everything together in a new way and illuminates the bread crumbs that were there all along (think: Agatha Christie).
- To the POV character: This can work well when the protagonist’s denial or ignorance is part of her emotional journey. Maybe someone was manipulating her, or trying to protect her, and that’s why she never knew. Or maybe she didn’t really want to know. When and how she finds out, and how she responds to that knowledge, can be a turning-point in the narrative.
- To other characters: If the protagonist has kept a secret from other characters, the act of revelation can be an act of confession. She finally tells the very person she thought she could never tell, and because of that act, she forgives, is forgiven, accepts, heals, matures. Here again, the revelation/confession can be the key to her emotional arc. (It could also be someone else who tells her secret, or an accidental slip-up, although giving the protagonist the agency here is often best.)
How to bring that backstory onto the page, into the front story?
It doesn’t necessarily have to be through a great big dramatic scene. As I said, the reader is smart. He can put it all together from fragments of memory, snippets of dialogue, and bits of interiority, well-chosen and strategically offered.
If we trust the reader, give him space, and let him do some of the work—my hunch is he’ll enjoy the book even more.
In fact, if we trust the reader, we may not need backstory at all.
As Dave Corbett reminded us in his post last spring, we can learn what we need to know about a character through present-day behavior. I echoed that point in my own post, when I discussed the structure and mechanics of flashbacks and shifts in chronology. As I wrote: “We get it that Lindsay is guarded and defensive, because that’s how she behaves. Do we always need to see the event that made her like that?” Maybe not.
Think about it. When we meet someone in real life and see that he’s a people-pleaser or doesn’t like anyone to challenge him, we don’t need to know the whole story about what happened in third grade. We simply deal with him, respond to him, as we find him in the present. Same for characters in novels.
What do you think? Do you struggle with backstory, as I do? In what ways? What’s helped you? Is there a way an author has handled backstory, in a novel you read, that you thought was especially effective? Do you prefer a lot of vividly-drawn backstory, a little strategic backstory, or hardly any?
Barbara (she/her) is an author of contemporary women’s fiction living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Each of her acclaimed novels (Queen of the Owls, 2020; The Sound Between the Notes, 2021; and The Color of Ice, 2022) was a medalist for prestigious national awards, including the Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, the Independent Book Publishers Award, the Hawthorne Prize, and the Nautilus Award for Fiction. Her fourth novel, Roll the Sun Across the Sky, launches in May 2025 and has received stellar advance praise. Barbara has also published more than 80 articles on the craft of writing and the writing life. She has a PhD in Clinical Social Work and has been a therapist, teacher, researcher, and advocate for out-of-the-box kids and their families. When not writing, she’s a serious amateur pianist and a traveler to spots from Iceland to the Himalayas. Learn more on her website .
[coffee]
Thank you, Barbara, for a post full of practical commentary. I don’t know of anything more maddening than dealing with backstory. We talk about writers as pantsers or plotters. Another, related approach is to think in terms of puzzle people and mood and atmosphere people. For me, puzzles = mystery = clues, bits of evidence. Mood or atmosphere = complex characters. Since I’m not good at puzzles, my approach to backstory is to do what you and David Corbett suggest: backstory can be revealed through behavior in the now, rather than mineshaft drilling into the past. But I also rely on fully developed flashback scenes. For them to work, though, I have to prepare the reader in advance. She needs to be given enough info, so that the flashback scene fits into the forward movement of the narrative. I have a capable editor to thank for pointing out this missing element in my WIP. Before she enlightened me, two major flashback scenes were disembodied from the central narrative.
Thanks again for a truly useful post.
Good one, Barry: “Flashback scenes need to fit into the forward movement of the narrative.”
Such a great point, Barry—that sometimes “fully developed flashback scenes” have totally earned their way into the narrative, but only if the reader has been prepared and (I would say) yearns for that scene. Otherwise, it can be a subtle (or not-so-subtle) form of info-dumping by explaining present-day behavior through a scene that happened long ago. Thank you so much for weighing in!
Hi Barbara: Backstory! I prefer hardly any. I love your “novels are not case histories …be a little stingy … if we trust the reader, we may not need backstory at all.” As a reader, when the story reverts to paragraphs of character history I get the urge to skim and move on. As a writer. I struggle with finding ways to flow the necessary backstory into the content without diverting too much, and try to keep it to a short paragraph. But, content editors often suggest more backstory for deeper and clearer character motivation into the story structure. So, your point, and David Corbett’s point, if we really need backstory is greatly appreciated. I’ve been on a hunt to learn to write backstory in three lines, creating just a snippet here and there, and move on. Very challenging! You know how marketing people tell us to write one log line about our stories (protagonist, incident, conflict)? If we can do that, why not use that technique for backstory? Do you think 3-line backstory would be effective enough?
I am totally with you, Paula, in the need to think like a reader, not like a writer … as a reader, I have little tolerance for long backstory scenes and, like you, will often skim them so I can get back to the “real” story. And yup, I agree that less is best. The example I gave (about the imaginary Lisa) is very, very brief but I make it stronger by having it echo several times during the narrative. The first appearance is the longest (and, even there, only a few sentences) so that its echos can be snippets. It’s about the evocative power of the memory or foray into the past, not just about providing information. And, as you say, concision is very demanding! So grateful for your comments!
I’ve said it for years: backstory belongs in the back (of the novel), if we need it at all. Think of character nature and behavior as a mystery. There is no mystery if you explain everything right away.
Backstory dumps often happen because of critique friends. They say, I love this character, I need to know more about her! Well, no they don’t. Not yet. As they say in the theatre, make ‘em wait.
Early backstory dumps are one of the most common signs that a manuscript is unlikely to be ready for rep. It takes confidence just to launch in and tell the story, so have confidence. Thanks for your cautionary advice today, Barbara. I’m right with you.
“It takes confidence.” Confidence in oneself, and trust in the reader; they go together. I think another source of the tendency to do a backstory dump (not to blame our poor critique friends) is the injunction to start the story as late as possible, which is generally true. So it can be confusing: “If I start the story late, don’t I have to fill in what happened before?” No, I don’t! And that gesture of trust can be scary … One strategy can be to put all the backstory in, save it in a different color or font, and then delete it later :-)
Whenever I need to add backstory, one of my favorite ways to do it is through misdirection, especially in dialogue. The anecdote has to be wildly entertaining on its own, the backstory is carried in the subtext, not the text, and the fact of telling it needs to make a story problem worse.
Example: Old Uncle Fred wants to talk about his tragic tomato-picking accident, but Young George keeps butting in with the time he fell out of a tree (he thinks that George is a whiner), and Uncle Fred is getting more and more agitated, but they need Uncle Fred’s money to bail out the farm, and this is the last chance to convince him, and now several people are trying to stop Young George and talk some sense into him.
…nobody’s going to notice what you did there given all the other hoo-ha going on, even if that ridiculous tomato-picking story suddenly does prove to be relevant three chapters later, and Young George has lasting trauma from falling out of a tree.
I love your point about “the fact of telling it.” Here, it’s the telling, not the tale itself, that moves the front story along. It can also be that the act of telling leads to healing, not always making the story worse. A great example is Katherine Center’s “Things You Save in a Fire.” The protagonist finally tells the story of her traumatic sexual assault (which the reader has already figured out) to the very person she never dreamed she would tell. The “telling” isn’t for the reader; it’s for the protagonist, as an important step in her own arc. Thank you for weighing in!
Barbara, thanks for your backstory post. I’m writing a sequel and there are references to the past in dialogue to clarify a point in the now. It seems to work in well, but it’s a first draft in progress. The first page has backstory to establish the protagonist’s relationship with her husband. Why she married him. Then, why she has unsettling thoughts about the marriage, after seven years (the seven year itch movie reference). You get a sense of the protagonist’s character right away. Lost, found & floundering. 📚🎶 Christine
References in dialogue are often a good way to go! Personally, I like them better than long passages of interiority, when the character talks to herself about stuff that the author wants the reader to know. It’s often about timing, placement in the narrative—not length. For example, in The Color of Ice, there are hints but not much backstory until the key event in the past is depicted in its own chapter about a third of the way through the novel—when the reader needs it. Hopefully, that works! And yep, I think a sequel raises a different question: is it meant to be a stand-alone, or must the reader have read book one in order for it to make sense? What do you think?
The sequel could be a stand-alone. The story picks up 7 years after the first book stops in the same setting. The protagonists core problems are still there, with a different focus, different tensions, different outcomes, and different goals. First book has a strong antagonist. Sequel is Character vs. Self. Let’s see what my editor focuses on when she reads the first draft. I know the problems in writing sequels. Not for the faint-hearted. Christine
I usually don’t use full backstory scenes – to me, the hint of the backstory is what happens in real life. You are living your day and all of a sudden, you either flash spontaneously or (more likely) an event or what someone says to you triggers your brain to remember something or someone in your past. And even then, it’s the memory of that, not the “real thing” but how you’ve stored it. For me, that snippet is something that plants a question in a reader’s mind and keeps them reading. It’s like meeting a new person and over time, by seeing them in action, you piece together who they are. Much more intriguing than getting a laundry list of their past on that first meeting.
“It’s the memory … how you’ve stored it” that has the emotional, evocative impact. Oh, I love that! So true. We don’t need a ton of detail about the actual event in the past. But we DO need to see and feel its effect on the protagonist in the front story. That’s the reason it matters …
And yes, to omit, hold back, hint, even tease. That keeps the reader interested. Your comment reminds me of those boring first dates when the guy told me far more about his life story than I wanted to know at that point. Better to leave me curious so I’ll come back for a second date :-) Thanks for your great comment!
Barbara, good post on backstory. I write for kids and generally there’s very little backstory. Choosing when to start the story can still be hard. I ended up adding an entire front porch to begin the story the day when everything changes but I still prefer my original opening in media ras (because everything also changes that day), but one that necessitates a bit more backstory. I’m thinking of adding a plot twist to the end because I like those…your post is helping me mull things over, as well as Don’s “make ’em wait.” Thank you. Went on a solitary walk as well. I discovered that I need it even though I love walking with my husband and dog…
I empathize with the decision you are facing! To begin the story with “life as it is” before it is disrupted … with the inciting incident … or right in the middle of the new mess that must be grappled with? Each can work well. But none requires extensive backstory. So you are pointing us to an important principle: starting later in the narrative does not automatically justify tons of backstory! We can convey what the reader needs, without lengthy scenes that require the reader to jump around in time. Thanks for your astute comment!
Barbara:
You’ve just helped me solve a problem with one of my WIP. I knew that the first version was told from the wrong character’s POV. Reading your post, I’m starting to see how necessary backstory and revelations can be told through the eyes of the new POV character, and much more effectively than in the straightforward, linear timeline I’d been using, adding drama and mystery. Thanks!
That is totally awesome, Christine! And of course each person “knows” that backstory in a different way, through a different perspective. Conflicting versions of the past can also provide rich material for deepening a story. Why do the characters have different versions of the event, or perhaps a character has one version that she tells to the world and another that she tells herself? A great exercise is to write a scene from several different points of view … So glad that the post was helpful to you!