Our Round Robin Blog Hop for March is: The Importance of your character's backstory/history and how to share this with the reader.
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Backstory is what gives both the characters and the plot depth and meaning. Without it, neither the author nor the reader really knows who the characters are or why the story is going where it’s going. We’ve all read books that seem totally shallow, mere vehicles for violence or sex or sometimes humor but without much character growth or story arc. But, thankfully, most authors do know their character’s backstory. So, then the question becomes how much should the author reveal? When? And how? We’ve all come across books with major info dumps, and that’s just as much of a story killer.
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If the author decides there is so much “important stuff” about their characters that the reader just has to know ahead of time, they often decide on a prologue. That can work both ways. Some people ignore prologues and just flip pages to chapter 1. They then miss the things that drive the character to make the decisions they make and leave the reader scratching his head wondering “why?” 
This habit also leaves the reader in the dark about the character’s growth, healing, or resolution of past issues that had been holding them back. But some editors and readers love prologues for all the information they can deliver. Your choice.
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Another story killing option is to save it for chapter one and just lay it all out there on the first few pages or even chapters. Unfortunately this can end with the reader putting the book aside. No action, nothing happening = no hook. Even if they keep reading and finish, when they post a review it will nearly always begin with something like – “It was a good story, but it started slow.” “Or I had a hard time getting into the story.” So, not your best option.
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So, if prologues and info dumps are both iffy choices, how does the author tell the reader the important parts of a character’s backstory, or the events leading up to and causing the inciting incident in the plot?
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The first thing to remember is that while you know, or should know, your characters as well as you know yourself or at least your best friend, not everything you know about them needs to appear in the story. For instance, maybe your hero had his tonsils out when he was five. Traumatic for a five-year old, especially when he’s been promised all the ice cream he wants when the surgery is over and then discovers his throat hurts so much he doesn’t want any ice cream. But your hero is now 
32 and he’s a soldier or a fireman, his disappointment over the ice cream issue has no bearing on the choices he makes today and this tid-bit, however amusing, isn’t important. UNLESS – another part of the five-year-old experience was terror on waking from the anesthesia and finding a bunch of masked strangers hanging over him. And now he’s been wounded either in the theater or war, or putting his life on the line to save another human from a burning building. If he was almost immediately unconscious, now he’s going to wake up from the anesthesia with absolutely no idea where he is, who these people are or what happened to him and a flash back has him panicking again. So, maybe that five-year-old experience does make a difference.
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What if your heroine’s father had been an alcoholic and now the man she has only recently met and started dating turns out to be a heavy drinker – was her father mean when he drank? Or did he just pass out in front of the TV each night? Those two different options would have an impact on decisions your heroine might make about continuing to date this guy. Maybe your protagonist had a double major in college. This could mean they are super smart, super hard working, or super determined to succeed. All three do have some input into your protagonist’s personality, drive and work ethic, but unless he’s now in a race to figure out how to stop a virulent new virus from infecting millions, his other major in biology might not be important. Certainly not important enough to discuss all the classes that were needed to follow that course of study.
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So, picking and choosing the important bits from your character’s pasts aka backstory is the first step. Now the question is – how?
Several options. Dialog. Your double-major protagonist is reading a recently published and much discussed book on Covid and other variant viruses and another character shows up and says, “Good grief, Matt! I thought you swore you were never going to read another science book in your life.” And Matt’s response can tell the reader a bit depending on the reasons for reading it. If he is working on a task force to find out where another new virus came from, then he might say something along the lines of, “Yeah, I did say that, but those books were all about human bugs we had already conquered. And when I joined the FBI I had no plans to ever think about medicine again.” So, now you’ve told the reader he studied this in college, never planned a career in the field, as well as the career he did choose if the reader doesn’t already know that. But perhaps he’s FBI, but on a task force that has nothing to do with biology or the story. His reply might be something like, “I know, but Linda gave me this book and told me I just had to read it. So, I’m reading it.” The topic moves on, the reader knows he studied biology but it’s not critical now.
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A similar way to inform the reader of the same information might be inside your character’s head. He’s digging frantically through this book, hoping to find a clue he never got from all the hundreds of books he had to read to pass his double major. Or, he’s listlessly turning pages hoping to find just enough fun facts to share with Linda so she doesn’t get pissed with him for not reading the book. This would also work with your firefighter who is slowly coming to and realizing something bad has happened. Memories of being so small he only took up half the gurney and being totally scared by all the strangers surrounding him. Only this time those strangers are anxiously working on him, monitors are beeping, everyone is intent on serious tasks, but the panic is the same.
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And then there’s action. Your character is involved with an activity they’ve done so many times they could do it in their sleep would give your reader a hint to your character’s back story, and this can segue into his conscious thoughts about what he’s doing, why he’s doing it and where 
he learned how. What if your heroine is a nurse who has been doing rounds in a nursing home. When she comes to the old man’s bed he tries to reach out to her but his hand falls back to the sheet and his eyes seem to plead with her to understand he needs her. She’d seen that look before. When her grandfather had been failing but insisted on living out his days in his own home. Their family couldn’t afford round the clock nursing so they’d taken turns being with him. And it had been her turn the night he’d passed from this life to the next. He’d reached out to her just like that but his failing strength had caused him to miss the connection. She’d been younger then. She’d tried to guess what he needed. You need a drink. Her grandfather had shaken his head, a weak almost not there movement. She’d tried a bunch of other things. But every option she’d given him had been a similar no. So, she’d clutched at the weak, wrinkled hand, folding it into both her own with no idea what to do next. And her grandfather had sighed, his fingers trembling in hers and his mouth turned up in a small smile as he closed his eyes and his breathing faded away. All he’d needed was touch. The touch of another person in those last moments of life. So, now Jean reaches behind her and pulls a chair up to sink into as she lifts the man’s hand into her own and cradles it with warmth and caring. Now the reader knows important bits of her history as well as a lot about the kind of person she is.
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There are other ways to introduce back story that are great but be careful not to overdo them. Unless you’re writing a memoir, you wouldn’t include pages from a diary or letters from the past more than a couple times in a book of fiction, but they can be a great way to tell an important story from the past that motivates the character now.
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A character’s reaction to something. Like seeing blue lights flashing behind him on the road. The average driver just pulls over and waits for the police car to pass. But what if your guy breaks out into a sweat. The last time he saw lights like that, it hadn’t ended well. Okay, here’ a bit of the character’s history that might need telling. Maybe in a flashback?
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Dreams are another option for revealing backstory in the course of your novel. Or your heroine is having coffee with her friend and decides it’s time to tell the friend why she’d dropped out of high school before graduating. Getting pregnant had been a bombshell. Her religious belief precluded abortion. Her boyfriend turned his back on her. Her parents kicked her out of the house. So, she’d gone to live with an aunt in another state until her baby was born and put up for adoption. In the telling of this story, she can reveal not only to her friend, but to the reader, a huge chunk of her backstory that impacts the decisions she makes today.
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There are lots of ways to introduce backstory without dumping it all on the reader at the start of the story. It just takes a little patience to decide where and when. And never let it slow the current pacing of the story. One way to know if you’ve included all the important things or dumped too much after you’ve finished your first draft is to find a beta reader or three to just read. Not to critique the work, but just read and come back with comments, gut reactions, or questions. If you’re beta reader comes back with a question like, “I loved your hero Mikey, but 
why on earth did he turn down that job offer?” Then you know there was backstory you were totally familiar with but failed to share in some way with the reader that was important to this decision. Another time the beta reader might suggest that the story is really confusing, or is so slow at the start that they wouldn’t have read it except they promised you they would. Now you have a hint in the first instance that there is some bit of history that needed telling that would have explained the confusing part and in the second instance, that you’ve dumped so much info at once that you dragged the action to a halt. Not every suggestion a beta reader offers needs to be incorporated but listen with an open mind. Sometimes we’ve been so close to the story as it unfolds we miss things someone with fresh eyes sees right off. While most authors are also readers, you are writing for readers so never discount what an ordinary reader might have to offer. They know what they like and enjoy and what turns them off.
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Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, and for a few other perspectives, visit my fellow Round Robin Blog Hoppers to see what they have to say about backstory.
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Connie Vines
A.J. Maguire
Dr. Bob Rich
Backstory is what gives both the characters and the plot depth and meaning. Without it, neither the author nor the reader really knows who the characters are or why the story is going where it’s going. We’ve all read books that seem totally shallow, mere vehicles for violence or sex or sometimes humor but without much character growth or story arc. But, thankfully, most authors do know their character’s backstory. So, then the question becomes how much should the author reveal? When? And how? We’ve all come across books with major info dumps, and that’s just as much of a story killer.
This habit also leaves the reader in the dark about the character’s growth, healing, or resolution of past issues that had been holding them back. But some editors and readers love prologues for all the information they can deliver. Your choice. 
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32 and he’s a soldier or a fireman, his disappointment over the ice cream issue has no bearing on the choices he makes today and this tid-bit, however amusing, isn’t important. UNLESS – another part of the five-year-old experience was terror on waking from the anesthesia and finding a bunch of masked strangers hanging over him. And now he’s been wounded either in the theater or war, or putting his life on the line to save another human from a burning building. If he was almost immediately unconscious, now he’s going to wake up from the anesthesia with absolutely no idea where he is, who these people are or what happened to him and a flash back has him panicking again. So, maybe that five-year-old experience does make a difference. 
What if your heroine’s father had been an alcoholic and now the man she has only recently met and started dating turns out to be a heavy drinker – was her father mean when he drank? Or did he just pass out in front of the TV each night? Those two different options would have an impact on decisions your heroine might make about continuing to date this guy. Maybe your protagonist had a double major in college. This could mean they are super smart, super hard working, or super determined to succeed. All three do have some input into your protagonist’s personality, drive and work ethic, but unless he’s now in a race to figure out how to stop a virulent new virus from infecting millions, his other major in biology might not be important. Certainly not important enough to discuss all the classes that were needed to follow that course of study.
A similar way to inform the reader of the same information might be inside your character’s head. He’s digging frantically through this book, hoping to find a clue he never got from all the hundreds of books he had to read to pass his double major. Or, he’s listlessly turning pages hoping to find just enough fun facts to share with Linda so she doesn’t get pissed with him for not reading the book. This would also work with your firefighter who is slowly coming to and realizing something bad has happened. Memories of being so small he only took up half the gurney and being totally scared by all the strangers surrounding him. Only this time those strangers are anxiously working on him, monitors are beeping, everyone is intent on serious tasks, but the panic is the same. 
he learned how. What if your heroine is a nurse who has been doing rounds in a nursing home. When she comes to the old man’s bed he tries to reach out to her but his hand falls back to the sheet and his eyes seem to plead with her to understand he needs her. She’d seen that look before. When her grandfather had been failing but insisted on living out his days in his own home. Their family couldn’t afford round the clock nursing so they’d taken turns being with him. And it had been her turn the night he’d passed from this life to the next. He’d reached out to her just like that but his failing strength had caused him to miss the connection. She’d been younger then. She’d tried to guess what he needed. You need a drink. Her grandfather had shaken his head, a weak almost not there movement. She’d tried a bunch of other things. But every option she’d given him had been a similar no. So, she’d clutched at the weak, wrinkled hand, folding it into both her own with no idea what to do next. And her grandfather had sighed, his fingers trembling in hers and his mouth turned up in a small smile as he closed his eyes and his breathing faded away. All he’d needed was touch. The touch of another person in those last moments of life. So, now Jean reaches behind her and pulls a chair up to sink into as she lifts the man’s hand into her own and cradles it with warmth and caring. Now the reader knows important bits of her history as well as a lot about the kind of person she is. 
There are other ways to introduce back story that are great but be careful not to overdo them. Unless you’re writing a memoir, you wouldn’t include pages from a diary or letters from the past more than a couple times in a book of fiction, but they can be a great way to tell an important story from the past that motivates the character now. 
Dreams are another option for revealing backstory in the course of your novel. Or your heroine is having coffee with her friend and decides it’s time to tell the friend why she’d dropped out of high school before graduating. Getting pregnant had been a bombshell. Her religious belief precluded abortion. Her boyfriend turned his back on her. Her parents kicked her out of the house. So, she’d gone to live with an aunt in another state until her baby was born and put up for adoption. In the telling of this story, she can reveal not only to her friend, but to the reader, a huge chunk of her backstory that impacts the decisions she makes today. 
why on earth did he turn down that job offer?” Then you know there was backstory you were totally familiar with but failed to share in some way with the reader that was important to this decision. Another time the beta reader might suggest that the story is really confusing, or is so slow at the start that they wouldn’t have read it except they promised you they would. Now you have a hint in the first instance that there is some bit of history that needed telling that would have explained the confusing part and in the second instance, that you’ve dumped so much info at once that you dragged the action to a halt. Not every suggestion a beta reader offers needs to be incorporated but listen with an open mind. Sometimes we’ve been so close to the story as it unfolds we miss things someone with fresh eyes sees right off. While most authors are also readers, you are writing for readers so never discount what an ordinary reader might have to offer. They know what they like and enjoy and what turns them off. 
