BORING BACKSTORY

The hardest thing for a new writer to do is to not have backstory. When backstory is dumped on a reader, it is boring. Nothing turns a reader off more than the \”backstory dump.\”

Every class on writing will tell you to start your book with action. Leave the backstory until later. The reader doesn\’t need it dumped in their lap in the first chapter. Start with action, then sprinkle the backstory through the book.

What is action? It isn\’t necessarily a murder or kidnapping. It is something that happens that makes the reader want to read more. Start with something that is in the present for that book. Also, have something exciting happen that will make the reader wonder what the book is about. You want the reader to turn the page and read more of your book.

We want to engage our readers, but we do not want to fill the first couple of chapters will backstory. We all want our stories to tell something that happened in the past life of the character that will bring the reader up to date. We can do that through the book, not in the beginning. I\’ve always told authors I worked with to sprinkle the backstory through the book. One good way is by dialogue. Have one character ask the other a question that will bring the backstory out. Do not bore the reader with a lot of telling. Make everything current and happening at that time.

Sprinkling backstory is hard to do, mostly because we want to get it all in. Leave some things for the reader to imagine until later. When you meet someone, do you learn their whole story at the first hello? No, we don\’t. We do not dump our life story on a new acquaintance, neither should you dump the character\’s life story on the reader.