Where To Start

Spring is typically contest season in the romance community. Nearly every RWA chapter runs a contest for unpublished authors to submit their work for consideration. I offered to judge a host of different contests this year, running the gamut of genres from YA to historical, fantasy and beyond, and selected the best of the bunch in each category I judged.

As icing on the cake, I attended a workshop last weekend where the first pages of the various authors in attendance were read and commented on by two literary agents and an industry speaker.

The results of my various critiques of the contest entries and the results of the panel last weekend were remarkably similar. It didn't matter if the work was science fiction, memoir, YA or traditional fiction, the overwhelming criticism was the book began in the wrong place. The author was trying to get all the backstory set in place, or 'walk the dog' by relaying every little thing going on in the scene instead of jumping in where the action started.

The best piece of advice about backstory I ever received was to pull out all the backstory and paste it on a page. Then, pretend the page was written on glass and drop it on the floor. As you pick up the splinters, use only that much at a time of the backstory and weave it into the storyline. Stephen King is even more succinct:

That's not to say backstory isn't important. Of course it is, and you, as an author, need to know what compelling forces happened to form your character, make them act and react in the way they do. But, as a reader, you don't want the whole story in the first chapter. Otherwise, why bother reading the rest of the book? The reader needs to develop a relationship with the character much the same way one does in person. You find out little nuggets of information about a person a bit at a time. 

So, my advice, as a result of all this passing of judgment, is to go back to the start of that manuscript you've been working on and look at it again. When does the action start? Have you written the first pages just to get your mindset in place about the character? If you answered yes to the second question, remove those pages and file them away in your character folder. Open with the action. I'm revising a work I started six months ago because, after sitting through one reading after another last weekend, I realized this particular work is guilty of the same thing. I start with description and backstory instead of getting right to the action. Which proves you're never too seasoned to learn something new. 

Backstory

Backstory. By definition, at least according to Wikipedia, it is the history of characters and other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start. Its purpose is to give our characters dimension, to have some idea of what's happened in their past to form the people they are now, to have the reader root for the guy  or girl. 

Writers who have taken enough workshops know that you can't dump a bunch of backstory into the first few chapters. Rather, it must be woven in throughout the course of the story, a strand at a time. Otherwise, why turn the page?

Lately, it seems every reality show out there is loaded with backstory. It doesn't matter if it's The Voice or The Bachelor, everyone puts together a backstory segment before they begin. It might be a promise made to a dying parent or sibling, it might be overcoming an alcohol or drug dependency, it might be having a child and realizing you're no longer a kid yourself. Whatever it is, it's the reason people get up in the morning and hone their craft. Whatever that craft may be. 

I confess I'm a closet fan of American Ninja Warrior. Totally buff men and women compete over a course of amazingly difficult obstacles to the finish line–the warped wall, a 14-1/2 foot tall wall they must scale and hit the buzzer.  Everyone starts out on equal footing, and there are no judges clouding the performance with their subjective ideas. The idea is very simple. If at any point along the way the person running the course can't complete an obstacle, they fall into the water below. 

I think that's the appeal to me. I listen to the backstories on all the contestants, and, if I like their story, I'll root for them to scale the warped wall. There's no one else making the decision for me, or holding their stories and their performance to a subjective standard other than my own. Some of the backstories among this group are wonderful, but, and it's probably due to the fact these are people who spend a lot of time honing their bodies, there seems to be excessive attention paid to their facial features, hair and bodies. If the only reason they have for participating is because they think they look good, I want to see them hit the water before the second obstacle. It doesn't matter how hard you've been training all year, one bad step can land you in the drink. It's fast-paced and quick to judgment, like me with these backstory segments. The course doesn't care. You bring your 'A' game or you go home wet. 

I'm like that in reading, too. If I get bogged down in too much backstory at the start of a book, I'll set it aside and move along to something else. There's so much out there that's good, why waste my time on something that has no appeal? Into the water it goes and I'm on to the next contestant. Maybe in this one, the backstory is handled better, giving the reader a glimpse of the impending conflict, but the conflict, when it is finally unveiled, isn't anything earth-shattering. The book made it over the first few obstacles, but still, it will end up in the drink. 

Recently, I served as a judge for the RONE awards and had to read seven books in short order. Only one of them made it up the warped wall and hit the buzzer for me. I thought about the story for days after I finished it, which is the mark (at least for me) of a great book. Now, my challenge is to write one equally as good. To have one of my own books make it up someone else's warped wall standard of excellence. 

You Live And Die By The Biscuits

As a self-professed reality TV viewer (see last Sunday's post for full disclosure), I watched a famous cheftesant contest last week. The person who went home because of a bad biscuit uttered the profound words "You live and die by the biscuits." His, in this case, had saggy, soggy middles, even though the top and bottom were gloriously golden. What had happened?

One of the judges explained that, for biscuits to be done right, the butter must be ice-cold, and cut into small chunks, not creamed, into the flour mixture. Then, during baking, these tiny chunks of butter melt, allowing for the biscuits to rise properly. I'm not enough of a baker to know if this is, in fact, correct, but it sounded logical. This particular chef obviously had creamed his butter instead of chunking it.

So what does a baking lesson have to do with writing? Allow me to explain.

Last summer, I attended a workshop with Margie Lawson. While the workshop as a whole was kind of all over the place, I did pick up one image that has stuck with me. She said to write each character's backstory in a series of bullet points and pretend you copied them onto a sheet of glass. You then drop the glass, breaking the points into little chunks of story and insert them, one at a time, into your manuscript. If you add in too much backstory at once--in other words, creaming it into the dough that is your story, you end up with a saggy, soggy, middle.

Every time I'm writing a story now, and attempting to insert some backstory to help the reader find out what makes my characters tick, I remember the image of the backstory on glass and only insert enough of a chunk at a time to tease the reader into wanting to learn more. At least I hope that will be what happens. After all, you live and die by the biscuits.