When to use backstory in literary fiction

Monday, February 19th, 2018 at 10:10 am

William H. Coles

In general, in fiction, backstory should only be employed to advance the front story. For excellence, the concept is almost always required in short stories but is also useful in the broader sweep of a novel.

Example 1. Scene: no backstory. Story momentum intact.

The curtain parted just far enough for Maria to step forward into the spotlight and then closed. She bowed to the audience applause and cupped one hand in the other in a gesture of formality. She nodded to the piano player who, after a pause, started playing to guide her to the always difficult major-seventh opening note of the aria. The first flush of the piano introductory chords expanded out over the audience. Maria listened for the cue to pinpoint her starting note, it was coming . . .oh, no! but the pianist skipped the refrain with her critical cue note she must have. Would he still recover, do it right? She glared, tried to make eye contact. He plodded on. The audience turned into a thousand hostile critics instead of an adoring group of friends she liked to imagine. He’d circumnavigated to return to the intro. He was seven bars from her entrance. It was coming!. God! She took a deep breath, searching her memory for some clue to her starting pitch that had now escaped her the strain an impending failure.

Example 2. Scene with backstory (italicized). Same story but momentum interrupted by backstory.

The curtain parted just far enough for Maria to step forward into the spotlight and then closed. She bowed to the audience applause and cupped one hand in the other in a gesture of formality. She nodded to the pianist who started the intro. She had met with him briefly yesterday. A dull sullen young man, but attractive with dark brown eyes and an inerasable black shadow of a dark beard shaved hours ago. She had carefully explained how she needed the refrain in the intro before the aria. She could only start when she heard the fifth to orient her to the nonchordal tone the composer insisted on using. She thought he had understood. And they had practiced, in the short time available, all the passages religiously. Now he’d forgotten the refrain. He finished the intro and went directly to the aria. Panic rose in her. She could never hit the crucial major seventh so unique to this composer . . . but she had to go forward. She felt the audience’s expectant stares, heard their breathing. When she sang the note, the pianist’s head jerked toward her. He knew what he had done.

To build as a significant dramatic happening with impact, the scene needs momentum. Backstory stops the momentum as a result of authorial lack of purpose. Indeed, if information about the accompanist—attraction, dislike, lack of respect for his talent, etc.—is important to the story, it should be skillfully embedded outside this action-scene. As is, it represents an author intent on just writing—filling a space with written words–rather than dedication to structuring and creating a story for the purpose of engaging, entertaining, and enlightening a reader.

Thanks for reading

REFERENCES:
Preparing to Write the Great Literary Story
Momentum