Remembering

It's November 22, 2013 ... the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It's a day I'll never forget. I was an 11-year-old 6th grader at Charles Peck Elementary School in Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento. Robert Stevens was my teacher -- my favorite teacher of all time, in fact. It was 11:30 a.m., and Robert Parker, a popular classmate, came back to class from the school office with the announcement that the president had been shot. The classroom went still and silent, and I remember, with a child's naivete, hoping it wasn't serious. Thirty minutes later we got the news that the president was dead. Most of us began to cry, and Mr. Stevens, dealing with his own shock, did his best to comfort his class. A few minutes later, school was dismissed. I lived only a few blocks from the school and hurried home with my younger sister, then spent the next four days, along with my family, in front of our television set.


I remember the details of those few days so vividly: the shock and grief of the spectators who lined the motorcade route that day in Dallas; the pink suit that Jacqueline Kennedy wore, covered in the blood of her husband; the deep sorrow on her face as she stood next to Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One as he was sworn in as President of the United States, with the coffin that held the body of her husband only a few feet away; her being helped off the jet once they were back in Washington, DC and placed in the hearse along with her husband's body. I remember the grief on the face of Bobby Kennedy as he stood beside her then and throughout the next few days. Of course no one could know or imagine that 4 1/2 years later, he too would fall to an assassin's bullet. I remember the president's flag-draped coffin as he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, Mrs. Kennedy kneeling at the coffin and kissing the flag, with her young daughter beside her. I remember the thousands and thousands of mourners who passed the coffin to pay their respects, wishing I could be one of them. I remember the funeral -- Jackie holding her two young children by the hand, and young John John, whose third birthday it was, saluting the caisson that carried his father's body as it passed by. I remember the symbolic riderless horse in the funeral procession, and of the former First Lady lighting of the eternal flame at the grave of the fallen president.

And I remember how sad and solemn I felt.

I remember the coverage of the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, and seeing his assassination that Sunday morning.

And wondering why it all had to happen.

Looking back, I think this was the trigger that awakened the writer in me, because I remember it being the first time I put myself in someone else's life, imagining what it would be like to live their story.

Of course, my memories have been reinforced by all the documentaries I've watched over the years, but the memories seared deep within my psyche are from the event, not the accounts of the event. I began a scrap book from all the newspaper and magazine articles that weekend, and added to it over the next weeks and months. It, along with all my other important keepsakes, was lost in a fire shortly before I was married.

My sister moved to McKinney, Texas, not far from Dallas, a few years ago. (I'm happy that she's now back in California.) The first time I went to visit her, we went to The Sixth Floor Museum, located in the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, from which Oswald shot the president, and which chronicles the assassination and legacy of John F. Kennedy. I bought a Sixth Floor Museum mug (I'm very fond of mugs) from which I've never drunk. I stood at the very window through which Oswald fired the rifle. The very window. I stood on the grassy knoll, saw the X in the road that marks the spot where the bullet struck. I drove by Parkland Hospital where the president was taken -- the same hospital Oswald was taken to two days later when he was shot.

I know, this is all very morbid. But so is the reality. It's imperative we don't forget, but really, how could we?

There are a few places I never expected to be in my life. The site of Kennedy's assassination is one of them. I went back again with my husband a couple of years later, and it was as sad and solemn the second time as it was the first. It was for Rick as well.

I never expected to be at Arlington Cemetery, standing before the eternal flame at the grave of John Kennedy, with his wife Jackie resting beside him.

Or the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis for more than two years. I saw the marks on the wall where her father recorded the height of Anne and her sister Margot over the course of those two years; saw the yellowed tape on walls where Anne hung movie magazine photos of her favorite American movie stars.

That same day Rick, our daughter Mindy and I took a train to Haarlem and visited the Cory Ten Boom Museum. The Ten Booms were a Dutch family that hid Jews and helped them escape from the Nazis, before ending up in a concentration camp themselves for those good deeds. We actually stood in the Hiding Place they created in the upper levels of their 500 year old home.

Days later, in South Africa, Mindy and I stood only feet away from a rogue elephant, on his turf no less, as he stood between us and our vehicle. It was a very unexpected and dangerous position to be in.

I never, ever expected to be in any of those places or situation, but they were all deeply moving experiences -- the type of experiences that help create the deep wells we draw from as we write about life.

What about you? Have you been places you never thought you'd be? How have those experiences enriched you as a writer?

Beauty Treatments and Waiting for Dreams to Come True

I called a friend to check up on her husband's cancer battle. So typical of Nancy, I was the one who left the conversation seeing my life differently. Placed. Meaningful. Hopeful. How did she do that?

In my own clumsy way I hope to do the same for you. If you've felt like you're spinning your wheels in the writing world, that your dream has insomnia, or that your calling has gotten a busy signal, let me share a truth about how God works that has freshened my outlook and spurred my expectations.

Here's it goes! (Remember, I'm not a theologian): Callings are issued and the waiting begins. Think of Sarai and Abram. They waited 23 years to have Isaac, even though they tried to step in with some clever bait and switch stuff we've all come to regret.

Then there's Joseph. The boy was given visions he was immature enough to share with his brothers. Between his dream and the fulfillment, he was dropped into a dank well and left to die. More valuable alive, his brothers fished him out and sold him into slavery. He served in the house of Potipher until his wife couldn't suppress her desires for Joseph. Off to prison he went, only to be abandoned by the self-serving cup bearer. (Is this sounding like anyone's publishing career yet?) Finally, he finds himself in the household of Pharoah, where he saves all of his brothers, the beginning of the nation Israel.

Even Jesus had to wait. He knew exactly what He came to earth to do. But we don't hear about Him, until He's circumcised and again when He's twelve. And then he's out of the picture until he starts his ministry.

His cousin John is called in the womb. (Any of you write haiku in the womb?) But we don't hear about him until he comes out of the desert dressed like a crazy man with an even crazier diet.

Paul went into the desert for a long time, and then to Tarsus (experienced any detours in your career?) before he started his missionary journeys.

Don't forget David! Anointed as king as a boy, he didn't reach the throne for many years. And he had to keep one step ahead of Saul to arrive alive.

Here's my favorite. Esther. She went into the harem of King Ahasuerus to save her people, the Jews. She was a woman with a purpose. But she was subjected to twelve months of beauty treatments before she was taken to the king to fulfill her call. 

She didn't complain. In fact, the time she spent in the harem proved valuable. God used that time to prepare her. To make her more beautiful, more His.

That's how I'm choosing to see the time between what I feel called to do (write) and when I reach the skill level and loyalty to God's purposes to do His will. I'm in the middle of beauty treatments, that's all. 

And that's what God is doing in you. You're experiencing beauty treatments planned especially for you. We all have stuff that needs His touch that will prepare us to answer His call.

And remember, He has plans for you to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11), and He always finishes what He begins (Phil. 1:6).

You can see that I'm no Nancy, but I wanted you to know that waiting is His work. I would suggest that you cooperate with Him. Dive into His Word. Talk to Him openly and honestly about where you are and how you're feeling about life and your career. Wait on Him like a waitress waits on a customer. Be about His business in your writing and in other areas He leads you to. It's all good. It's all top-notch beauty stuff.

Under some serious beauty treatments? How do you deal with the waiting part of building a writing career? If you want prayer in your waiting, just leave a comment. We'll pray for you. 

Missing That Man of Mine

Have you ever missed a fictional character? Like you miss a person?

            And was that fictional character your own creation?

            And do you miss him because you killed him?

            When I killed off the goodhearted and likeable Lt. Luke Taylor in my novel Latter-day Cipher, it made many of my friends peeved at me. Some still have not forgiven me. And I have not forgiven myself.

            I wanted to write his death scene in a way that I honored his character, and tied his last moments to the unforgettable poem, “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died” by Emily Dickenson.

            I miss Luke Taylor as if he were my true friend. Here is my account of his death:

Officer Shoemaker radioed to Lt. Taylor to stay back, stay down, because he was going to fire on the suspect; but Lt. Taylor ran from behind the plane anyway just as the shots were fired.

Ten-One, Ten-One, can’t copy.

Ten-Double-Zero, Ten-Double-Zero. Officer down.

For his part, in the following moments Luke had several thoughts that were, in his mind, quite logically connected, assignable, lovely in their symmetry.

He remembered a poem that Helaman once quoted to him at a crime scene, but only one line. Was it about the buzzing of a fly? 

He remembered a trip to Alaska that he took last summer, a secret vacation, one of those foolish singles cruises that made him crave solitude. It was there, on the narrow-gauge train from Skagway, that he experienced the most complete, the most satisfying keepsake experience of his life:  one of such sparkling clarity and insight that at that very moment he knew he would remember it always, to his dying day.

He looked straight up into the profound steel-grey crevasses where even in May the snow still sagged, pale ancient breasts in stone corsets. He peered into the mists for the genesis of this whiteness, its origins unseen and unknowable.

Perhaps, he thought, it was the shining blood of angels, slain for kings in glory, in time immemorial, on the mountains’ unapproachable heights.

Then he remembered, felt the heritage of his fathers, as he wondered about the squareness of dirt corners—

Then he remembered: 

Then, he could not see to see. 

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

I cut my Christian baby teeth on new-believer Bible studies that promised, "Jesus loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life."

It's more than possible someone mentioned that Jesus' plan was not my plan, and I just didn't hear them. But something about a promise so grand turned a faith that had begun in yearning and wonder into visions of doors opening in all the right places, obstacles overturning, mountains leaping into the sea at my command to make way for my wonderful life. It did great things for my evangelistic fervor, at least for a while. Who wouldn't sign up for a program like that?

It turned out a lot of people wouldn't. And I think now perhaps they were right not to. 

It's been a long journey back to the yearning and wonder, but - with a nod to T. S. Elliot - the end of all my exploring has been to arrive where I started and know the place for the first time.

(Though such talk of ending and arriving is really too serious and too final.)

This despite the fact that - Jesus' promise notwithstanding - mountains don't actually leap at my command. They explode sometimes without my permission, but that's generally a bad thing.

Did they tell me in that Bible study that Jesus speaks figuratively sometimes? I can't remember. 

Sometimes I have knocked, and the doors have opened. Sometimes I have asked and received. In every instance whether I liked his answer or I didn't, God's plan was  better than mine, but it took years, long years to find that out. 

Most of the things I have sought I have found, but sometimes the finding takes long ages of time, and for some things... I'm still seeking. 

All this to explain:

Christian books can scare me sometimes. Even - especially my own. It's too easy to hand out a cheap promise, with Bible verses to match.

No, there is no yellow brick road, not here, in this life. The streets of gold come later, but here, we have the faith of martyrs who say "though He slay me, yet will I trust him." The surprise is what joy there is in a faith like that.  

This is why, If I am to be described as a Christian novelist, I must take care what kind of Christian novel I write. I don't want to lead my readers so far away from the place where they started. And I don't want to leave it again, myself. 

No Yellow Brick Road in Writing

I love what Arthur Slade shared in his interview on Monday, especially his confusion about being a YA writer.  Discovering how prolific authors get headed in the right direction can help those who are just starting out or simply not making any headway.  YA, adult, genre, literary – how hard can it be to know what we write or which direction to go? As Arthur pointed out, it’s not always easy to tell.

Dorothy asked the scarecrow, "Which way do we take?"  His cryptic answers were  “Pardon me, this way is a very nice way,”  (points other way) “It’s pleasant down that way, too,”  and (points both ways) “Of course, some people do go both ways.” I’m surprised she didn’t leave him hanging in the cornfield.

We have to start somewhere, and there's no yellow brick road.  Some writers follow one road until it dead ends and their writing gets stalled.  Some branch off at the ‘Y’ in the road and add a few vampires or whatever is currently on the horizon.  Still others take the road less traveled and find success.

So, how far do you travel before you sit down in the dust and re-think your decision?  If you’re traveling alone, you may go far off course before taking stock and honestly considering your options.  It’s not smart to be a lone wolf in the writing community.  You can waste a lot of time trying to decide things on your own.  Writers are generally too close to their writing to see things clearly.  We all need honest feedback.

Sometimes we fall into a certain type of writing because we follow advice such as 'write what you know' or 'write what you read.'  The advice is neither good nor bad, just tricksy.  Sometimes the story gets a hold of us and we think it knows best.  Often a character will demand our full attention and we assume the story is theirs alone.  This happened to me when an insistent character, a 12-year-old girl, told me her side of the story and I bit.  Mean mommy + bad sisters X rotten luck = unjust circumstances.  I was sure I was a YA writer and that this was a YA story.  I read all the ‘how to’ books for YA fiction.  I read and dissected great YA fiction.  I was around kids every day and knew how they talked and what they cared about.  By gum, I knew what I was doing!

The story came together and stirred some interest at a conference, including an agent who went back and conferred with his colleagues about it.  His eventual response:  We don’t do YA.  If it had an adult perspective, we would be interested.

Great gnashing of teeth ensued on my part.  I railed to my family, "It’s perfect the way it is!" which translates to (a) I’m sick and tired of this story, and (b) I don’t want to rewrite it again and (c) how badly do I really want to be published?  I stamped and huffed and scowled, and when I was spent, my husband sagely said, “You know, it could really use the mom’s perspective.”

I stuffed it in a drawer for a week or more.  When I came to my senses, I realized he had something there.  The mom started talking to me.  And then the sisters.  And the grandparents.  Grief, like a spreading stain, had seeped into all their lives and done its damage.  How could I have missed it?  So, I picked it up again and told the whole story this time.

For my part, I had to set aside what I was so sure I knew and listen to what credible sources told me about the story and my writing.  It doesn’t mean I won’t write another story with a juvenile’s perspective.  Kids have such insight and tell it like it is.  But it will most likely be written from the standpoint of an adult reflecting on childhood experiences.

Some writers will insist that they have ALWAYS known what they were destined to write.  Oo-rah.  Good for them!  Even better if they have ever considered another way and had their original choice confirmed.

How did you come to realize what you were meant to write?  Was it a trial by fire or just the quiet affirmation of readers and colleagues?  Maybe you’re still in process.  We’d love to hear.

The Carpe Annum Interviews: Arthur Slade

Welcome to another Carpe Annum interview. Each year, Novel Matters handpicks authors who's work has intrigued, astonished, and inspired us to highlight on our blog. We're happy to have Arthur Slade with us today, the mulit-award winning Canadian author, and author of one of our favourite YA novels, Dust.

Arthur Slade was raised on a ranch in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan. He is the author of seventeen novels for young readers including The Hunchback Assignments, which won the prestigious TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and Dust, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada. Visit him online at www.arthurslade.com

Novel Matters: Art, you write YA fantasy novels that are read by all age groups. What made you chose YA?

Arthur Slade: Fate. Well, not so much fate but a reading service provided by the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild. I sent one of my early books to the Guild to be “commented on by a professional writer” and that writer said, “This is a great book for young adults.” Alas, I thought I’d written a book for adults. So I was offended! I’d put my grown up words and thoughts into that book. But once I reread the edit letter several times, it dawned on me that it was a compliment (and the letter was basically saying that I was writing work that should be published…who doesn’t want to hear that?) 

NM: That’s the power of taking feedback and letting it inform your writing. How did you snowball that writer’s comments into your own sensibilities as a writer? 

AS: I tend to writer shorter books and don’t dwell on too much description so I realized that my style of writing was suited for the storytelling drive of fiction for younger audiences.

NM:  Tell us about your backlist.

AS: I have seventeen novels so it might be lengthy to do a dissertation on all of them. They do all appear on my website.  The first book, Draugr, came out in 1997 and is a lovely little horror book about an Icelandic man who comes back from the dead (becomes a draugr, that is). It’s the first in a series. I have several stand-alone novels, including Dust (2001) which is a happy little story about a mesmerist rainmaker who takes control of a small town during a drought. Then there’s The Hunchback Assignments series (2009) which is all about a young hunchback who has the ability to change his shape and becomes an agent for the Victorian British Empire.  That’s a few of the books, anyway.

NM: Some authors write one book a year and others write a handful over a lifetime. In the beginning, did you consciously choose to be a writer of multiple, multiple books?

AS: It’s more just the way it turned out. My first novel to be published, Draugr, was written in three months. 

NM: Gah? Three months?

AS: Yep, that’s all.

NM: I was just beginning to like you, Art.

AS: I thought I’d write three books a year with time off. But it turns out I was just lucky. Every novel since then has taken at least a year to write on average.

NM: What’s the take-away for that lesson, for all the writers and fans out there in blog-land reading this?

AS: Don’t expect it all to happen overnight. Long ago, a fellow writer said it’d take about ten years to get published. She was wrong. It took me twelve. 

NM: Twelve years. I’m starting to like you again. Does it make me a bad person to enjoy knowing other writers struggled too? Rhetorical question. The answer is: no, it does not. Tell us about those twelve years of in-between time. 

AS: In that time I wrote six unpublished novels.

NM: Ouch.

AS: Uhhh…they were good practice. And I had submitted those books to every publisher imaginable. I had hundreds of rejection letters (in fact I used to write letters to my friends on the back of my rejection letters…just so my friends could have rejection letters of their own).

NM: What kept you going?

AS: There were times when I came close to being published, and that was encouraging, but it wasn’t until my 7^th novel that I was published.

NM: And we're grateful you persevered. My twelve year old son is currently reading Dust, and he's loving it, and asking for more books by Arthur Slade. Tell us about your newest novel.

AS: My latest novel is The Island of Doom (2012) . It’s the final book in The Hunchback Assignments series, and it’s about how Modo and his fellow agents take on the evil Clockwork guild at their island stronghold. The novel features a Frankenstein monster and I must say I had great fun re-reading the original novel and watching the movies. Well, not all of them. Just the good ones.

NM: Just the good ones. Everyone is a critic. That phrase is more true today than ever with the surge in popularity of sites like Amazon and Goodreads where readers offer reviews. How do you cope with the volumes of feedback on your work? Can you separate yourself from opinions to give your creative self freedom to write and keep writing? 

AS: I rarely get too upset by a bad review. Everyone comes to a book with a different viewpoint and those viewpoints might clash. I certainly haven’t enjoyed every book that I’ve read. 

NM: That sounds like the voice of experience.

AS: I was more concerned about reviews at the start of my career and would take them more personally. But now, with the advent of Amazon and Goodreads, I actually get a kick out of the bad reviews. Sometimes they can be quite creative (my favourite had a line that went something like “I had to drink a Coke while I was reading Dust in order to stay awake”). The only time I am frustrated by reviews is when they say something that is truly false about the book. Oh, plus my mom always says the books are good.

NM: Huh? Oh, sorry. I was drinking a Coke while you answered that last question. Okay. Seventeen published novels. Here’s the burning question: outline vs. no outline. Plan it out, or go with the gut and let epiphany take over your writing?

AS: Who is this Epiphany person?

NM: A rare and deeply cool person who only visits writers when they are asleep.

AS: I rarely do a detailed outline. I have a few notes and a general idea of the first scene and perhaps a few sketches of other scenes. Then I just jump in the car and drive. Not a real car, I mean a “prose” car. It really is a journey of discovery and epiphanies for me. It makes the process more interesting…but can lead to a lot of rewriting.

NM: It seems like Epiphany visits you when you’re awake. Lucky guy. So, besides our friend Epiphany, what’s the one thing (be it a technology, a notebook, a wristwatch, or pen) that you can't be without as a writer?

AS: Scrivener. The writing program that I use. Hands down it is the best for writing prose and comic books. I know you asked for one thing…but I also can’t imagine writing without my treadmill desk. It sounds like the oddest thing in the world…but it keeps we awake, alert and active enough to eat several Turtles a day.

NM: Speaking of things you can’t do without, who, besides the obvious agent and editor, do you turn to for advice when things are rocky on your writing journey?

AS: My wife, Brenda Baker, is a fellow writer and very good at pointing out the faults (in my novels) in a gentle way.

NM: It seems more and more people are stretching their writer wings, and want to learn the craft of fiction writing, and navigate the world of publishing. What advice do you give to writers who are looking to seize the year and take control of their writing career?

AS: It’s such a cliché, but write every day and always look for ways to improve your craft. Writing is like working out for a Triathlon. I’ve never done one, but they look hard and you have to train hard. Writing is the same. It takes training. And tea breaks.

NM: Triathlon with tea breaks. Gottcha. Art, what are you working on now, and when will it be in reader’s hot little hands?

AS: A novel titled Flickers that is set in Hollywood in the 1920’s and is about the change between silent to sound films. Except in my book the first sound film is a horror film with a scream in it that summons a dark creature from another dimension…another happy story. It should be out by 2015.

NM: Happily, you have a long backlist we can read and reread while we wait for the new one. The theme this year on Novel Matters is Carpe Annum: Seize the Year! Tell us about a turning-point time in your journey as a writer when you took hold of your career. What did that look like? How did that moment change your trajectory as a writer?

AS: Honestly it would be back in 2001 when my novel Dust won the Governor General’s Award. That part was out of my control, but I did “seize” control by putting my very best book out there into the world. The award did help the general public learn that I actually existed (which is always nice as a writer) and led to a long list of invites to travel across the country and sales that paid the rent. And from there I just try to keep making each book a little better than the last one. I try not to repeat myself in my writing, so I’m always looking for a new storyline or way of writing a story that will be interesting to the reader (and to me).

NM: Art, thank you for dropping by today, for sharing a part of your writing journey with us. Lots of encouragement and wisdom, and good books to read. We so appreciate you, your work, and your story.

TMI

Have you ever met someone who immediately felt the need to tell you their life story? Yeah, me too. I don’t know about you, but my first reaction, once my eyes quit glazing over, is to run far and fast. Well, too much backstory in the beginning of your novel can and probably will have the same effect on your reader.

Backstory, amply defined by The Editor’s Blog, is simply “the story before the story.”

Wikipedia goes into a bit more detail: “Backstory is a set of events invented for a plot, presented as preceding — and leading up to that plot ... Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative’s start ... As a literary device, backstory is often employed to lend depth or believability to the main story.”

Jessica Page Morrell, in Between the Lines, warns that "backstory, if used incorrectly, can stall a story," because a novel should always be moving forward. Backstory "must be cleverly inserted so that it's unobtrusive and allows the front story to press ahead." She adds, "Perhaps the biggest problem with weaving in backstory revolves around this simple fact: The reader doesn't need to know as much as the writer does." As writers, we often go to great lengths to create detailed biographies of our characters and a story world that is three-dimensional. We can often see our characters in our heads, as well as the places they inhabit. But not everything that goes into the creation of our creation needs to be shared with the reader. We need to give them just enough to fill in the blanks, and then let their own imaginations take over.

But backstory has another task besides filling in gaps, and it's an important one. When used to its full advantage, backstory provides character motivation for what takes place in the novel. To again quote Ms. Morrell, "A protagonist is a person with a burning desire, and backstory reveals where this desire stems from." She lists some backstory factors to consider when creating your character:

• Who or what were his or her childhood influences and major events?
• Who was the most significant person in his or her young life?
• What past relationships have shaped your character?
• What event from the past will affect the plot?
• What regrets does your character have?
• What is his or her worst fear? Darkest secret?

The answers to these questions will be important for you to know as the writer, and they'll be important to your novel but, if handled correctly, the forward-moving story can reveal many of those answers to your reader without you having to spell them out through too much backstory.

So, when and how is it appropriate to bring in backstory?  There are varying opinions about when—and when NOT—to bring in backstory. Some say none at all in the first fifty pages, which, if true, is a rule I’ve sadly violated all too often. So I put the question to a group of authors I highly respect, and here’s what a few of them advise:

James Scott Bell, author of a number of terrific suspense novels, as well as the very popular Writer’s Digest Books including: Plot & Structure, Dialogue, Conflict & Suspense (all of which I recommend.) says, regarding backstory: “Act first, explain later.” He believes you should begin your novel with action, “which doesn’t mean, necessarily, car chases or gun fights.” Instead, your opening should “show a character in motion” and “manifest disturbance to their ordinary world.” He goes on to say, “Readers will wait a long time for the explanations when there’s a character in motion, facing a disturbance.”

As a reader, I completely  agree. Yes, I want to know about the character whose story I’m delving into. I want to care about him or her. If I don’t care, I won’t continue to read. But plop me down in the midst of the action or situation, and then, when I’m catching my breath, tell me something about the character and the story world. Jim calls this: “bonding your character with the reader.”

One of my personal favorite examples of bonding character with reader comes from The Hunger Games, the first book in the wildly popular triolgy. (BTW, I can’t wait for Catching Fire to be released November 22!) Chapter 1 gripped me from the beginning, but when, in Chapter 2, Katniss says, “I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!” in place of her young sister, Prim, I knew I wasn’t leaving Katniss’ side till the story was over. And, oh, what a story.

So give just enough backstory to make your reader sympathetic to your protagonist, and then, weave it in throughout the rest of the story. Veronica Heley, author of more than 70 novels (!) says: “Drip feeding the backstory is best for all concerned.” Drip feeding. What a visual. I love it.

 Christy-award winning author Kristen Heitzmann  says: “Backstory can and should be done in any way that serves the story.” There are various ways to bring it in:

• Through small bits of exposition.
• Through character reflection — (but be careful to keep it truly introspective, rather than it sounding like the character is sending information telepathically to the reader).
• Through dialogue (But, again, be careful. Noah Lukeman, in The First Five Pages, says,  “Dialogue should not be used to state things both characters already know” for the sake of the reader (pg. 94). Example: “Hi, Janet. This is Sharon, your older sister, who lives an hour south of you. Your niece Mindy, who is my older daughter, has moved to Washington, and man am I bummed about it.” Janet, being my sister, already knows all that, so it's a ridiculous use of dialogue.
• Through flashback  (This is a device I used throughout Lying on Sunday to show the character---or lack thereof---of the protagonist’s deceased husband.)
• Occasionally, through use of a prologue. (Prologues should be used rarely and should draw the reader right into the story world. This is not the place for a backstory information dump.)

This is not a comprehensive list of how to work in backstory, but gives you an idea of how it can be integrated into the novel.

DiAnn Mills, author of numerous romantic suspense novels, as well as the writing-craft book The Dance of Character and Plot, teaches that, before each scene, a writer ask the following questions:

• What is the POV character’s goal or problem?
• What does the POV character learn that he/she didn’t know before? 
• What backstory is revealed? (I encourage no horrible protagonist’s traits. This doesn’t mean a teasing phrase here and there but no significant backstory.) 
• How are the stakes raised?

Author Stephanie Whitson asks some good questions regarding backstory:

• If I don’t put this in the story, will the reader miss something essential? 
• Will they misunderstand my character? 
• Will they be confused by a plot point?

If not, leave it out.

If backstory is something to be treated with kid gloves, incorporated in bits and dribbles, is it really important for you to create backstory for your characters and story world? Well, let me ask you this: Do you find it easy relating events of someone’s life if you don’t know them well? I don’t. Likewise, the better I know my characters, the better I’ll be able to tell their story. That doesn’t mean the reader will learn everything I know about my protagonist. They may, in fact, learn only a fraction of what I know. But that fraction better be really pertinent to the story. It better help bond the reader to the character, and answer just enough at any one time to keep the reader wanting to know more.

What is your position regarding backstory? Do you have/stick by a hard and fast rule? How/when do you choose to incorporate it? Have you ever found backstory to distract you from a novel you were reading?

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