You want your readers to understand your characters, but you don’t want your novel to read like a therapy session. In a post on Writers in the Storm, Shirley Jump offers advice for creating characters who intrigue but don’t overshare. “If you give a reader Too Much Information too early on (AKA Backstory), they lose all interest in the character,” Jump says. “There’s no intrigue left.”
Instead, show your readers your character has something to hide, without telling them what it is. It’s complicated: you want to move the plot without dumping backstory while also teasing just enough information to encourage the reader to continue.
Like many story elements, it comes down to show, don’t tell. Show glimpses of your character’s backstory in dialogue, actions, and relationships, and you’ll create a connection between your character and your reader. Thinking as a reader, would you be more intrigued by a character who has a black eye and avoids conversation, or one who shares her life story the minute they appear on the page? Your characters are strangers to the reader, and you should take care to introduce them bit by bit.
“The reader wants things to happen,” Jump says. “The reader wants to feel compelled to turn the pages. And most of all, the reader really enjoys uncovering that mystery of what makes the Character tick.”
To create this intrigue, Jump suggests:
- Think of your novel like an onion. Peel back layers a little bit at a time.
- Don’t babble. Characters shouldn’t ramble on and on about their personal lives, especially backstory. Characters also shouldn’t narrate their lives in their own thoughts.
- Align your details with the plot. “Every Scene you choose, every line of Dialogue, every space you describe, must impact the Plot,” Jump writes.
- Use triggers to reveal backstory. When characters discuss backstory, there should be an event that triggers the memory or conversation. “If your Character is about to walk into a den of wolves, it might be a good time to have them recall the time they were attacked by a wolf hybrid,” Jump says. The backstory should impact the scene in some way.
- Use information to add tension. If your scene starts to drag, or you’ve answered more questions than you’ve raised, dial back on the amount of backstory you reveal at that moment.
- Add backstory at the right place in the action. Your characters shouldn’t be thinking about their childhood in the middle of a gunfight.
- Don’t let backstory take over. Balance your action and narrative.
