In an article for Writer’s Digest, Jenna Kernan suggests six ways to reveal backstory and six ways to avoid.
- Don’t put too much backstory in the first chapter
- Do break up your backstory and drop tidbits here and there
- Do use dialogue and action to reveal backstory.
- Do use present action to reveal beliefs that were learned in the past.
- Do use conversation and arguments to reveal a character’s past.
- Do show how trauma creates mistaken beliefs and encourages bad decisions.
- Don’t make the backstory more interesting than the present.
- Do consider using a flashback, if it works in your story
- Don’t add details that don’t support your story or reveal character
- Do share backstory naturally. Don’t have characters tell each other things they already know.
- Don’t avoid backstory.
- Do be conscientious about how, where, and why you include it.
