Comments on: JWAM reader request no. 8: How to incorporate backstory

By: Q

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:55:15 +0000

Thank you very much for this one. I have a lot of backstory that I probably don’t need to tell for the plot’s sake in a story I’m writing, but for the sake of one of the characters I absolutely do need to tell it. I just need to remind myself to write it all out now and cut it all out later.

By: Natalie

Natalie — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:39:50 +0000

Thanks so much for answering my question! Your commentary, and these awesome comments, have been so helpful. It’s nice to know other writers tango with the same frustrations I do

By: Kim L

Kim L — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:57:25 +0000

Great topic, and one I have just been pondering as I’m writing the conclusion to my novel. I’ve been struggling (A LOT) with how to explain some of the important revelations without complete infodump. But I didn’t even know what an infodump was… until now. Blech, I think I just have to get in there and do it and worry about the rest when I edit.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:29:52 +0000

You’ve just reminded me of something I hate! Isn’t it awful when an author uses diary form and nevertheless dumps in gallons of backstory? Who writes backstory in their diary, for heaven’s sake? It’s sooo unrealistic and annoying. At least in first person the character is ostensibly talking to the reader, so backstory makes sense.

By: Brent

Brent — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:21:56 +0000

This is one of my weak points. Sometimes my characters go off on so many tangents you think they must be geometry students. I just hate coming up with something cool and then NOT using it.

BTW, do you have a rich sister, cousin, niece, etc. in Australia that would like a poor future author as a husband? I want to spend my winter in Australia where it’s summer. It’s supposed to get down to -25°C tonight and UP to -11°C tomorrow. I’m trying to write a scene set in late spring and I just can’t FEEL it (or my toes for that matter).

By: Malcolm Tredinnick

Malcolm Tredinnick — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:05:16 +0000

I guess what I think of as a “simultaneous chronologies” approach might fall into your infodump category, but maybe it’s only overlapping somewhat. I’m thinking about where there’s essentially two plotlines running through the book (or a significant portion), the earlier one revealing the backstory for the later one, without being obvious about it (hopefully). Some authors do it well, some, oh so very badly. In any case, it’s a style I really enjoy it when it’s done well.

I’m reading two novels at the moment. One that is using the simultaneous plots version of revealing fairly well. One that is completely sucking at the slow seeding approach. It’s always fun (in an “ooh, look; trainwreck!” sense) to see what works and what doesn’t.

By: Nicholas Waller

Nicholas Waller — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:21:22 +0000

As you know, Justine, the clunky infodump – especially when both characters in a conversation know the facts already but are talking out loud only for the benefit of the reader – is known in SF circles as “As you know, Bob.”

As opposed to Delany and Le Guin, The Lord of the Rings is a bit thin in terms of a sense of lots of other contemporary working lands in the world – the landscape we see is unpopulated and unfarmed for the most part. But there is a sense of stories in deep time, and one of the pleasures of the book is the way the characters stop, sit down and speak about backstories – personal stories, old legends, bits of history, how and why we got here – often in straightforward meetings, as in Rivendell, or round campfires on the journey. As the characters are stopping for the night or having a formal pow-wow, it doesn’t seem too forced.

By: rockinlibrarian

rockinlibrarian — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:53:45 +0000

I just wanted to let you know how much I have been enjoying this series. I’ve been enjoying the posts about questions I DO think I know the answers to already even as much as the posts that teach me something new. And Austen quotes always make me happy, anyway.

By: Carrie Ryan

Carrie Ryan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:03:10 +0000

My new rule of thumb is just not to put the information in in the first draft. If the characters know it, then they know it and might not talk about it. Since I write first person, maybe the narrator will think about it but if it isn’t natural then I don’t write it. I let the reader just try to figure it out. If I HAVE to put the information in, I just try to limit it to what the reader needs to know at that time.

And then of course I let my editor tell me “more info please” and then I have to figure out how to incorporate it better. But at least by that time I have the frame of the story and can just layer in a few extra details here and there.

By: Amber

Amber — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:59:12 +0000

My favourite bad infodump ever was in a historical film at a museum in Montreal. Two characters happen upon each other in the street:

HEAVILY-MOUSTACHED FRENCH MAN: Bonjour, Monsieur Berthelet!
HEAVILY-MOUSTACHED FRENCH MAN 2: Bonjour Monsieur Bordeleau! How are your wife and your ten fine children?
HMFM: Oh, we have been blessed with _eleven_ children now.
HMFM 2: Indeed! No wonder the population of the new city of Ville-Marie has increased to over twenty thousand in just the last year.
HMFM: Yes, but we mustn’t forget that immigration, especially from countries such as Ireland, has had its effect too.
The AUDIENCE: We are totally fooled into thinking this is a completely normal conversation.

By: marrije

marrije — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:20:16 +0000

you made that bit of science fiction up! i hope.