Remember that conveying backstory is only necessary if it helps the reader understand the present moment and moves the story forward. If the backstory is irrelevant to what the characters are going through on the page in real-time, it doesn't need to be there. 

 Welcome to the Write it Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formerly repressed creative soul turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write it Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories. The one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully.

Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers.  Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. 

Hi writer, Welcome back to another episode of the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacy. This is episode number 21, and today's a solo show. We are going to talk about craft and continue our discussion about backstory. In episode 19, we talked about how to come up with a compelling backstory for your novel and how to keep track of it. 

We also discussed why it matters. The backstory is all the relevant experiences that occurred before the story starts and how those events shape your characters' motivations and current circumstances. It's like an untold history of your characters, and it's really crucial for the structure and stability of your story. 

So, if you want to go back and listen to episode number 19, and dig into how to craft that compelling backstory, what questions you need to mind the past four,  I will post a link in the show notes, so, but today we're going to turn our attention to how to deliver that backstory on the page, without bogging down the narrative. So you want to remember that conveying backstory is really only necessary if it helps the reader understand the present moment, and it moves the story forward if the backstory is irrelevant to what the characters are going through on the page in real time. It doesn't need to be there. 

So remember, when you share a piece of backstory with your readers, it has to be because they need to know it now. It moves the story and deepens the reader's experience and understanding of the character, which sounds pretty simple. 

And I said it really fast, but how do we do that on a practical level? 

Well, there are really three methods that you can use to deliver backstory. Those methods are context, memory, and flashbacks. Today, we're going to focus on how to work with context and memory, and we'll save flashbacks for another episode because there's a lot to them. So, let's start with context. 

What is context? Context is the bits and pieces of dialogue, narration, or interiority that give us a more global view of the current situation. Context will illuminate the present moment and do it in small snippets. So, and often, it's going to make us ask questions that lead us. You know, down a yummy breadcrumb trail to the next juicy piece of information. This will paint a picture of what's happening in the scene.  So you can deliver context and build a backstory through character interiority. Uh, or the narrator's word choice, tell it in exposition, but you don't want the reader to notice it like a sore thumb. 

You want to weave it into the present moment so the reader accepts it as a larger part of the narrative experience. I'm going to give you an example of backstory context from a novel. We'll read a little bit of the scene, and then we'll do some analysis, pick it apart, and talk about it. 

Okay. This is from Rebecca Yarros's novel Fourth Wing. Page one. What I want you to consider is what the reader needs to know to understand the situation that is happening on the page and how the backstory can be used. Help deliver that. And also create a sense of intrigue and anticipation. Okay, so I'm going to give you a little bit of a setup. In this situation, our character anticipates that they will die. So, what does the reader need to know right now? To make sense of this? Well, we need to know what's happening. Why do they think they're going to die today? What are the events that brought us to this moment? Who is this character, and why are they expecting this particular outcome? Where are we? What's the setting? And we also need a hint at the overarching story conflict. And what I wanted to show you is the backstory context, which I'll point out as I go along and read this section to you.  It delivers all of that necessary information to give a comprehensive understanding. In this opening scene.

So here it is, this is. The first scene from Rebecca Yarros's Fourth Wing.  

Conscription day is always the deadliest. Maybe that's why sunrise is especially beautiful this morning, because I know it might be my last.

So the statement conscription day is always the deadliest that is backstory.  What does it mean? Well,  it's giving us what the character is, anticipating. The situation is that this character may die. But it's also making us ask questions like what's  conscription day and why is it deadly? Here's the second paragraph. I tighten the straps of my heavy canvas rucksack and trudge up the wide staircase of the stone fortress. I call home. That is another piece of context. And it's giving us information about the setting. And the character.

The paragraph continues, my chest heaves with exertion, my lungs burning. By the time I reached the stone quarter, leading to General Soarengale's Office. This is what six months of intense physical training has given me. The ability to barely climb six flights of stairs with a thirty-pound pack.  The information there, this is six months of , intensive physical training has given me.  That is a context-building backstory, and it is also a hint about why the character has the expectations they do. But we're asking another question here.  Training for what?. 

Okay, I'm going to stop there. The scene does continue, and there are more bits of context-building backstory delivered. If you want a full breakdown, you can go over to my blog and see the article. I'll put the link to the article in the show notes. But the backstory context in this scene is delivered through the character's interiority. 

And you notice how seamless it is, which it doesn't feel seamless when I'm reading it to you.  But the details provide depth and dimension. And our world is starting to take shape. We know more about this character. We know what she wants, and we have enough information to understand why she's where she is now. 

So the story is moving forward and through a combination of the stakes. The character here thinks that they're going to die and they have this desire to clearly live through it because they've been training for the last six months. And we have enough relevant backstory revealed through the context as the character marches toward what we assume is going to be their doom. 

We're hooked. We understand what's going on and why it matters. The next question in our minds is what will happen to this character, so we're going to keep reading. 

So here's a suggested exercise for you. 

Open a novel you've already read and know pretty well, and go to the first page. Ask yourself what the reader needs to know. Right now. In the delivery of this opening page, understand what's going on and the moments' impact on the character. Then pull out your highlighter and see if you can identify all the bits of backstory contexts that help convey that information. 

If you want to take it a step further, type up that page and delete all the backstory context that you just highlighted. Then, see how it reads. What's missing? Would you understand what was happening on the page  , those snippets, segments, and fragments of context, building backstory? 

Probably not.

Okay, let's move on to our second technique for delivering backstory on the page: memory. 

Memories are flashes and fragments of the past shown in the present moment. In a story, a memory aims to illuminate something significant in the present situation, set up and deepen the character's arc of change, or both. It's not meant to reminisce or pass the time. 

Memory will always be tied to what's currently happening to the character.  There will be a trigger of some sort in the story present, which can be anything. 

It could be a scent a , phrase, or a place. But it's relevant, and it's happening right now. And like us, our characters are triggered to reflect on their past to help them make sense. Of their present or the future. So, for example, imagine a recently separated woman whose husband wants to reconcile and fix their marriage, but she's not so sure. While walking to work, she sees a happy couple on a park bench and it reminds her triggers memory, reminding her of their first date with her husband and the love they once felt. 

The couple on the benches triggers the memory. Because she reaches back into that memory, it helps her decide what to do about her present. So maybe she decides to call him back after work to talk. 

The key to sharing a memory is to make it move the story forward. By helping the character realize something, make some sort of decision, or deepen the reader's understanding of the characters, emotions, and motivations. Providing context for how they came to be in this situation. Memory can be delivered through bits of remembered dialogue or expressed through character thoughts. 

Again, the key is to weave this in as seamlessly as you can. So you don't want to flag it down by saying things like the memory flashed before her eyes or the scene unfolded like a movie in her mind. Those statements are giveaways, and they pull us out of the story. 

So, I'm going to give you an example of a memory from a book called The Invisible Lifefe of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab. For context, this is a story about a woman from 18th-century France, who bargains with a demon for her freedom. 

The deal is that she gets eternal life until she can no longer stand the cost. Everyone she meets will immediately forget her existence as soon as she leaves their presence. So after that, she belongs to the demon. 

In the opening scene, the character Addie, who is going by the name Jess, has just woken up in Toby's bed after spending the night with him. And she knows he won't remember her. They never do. And that's her curse bestowed by the darkness, but she holds onto this very thin thread of hope that it might be different this time. So she wakes first and watches Toby sleep. And in her mind, she's justifying her decision to return to him night after night as another girl, she's impersonating another girl while she helps him compose a piece of music, because that is the only way she can make a mark on the world. The only way she can be remembered is by this invisible association. 

It's really beautiful. It's very sad too. She is also rationalizing  why she chooses to be in bed with people who resemble. The being that cursed her. So here's the setup and the memory, and I'll pick out the memory and slow it down for you. 

And then we'll talk about what it means. 

So here is the beginning of the passage. 

Toby begins to stir and she feels the old familiar ache in her chest as he stretches, rolls toward her, but doesn't wake, not yet. His face is now inches from her, his lips parted in sleep, black curls shadowing his eyes, dark lashes against fair cheeks. Once the darkness teased the girl as they strolled along the Seine. Told her that she had a type. Insinuating that most of the men she chose and even a few of the women looked an awful lot. 

Like him. The same dark hair, the same sharp eyes. The same edge features. But that wasn't fair. After all, the darkness only looked the way he did because of her. She'd given him that shape, chosen what to make of him, what to see. Don't you remember? She told him then. When you were nothing but shadow and smoke. Darling, he'd said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.

Now it is morning in another city. Another century. And the bright sunlight cutting through the curtains. And Toby shifts again, rising up through the surface of sleep. And the girl who is, was , Jess, holds her breath again. And she tries to imagine a version of this day where he wakes and sees her and remembers.

So,that memory of the darkness teasing her was triggered by Toby's appearance of lying asleep in bed. His soft, dark lashes, dark hair, sharp eyes features.  It does several things. It helps our character, Addie, justify her bedroom choices.  And it conveys who she knows the darkness to be. And the magnitude of her problem, she made a deal, a deal with the devil. 

So here's a couple of takeaways for crafting memory. Memory will always have a trigger stemming from the present moment. That since the character back into the past, and it's for a reason to help them make sense of what is happening in the present. 

It's not random. The memory should illuminate something about the characters, current situation, or experience, and ideally move the story forward. 

Memory can be a fragment of recalled dialogue or a more extended recollection of a previous event or situation, but it's not a full scene. It doesn't have a firm beginning, middle, and end. If the scene is written in the present tense, the memory will be delivered in the past tense. 

 Okay, so thank you for putting up with my poor narration, but let's do some takeaways for pulling context and memory into the narrative in a seamless way. In order to convey your backstory, number one, backstory should only be conveyed if it allows us to understand the present moment more fully or propels the story forward. Hopefully, it does both. The methods of delivering backstory on the page that are available are context, memory, and flashbacks.

With context, we integrate bits and pieces of dialogue, narration, or interiority. Because of that, we get a more global view of the situation and eliminate the meaning of the present moment.

 Memories are conveyed in flashes and fragments, and they are shown in the story present. The job of a memory is to help illuminate something significant in the current situation. It also helps set up and deepen the characters' arcs of change. Hopefully, the memory will do both. 

 So that was a lot, but I hope it helps you identify backstory, context, and memory in the books you're reading and how the authors weave them in seamlessly so that you can apply those techniques to your own writing.  

 I will post a link to the full article so you can see how I break those two passages down and really dig into what's memory, what's context, and how I build backstory. 

And what does it do right then? And there. 

So, I'll put that link in the show notes. 

Thank you so much for tuning in today.  Please email me at Stacy@writeitscared.co If you have any questions.  And I will see you next week.

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