Welcome to A Novel Approach. If this is your first issue, I encourage you to check out my back issues for more tips on how to write a novel. It's my fondest hope that I can help other writers do the best they can do.

If you have any specific aspects about novel writing you'd like me to address in future issues, please feel free to contact me and let me know what those are. Thank you for your interest, and here's to better writing!

Writing a Novel Part 8 - Back Story

What Is Back Story?

Back story is anything that happens to your important characters before the time frame in your novel. So, for instance, if your novel is about a forty-year-old woman who's trying to escape an abusive husband, anything that happens when she's a kid, a teen or a younger adult is considered back story.

Many authors never write a word of anything that comes before "Once upon a time..." They don't need to. Neither do you. I only recommend it if you're trying to get to know your characters better. You will get to know them better if you play this game.

You may also find all sorts of excellent fodder for plotting your novel by messing with your character's earlier lives. Skeletons in the closets, old rivalries, old flames, secrets they don't dare tell anyone.

That's one of the reasons I write back story for my main characters. I want to know them that well. Then they come across as real on the page. And people beg me for more stories about them. Not a bad place to be.

How Do You Come Up With Back Story When
You're Having Trouble Writing a Novel?

I often write back story when I'm stuck on the current timeline. To get myself started, I play "what if" (one of my favorite ways to tangle up my characters' lives).

So, if you have a character you just don't know well enough, try asking "What if he...?" Fill that blank in with something that might have happened. Or with the worst thing you can think of to happen to him. Or the best - then have it come out all wrong.

I have a few not-quite-main characters I don't know as well as my main two or three. So I use this technique by asking "What if she didn't know she'd seen her husband's missing twins? And when she figured it out, she ran off alone to try to rescue them from the bad guys, who'd also like to get their hands on her because she's married to "him"..."

Get the idea? Go for it, and make a mess of your characters' lives. Your readers will love it.

When and How Should You Use Your Back Story

Now, just because you wrote all these juicy secrets doesn't mean you go cramming them into your novel. Flashbacks are overused, and a lot of editors will nail you for trying to stuff them in rather than figure out a better way to sneak in tidbits of background.

You can use the information you've come up with. I highly recommend you let it deepen your novel's story lines. But don't just fling it hither and yon thinking it'll fall into place. Plan carefully, and just hint at your protagonist's earlier troubles enough to get your readers interest. Then use it to keep them reading until you reveal all later on.

If you've come up with something vital to your character's current life, by all means, be sure we know what that is and when it happened. Nora Roberts (writing as J.D. Robb) has a main character in her futuristic crime series whose childhood trauma affects her current life frequently. So that childhood trauma has to be explained for the reader to completely understand that character's current actions and reactions.

So, now you're all set to dig deeper on those characters. Happy hunting up tales to tell!

For More Information on Characters

I have ten different pages on my website about characters. Use this link to the main characters page. The other nine link off of it. Then you can leap right into making all your characters some to life!

If you sometimes feel as though you just can't do this - write a novel - take heart. No one wrote a good novel the first time they tried. Keep at it. It will come!

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. ~ Herman Melville