Backstory - How do you avoid infodumps?

DarkRaven

You have this amazing story planned out. Possibly the most amazing story ever told. The problem is that your reader will not understand the plot unless he understands the backstory.

Now this is where the problem arises. We may be tempted to write the back story straight out or maybe have a character explain it. That however, leads us to thread dangerously close to infodumping.

I've seen arguments on other forums in favour of making your backstory a novel of it's own, but this can be unfavourable for certain authors who's backstory may fill several volumes. Others claim that it is better to spread it out over an entire novel.

What do you do?

miec

I did a creative writing class and I showed a novel that I was working on to the tutor and had made that error. He said that was the support or scaffolding that held the story together and basically he advised me to dump it but weaves bits of it through the entire novel and whilst it was painful to dump an entire chapter it has made the book much tighter. What I have been learning as well through the writing process is that sometimes it is better to overwrite initally and then cut back, you need to be ruthless with the excess information but I know of one playwright who wrote loads on her play and then cut nearly all of it back, somehow the backstory was there, the reader could sense it. So I would write the backstory, then dump it or park it into another file and weave it through the appropriate places, sadly I don't know how to advise you on when or where in the story, for me I have been feeling my way through the novel with this, so where I had information on where the charactoer came from in the intial (now dumped) chapter, it does not crop up until the third chapter because it felt natural to put it there. I think there is a lot of guess work, trial and error until it reads or flows right. I've also mixed it through character speech and the story itself. Also I don't know if you have heard the advice: show don't tell, I think that is brilliant advice, try to show it to the reader rather than telling the reader what to think. If you check out 'Dubliners' by James Joyce, he has this down to a fine art, I am always amazed at how he can fit in so much into so little.

DarkRaven

For any of you that don't know, ''Show, don't tell'' is one of the vaguest pieces of advice that I've ever heard of. Basically, the idea behind it is to let the reader figure out parts of the story instead of simply stating it. For example, if you want to let the author know that that a characters' bedroom is messy - don't just say ''his room was messy'' - describe the mess.

Yeah, I've decided to spread it out in dribs and drabs throughout the novel. I found this interesting: Iceberg Theory. I think this is what you were referring to when you said that the reader could sense it?

miec

I know it and likewise I think it is a brilliant technique if you can do it.

Killer_banana

DarkRaven wrote: »

For any of you that don't know, ''Show, don't tell'' is one of the vaguest pieces of advice that I've ever heard of.

It is really vague but if you get the hang of it it's also priceless. I'm still working on the 'getting the hang of it' bit myself. :P

EileenG

Definitely one of the hard things to get right. My trick is to imagine I'm writing a scene in some classic SF series (because that's what I write) and only to include as much backstory info as necessary to get the scene moving. If it becomes necessary as you go on, you can have a character ask for more details, but it rarely happens. In general, readers are quick on the uptake, and will get the gist of it without ten pages of backstory.