Backstory into Front Story

The front story is determined by the characters’ goals and beliefs and traits.

Behind the front story of each character is a unique world made up of all her past experiences. Every well-rounded and fully-developed character has a backstory.

Some characters’ backstories are rather banal, like everyone else’s background, past, history. However, the character herself always must be unique or possess a bit of mystery of individuality.

A character’s backstory is everything that happens to a character before the actual story begins. Often something happens to a character before the actual story begins that causes a backstory wound. A backstory wound happens at any age and at any point the protagonist is diminished.

Who She Was Before
A character’s backstory determines how she starts out before becoming who she is today in current story time. The character’s backstory shapes her beliefs and expectations of life and her life direction.

In purely action-driven stories, the protagonist is often depicted as singular as if birthed in isolation for the higher good. In character-driven stories and virtually all women’s fiction, the protagonist is emotionally affected by her past and the people who raised her.

Most of a story takes place in action as the protagonist engages with the outside world. The deeper impact of this action and what happens is registered inside the protagonist, either in conflict with or in peace with the past.

Stories have the potential to change the reader. That potential is gained when the emotional truth that comes only through the character is shared. This is in contrast to high-action violence without showing the emotional affects of violence on the true human experience.

For an audience to connect to a story on an emotional level, they have to connect to the character. Rather than a cardboard action figure enacting the action, more movies today offer three-dimensional characters with flaws and all, and backstories.

To familiarize yourself with the Universal Story and the basic plot terms in the above blog post:

1) Read The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master (Now also as a Kindle edition)

2) Watch the Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? on YouTube. A directory of all the steps to the series is to the right of this post. 27-step tutorial on Youtube

3 Watch the Monday Morning Plot Book Group Series on YouTube. A directory the book examples and plot elements discussed is to the left of this post.

For additional tips and information about the Universal Story and plotting a novel, memoir or screenplay, visit:
Blockbuster Plots for Writers
Plot Whisperer on Facebook
Plot Whisperer on Twitter

Relinquishing a Bit of Backstory

A writer hears it from me when we do a plot consultation -- the mother needs to die at the 1/4 mark / the end of the beginning. Flash forward several years (I mean several, like four or five or six), she hears it again from her critique group. Then she starts reading The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master and unravels that old plot planner I created years before and affixes it to her wall. There it is again, at the one quarter mark -- the mother must die.

Hers is a novel based on a true story.

The writer reads on in The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master and comes to understand that she never did what she knew needed to be done for the good of her story because of a back story wound the writer carried lodged in her own heart.

In real life she had not been there when her own mother died. The writer has carried guilt and remorse in her heart ever since. Suddenly she gets it. Why she never killed the mother in the story. She believes she is, on some level in real life, already responsible for the dastardly deed.

For the good of the story and for the good of her life, she needed to revise her belief system. She needed to transform.

The writer has the tendency to catastrofize (imagine final events of dramatic action around her in real life as tragedies) about life in general, OCD or posttraumatic stress if you will, from all of her imaginings and family stress. After reading the book, rather than beat herself up for the time she's lost, she seems a bit dazed and happily confused.

Of course she also recently started taking mood enhancing prescription drugs but as I was saying...

What was I saying?

Oh... I remember this old alcoholic who used to always say during our consultations, no psychology. It was over the telephone but I always imagined him pointing his finger at me as he spit out the words.

But how can you not? Writing, especially when you lose your way is so deeply wrapped up in our own personal lives.

And, anyway, is it psychology really? I see it more through the Universal Story.

Okay. My dream. I'm putting it out there.

I see people reading to the very end of The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master. Yes, I see you a better writer because of all the plot and writerly stuff in the book. I also see the Universal Story making you more at peace and able to do that which is necessary for both the good of the story and also for yourself.

This writer's story improves as does her life when she finally puts the mother in the story to rest...

For more about the Universal Story and writing a novel, memoir or screenplay, visit Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? on YouTube. A directory of all the steps to the series is to the right of this post.

For more tips about how to use plot and the Universal Story in your novel, memoir or screenplay, read: The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master
and visit:
Blockbuster Plots for Writers
Plot Whisperer on Facebook (we hope you "like" it)
Plot Whisperer on Twitter

Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

A writer I work with grapples with a problem I often see. She loves her story SO much and thinks the plot is so cool that she is afraid she is going to ruin it by writing it. Her fear, at the least, slows down her progress toward her goal. At the most, her fear prevents her from reaching her goal.

Throughout a story and throughout your life, the energy of the Universal Story rises and falls.

Antagonists, because their role is to prevent or delay the protagonist (and you) from successfully reaching her goal, always cause the energy to rise.

Imagine a story (and your life) as a conflict between energies of light and dark. The energy shifts back and forth between the protagonist and the antagonists. The antagonists represent darkness as they strive to keep the protagonist as she currently exists. The protagonist represents the light in the struggle to evolve. Change is never easy, and a protagonist bound in the darkness of her backstory and locked in repetitive patterns dictated by her flaw will necessarily struggle. When the protagonist pushes toward her desire, she directs the energy. Internal and external forces (antagonists) push against her.

A protagonist who wants something enough to take action against all the antagonists within and without creates a story and a dramatic life.

Learn to see the antagonists as reflections of who you are now in your journey. Rather than despairing and feeling victimized, explore the meaning of the antagonists in your life. Such an exploration leads to transformation.

To read more:

The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of the Universal Story Structure Any Writer Can Master released by Adams Media October 2011. Available now for pre-order!

For immediate tips about the Universal Story and writing a novel, memoir or screenplay, visitPlot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? on YouTube. A directory of all the steps to the series is to the right of this post. Enjoy!

What's Stopping You?

I am always fascinated when one writer curls up in a ball and gives up and, when faced with the exact same problem, another writer is empowered to persevere. 

Discovery that everything you've written sounds trite and infantile, frustration over how to get across what you are truly trying to say, a negative critique, a rejection from a query, poor reviews... we all experience a crisis, a dark night of the soul . Yet for some writers, these beliefs, limitations, judgments strip her of all her power whereas another writer listens and learns and moves on. 

You can spend all your time wallowing in your backstory -- that moment when you first lost your way and relinquished a bit or all of your own personal power to an antagonist(s), be it internal or external, or you can stay in your front story of putting one foot in front of the other or one word after another on the page toward completion of your goal and hold tight to your own power -- not in resentment and revenge but in the loving embrace that all antagonists are simply in your life to challenge you to grow and stretch.

Shrivel and die

Seize your power and move forward

You decide...

Click on green highlighted plot concepts for further explanations via vlog. Each time a concept is referenced you are directed to new information.

To watch the entire Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? go to my YouTube channel. A directory of all the steps to the series is to the right of this post. Enjoy!

When to Use a Flashback

Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what, in the past, made the character who they are today (in story time).

Writers want to cram everything right up front.

"I know all their history, why would I want to withhold it from the reader?"
"I wrote it that way."
"It's the good part."

Writers spend lots of time imagining and writing every little detail about a character's past, be it for a child or an adult. So, of course, writers want to tell everything right away. Perhaps, in the process, even show off a bit how clever they are. Until, one understands how curiosity works.

Not telling everything makes the reader curious. Curiosity draws the reader deeper into the story world. The reader wants to fill in the "who," "what," "how" (the "where" and "when" have already been clearly established right up front to ground the reader). They keep reading. This is good.

Tell the reader only what they need to know to inform that particular scene. This is especially true in the Beginning (1/4 mark). During the first quarter of the project, the character can have a memory. But, if you feel you just must inject a full-blown flashback, where you take the reader back in time in scene, wait until the Middle.

(PLOT TIP: If you're absolutely sure you absolutely have to include the flashback, try using one when you're bogged down in the middle of the middle.)

Flashback versus Memory

A problem I often find in the plot consultations I provide to writers is the misuse of flashbacks.

During a plot consultation, a writer outlines her historical novel to me. Before long, the story takes a u-turn into flashback. My immediate reaction is to refocus myself. I quickly scan the Plot Planner I am creating for her for what I know of the story so far ~ the time frame, the place, and the characters ~ in order to keep in perspective the time and place change.

If you've read Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple, you know I am not a fan of flashback. Mostly, I dislike the whiplash effect, but also because I have seen too many writers, especially writers just starting out, overuse and abuse flashback. It is more difficult and takes more thought and creativity to integrate the pertinent backstory seamlessly into the front-story than it is to create a flashback. Flashback is a depiction of a past, literal experience. Full integration of back-story into front-story involves more nuance and skill.

Three plot tips when it comes to flashbacks:

1) If you feel you just have to have a flashback, wait to use it in the Middle of the story. By then, the reader has had time to ground themselves in the front-story and is better able to transition back and forth in time

2) A flashback is portrayed moment-by-moment in scene. Consider instead using a memory (summary)

3) If flashbacks are integral to the overall plot and structure, do like Audrey Niffenegger in The Time Traveler's Wife, make the story line non-linear and create the very structure of your story based on time jumps.

How Personal Themes Affect Your Writing

Mary Cronk Farrell posted a question on the last entry I made:

Thank you for sharing your wisdom on theme and giving a story depth. I have just finished the first draft of my mystery novel and am beginning to revise using your plot planner scene tracker. I have no idea what my theme is. Can you give me some ideas about how to tease it out? The characters are working out some conflicts besides the mystery, so I know there is some kind of theme about relationships. But what?
Thank you!
Mary
www.MaryCronkFarrell.com

Rather than answer her within the comments, I thought I'd cut and paste here what I wrote in the most recent Blockbuster Plots eZine. (If you would like to sign up for the free monthly plot tips eZine, go to: http://www.blockbusterplots.com/contact.html).

I hope the exercise helps, Mary! And thanks for your comments.

On the final class of a recent University of California Santa Cruz extension plot workshop series, I asked writers to complete an exercise meant to reveal themes of their lives. Once again, as in every case, at the end of the exercise, the themes emerging in each of their stories dramatically reflect each writer's personal themes.

Following is the exercise adapted from Philip Gerard's book, Writing a Book That Makes a Difference:

Look into your own personal back story ~~ all of life's experiences and history that has made you who you are today. Which scene has stayed with you in detail and emotion since the moment of the experience? The really big stuff, either traumatic or ecstatic, follows life's paradox: that which is big actually means very little. That which is small can mean everything.

Look for the small cause that created a lasting effect. For example: You wanted something with all of your might and you got it. Or, you wanted something with all of your might and you did not get it. Two similar dreams, two thematically opposite outcomes and lasting effects.

We as writers are conduits of creation. Inspiration flows through us to the page, having been touched by our body of experiences and residue emotional development based on those experiences.

For the Scene Only

Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what, in the past, made the character who they are today (in story time).

Writers want to cram everything right up front.

"I know all their history, why would I want to withhold it from the reader?"
"I wrote it that way."
"It's the good part."

Writers spend lots of time imagining and writing every little detail about a character's past, be it for a child or an adult. So, of course, writers would want to tell everything right away. Perhaps, in the process, even show off a bit how clever they are. Until, one understands how curiosity works.

Not telling everything makes the reader curious. Curiosity draws the reader deeper into the story world. The reader wants to fill in the "who," "what," "how" (the "where" and "when" have already been clearly established right up front to ground the reader). They keep reading. This is good.

Tell the reader only what they need to know to inform that particular scene. This is especially true in the Beginning (1/4 mark). During the first quarter of the project, the character can have a memory. But, for a full-blown flashback, where you take the reader back in time in scene, wait until the Middle.

(PLOT TIP: If you're absolutely sure you absolutely have to include the flashback, try using one when you're bogged down in the middle of the middle.)