Don’t Interrupt Opening Scenes with Unnecessary Details

I hope your 2021 is starting off right, fellow Writers. Let’s all hope for a healthier and safer New Year. And an end to this pandemic! 

The Wonder of Winter

Now let’s get to the meat of the post.

Writers shouldn't interrupt opening scenes with unnecessary details. As writers, we need context in the opening scene of our stories. We want readers to know what our book is about. Specifically.

Readers come to story to see how what happens in the plot affects the characters, or rather, a particular character—our protagonist. People connect to people. We want the readers to care for our protagonist. And to do that, the reader needs to know why what happens in our story matters to our protagonist. What’s the protagonist up against in this story? What does she want?

We need to be in the scene with the protagonist and see how she’s making sense of the story/scene action. That being said, we shouldn’t constantly interrupt opening scenes with too much backstory or description. Writers need to stay in the moment in the opening scene especially.

But that doesn’t mean there is absolutely no backstory. We are inside the head of our protagonist. If our character would think of a prior life experience because of what’s occurring in the opening action, we need to show that to our readers. But we should keep it short. Only a reference to the character’s prior experience. We can elaborate later in the story.

We are enticing our readers to follow our story journey in order to understand situations in our protagonist’s life, why she acts as she does and why it’s so important to her. 

The reader needs to know what’s at stake in the story for the protagonist.

I recently printed out and read aloud the opening scene of my college memoir. Printing out pages helps a writer to actually see what is in a scene, and reading aloud helps the writer hear what happens to be sure it flows smoothly. Well this time, the scene didn’t flow smoothly. 

While I am in the head of the protagonist and making sense of her thoughts in this scene, I interrupt the scene with too much backstory about my special needs daughter—my impetus to begin college when I do. It’s just too much information too soon in the memoir story. It literally stops the forward motion of the opening scene. 

My daughter’s struggles in elementary school sometimes mirrored my own. They explain to the reader why the protagonist feels so inferior to those who went to college. However, they don’t need to be fully explained in the opening scene interrupting the action.   

Where will I put this information in the memoir story? I’m not sure at this time. Nor am I sure if I need all this information to show the reader a mother whose lack of belief in herself affects her ability to assist her children.

Writers shouldn’t interrupt the flow of their opening scenes with too much backstory or description. We should offer any important information in small doses when the character would be thinking of that information within the context of the scene being portrayed. 

I hope you’ve found some insight in what I’ve written. Please offer any tips you may have about opening scenes. It would be truly appreciated. And please ask any questions you may have about my college memoir in the comments section of Adventures in Writing. Thanks so much! 

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What Does Backstory Do in Memoir or Fiction? #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

The question of “why” continues in memoir and fiction. Why this protagonist? Why now? Why does what happens in the story present matter to the protagonist?

Through backstory, we find the why of the present story we are trying to tell, according to Lisa Cron, the creator of the Story Genius method of writing. The reader wishes to understand why the protagonist behaves as she does. What is her backstory?

In memoir as in fiction, backstory shows the reader why what’s happening in the story—the story action—matters to the protagonist.

            In Victoria’s memoir story, she had always revered those who went to college. College graduates were smarter than she was, she felt. They were successful, in her mind. And, the college-educated were in charge of her children’s education—especially her special needs oldest daughter.

            Victoria dealt with these feelings of inferiority until the high school guidance counselor told her that her oldest daughter shouldn’t go to college. She wasn’t capable. She wouldn’t be able to handle the work.

This is where the writer brings in “why this matters to Victoria.” Without the “why” of the story, the memoir would be merely surface. Who cares? Just stick the child in special education and let the educated people deal with teaching the child.  

            But Victoria had never done that. She was a team player and always supported all her children through their education. Until now. Until high school. Victoria didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to teach her children high school subjects.

            Okay. But why let this bother Victoria? Why did what the counselor tells her matter so much to Victoria?

It matters because Victoria has always wanted to be included among the college-educated. She feels she could be a better mother, if she is college-educated.

Then go to college, the reader thinks.

But Victoria believes, at the time the memoir story opens, that the opportunity to attend college has passed. She has five young children, the oldest special needs. Her husband travels for work.

To go deeper, Victoria was told by her father she wasn’t smart enough herself to succeed in college because she too struggled in her early education. Her father felt he was saving his daughter from possible failure in life.

This is why what is happening in the present memoir scene with her daughter’s high school guidance counselor matters so much to Victoria. This is where specific backstory comes into play.

            You put story-specific backstory into the scene at a moment when something triggers the protagonist to think back to a particular past situation or action in order to make sense of the present situation.

A protagonist may use his or her personal backstory to make a decision on how to respond or how to act in a specific confrontation or situation in the story. Backstory helps the reader understand why the protagonist is reacting the way she is.

            Think about it in your own life. We use our own personal backstory; how we were brought up, our experiences and learned life lessons, to make sense of our present world and personal life. Our past—our backstory—helps us to decide what to do next in life situations. Our past helps us to make meaning of our present.   

            Backstory can be a few words, a few paragraphs of explanation, or even an entire scene to explain what happened in order to show why a character acts the way she does in story present.

Backstory is uniquely tied to the origin scene in story. In the origin scene, a flaw is found in the logic of the protagonist. Where is this scene in the life of your protagonist, the particular flaw that is addressed through your story or memoir? Why did Victoria believe she wouldn’t succeed in college? We’ll address this next month.

Please offer me any feedback about the logic of Victoria’s memoir story, for it truly helps me to move forward in my work. Also, feel free to pose memoir topics. I will share what I know through my blog posts.

Thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. I’ll be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here. 

Story Genius Course: Starting with Backstory

The Story Genius course started
as a book. Lisa Cron uses concrete
methods to guide story creation.

That’s right, fellow writers!  Before you begin to write forward in your story, you need to understand who your protagonist is and why she acts the way she does.  What happened in her life before the story opens that makes her think and act this way?  Just like real people, characters are molded by prior life experience. 

Understanding the backstory of the protagonist [as well as secondary characters] is vital for fiction writers to create believable characters for their stories.  And that helps readers to connect with the characters and care about them.

Lisa Cron of Story Genius believes that writers must understand their characters before they can even begin to write the story present.  Cron believes stories are character driven as opposed to plot driven.

Cron’s concept of a character-driven story helps me to see that a particular story can only happen to this character because of how the character was raised or because of specific events that have happened to this character in her life before the present story action occurs.     

It’s a concept of specifics:  this particular story can only happen to this particular character because of her past and how she interpreted it.  It’s the character’s beliefs that drive the story forward and help the reader to connect to her.   

A particular character with her own beliefs and specific backstory works in memoir as well, although I must admit that I feel like I’ve been on a therapist’s couch for weeks now.  Looking for the “why” of my insecurity in college is giving me a complex—now, in my life’s present story. 

I need to discover why I didn’t attend college right after high school and how and where my insecurities developed. 

Oooo!  I thought.  I can tell you why I didn’t go to college right out of high school.  We didn’t have any money for college.  And my family didn’t believe in loans for college.  We went to work after high school. 

My editor writes back:  “Think deeper.  Why?”

My response:  I was signing up for high school courses at the time I found out there was no money for college.  It was the early 1970’s.  I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood.  This was the norm—especially for females.  

The editor wrote again:  “A deeper why?”

Me:  Dad said you only go to college if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer.  [But we still didn’t have any money for it.]

Editor:  “Why did he think that?  How did this make you feel?”

…Do you see why I’m developing a complex over this? 

“Dig deeper into your feelings and memories,” the editor said.  “Pull out how you developed your insecurities.”

I wanted to write back:  Stop picking on me!  You and Story Genius are adding to my insecurities.  I might require a real therapist couch at this rate.

But I didn’t. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Feel free to visit Adventures in Writing again to learn how I make out with all these questions that are invading my dreams right now.  Please leave any insight you may have.  It is always greatly appreciated.