Backstory could be understood as…
“…part of the story that happened before the present story and usually includes the characters’
pasts and conflicts which influence the current story.
—Gordon Kessler*
Gordon Kessler also lists three ways to deliver the backstory: flashback scenes, reminiscences, and dialogue.
FLASHBACK SCENES fill in the blanks of the person’s past. This means taking the reader to a given place or time using the past perfect verb tense.
Also, the character’s REMINISCENCES can be used. Some object or location triggers a memory and the character tells enough to draw in the reader to important experiences. In a story written in the first person point of view, it would sound like a retelling to the reader. From a 3rd person point of view, it would come across as time travel.
Further, DIALOGUE can be used, if you place the characters in a context or setting in which the information could flow naturally and in a timely manner with the plotline.
Backstory is made up of experiences that help shaped a character’s personality or
thought pattern [worldview] or it relates to a situation
that is important to the understanding of the plot. –Gordon Kessler
Gordon also explains how some of the backstory can be withheld from the reader until the end of the story. However, most must be “hinted at much earlier in the story in order for it to resonate, seem valid and believable to the reader.”
*All quotes from Gordon Kessler’s manual called STORY MASTERS: Advanced Notions in Novel Writing
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Moving on to Module 5, Research & Presenting Evidence: Your Family if your First Culture
