A Wee Backstory Reminder

RESIST! You know the moment. Your character walks into a room, looks at an old photograph and suddenly we are dragged through her childhood, her parents’ marriage, the death of the family dog, three disappointing boyfriends and the reason she has never trusted anyone called Trevor.

Stop right there!

This is backstory dumping. The writer knows something important about the character and becomes so excited, or possibly so anxious, that they tell us everything at once. But backstory is not the story stopping for a history lesson. It is the past pressing against what is happening now. 

I thought it time for a wee backstory reminder. The reader doesn’t need your character’s complete emotional medical record on page twelve. They need just enough information to become curious. But curious about what? 

Why did she turn the photograph face down?

Why does he refuse to drive through that particular town?

Why has nobody in the family mentioned Trevor for twenty years?

Give me the clue. Let me feel it’s (more than likely) important. Then make me wait. That waiting is really important. Carefully timed revelations can completely transform our understanding of a character. A strange decision may suddenly make perfect sense. The past has not merely explained the character. It has changed the direction of the story.

Backstory is seasoning, not the entire stew. Sprinkle it. Don’t tip in the whole jar.

Resist the urge to tell us everything all at once.

In other news:

FLORENCE 2027: THE PROGRAM IS (FINALLY) HERE! 

The full program for The Art of Storytelling in Florence is complete. From 9–13 May 2027, just seven writers will gather at the beautiful Palazzo San Niccolò with Lisa Clifford for four days of classes, writing, conversation, long Italian lunches, dinners and complete immersion in story.

We’ll explore character, conflict, the Major Dramatic Question, sense of place, structure, plot, memoir and backstory. Bernadette Foley of Broadcast Books will join us to explore structure and plot, while Laurel Cohn will show us how to weave backstory into our work without bringing the narrative to a grinding halt.

The wonderful Florence-based writer and creator Georgette Jupe of Girl in Florence will also ask a question that matters to writers at every stage: do you really need a personal brand?

There will be a special evening Q&A with a literary agent, with the opportunity to submit a précis of your work beforehand. 

And because this is Florence, the city will become part of our classroom. We’ll take our characters walking through the streets to Sant’Ambrogio Market, noticing what they see, feel, remember and fear. Morning coffee will be delivered to our salone, afternoons will be free for writing and wandering, and we’ll begin and end with wonderful shared dinners.

You don’t need a completed manuscript. You can arrive with a few chapters, a handful of notes or simply the seed of an idea that is becoming louder and louder in your mind.

In more other news: If you’d like to read more of my work, you can buy the e-book of The Promise here and Or Death in the Mountains here. Each tells a story close to my heart. One of love, the other of loss and the search for truth.

In some other news: I’ve just finished Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke and thought she absolutely nailed the zeitgeist. A wildly successful ‘tradwife’ influencer, whose perfect farmhouse, perfect husband and perfect children are carefully curated for social media, wakes up in 1855 and discovers what traditional domestic life actually involved. No filters. No hidden industrial-sized refrigerator. No production crew. Just dirt, firewood, childbirth and a great deal of handwashing.

It’s dark, funny, frightening and very clever about the performance of womanhood online. It also reminded me that capturing the zeitgeist doesn’t mean stuffing a novel with contemporary references. It means finding the contradiction at the heart of the moment we’re living through and turning it into story. In this case: what happens when the fantasy you’ve been selling becomes your reality?

Highly recommended. Although I may never look at a jar of homemade jam on Instagram in quite the same way again.

More next week!