No, the original Batman from 1989 with Michael KEaton, Jack Nicholson and Kim Basinger. If you haven't seen it, you must, it's excellent. There Joker has a bit of a back story, it was enough for me to put him in context, suss out his motivations and make him a very memorable character. I've never read the comics though... But yeah, that was (imo) the best Batman movie, nothing since, including the Dark Knight hasn't been able to touch it. Batman Returns was second best, Dark Night third.
Oh, yeah, you're right. I completely forgot about his different story telling. It's been too long since I've watched that. Much easier said than done! At least, it is for me. It's one of my weakest points in writing.
Yes I've seen it. The Dark Knight is part of a reboot, not a continuation of the original Batman series. It's essentially a completely different set of stories involving the old characters. There is no narrative or historical continuity between the 1989 film and the 2008 film. But yes the 1989 Batman was a good one, and The Joker had a great backstory in it. [/END_DERAIL] Carry on
That's because Tim Burton is fricking OBSESSED with backstory! Just look at Willy Wonka - there was no backstory to his character in the book, but Burton thought 'hey, no one will get why this guy is obsessed with candy unless I give him some childhood trauma to explain it is an overcompensation to being deprived of candy by his overbearing dentist father' There was no need for that, and it ruined the movie in my opinion.
Me, too. I find that I almost always have too much backstory in my first draft, and one of my bigger editing tasks is to weed it out. A classic case of "do as I say, not as I do."
Agreed, and this just serves to illustrate the danger of a misused backstory. I don't remember what bestselling writer it was, but I once read that the writer needs to know everything about the character but the reader needs to know very little. If you as the writer know the character's motivation, you will have the character do and say things which are consistent with that motivation, even if the reader doesn't know what it is.
Haha, yes, I must admit, I am totally obsessed with backstory in that way too. Whether or not I elaborate on it in the novel is a different thing (I totally agree with TDFuhringer), but if it's severe enough, I'll at least allude to it somewhere. Can't help it, it's the human nature and why they do what they do that I find most interesting. Having said that, I wasn't a fan of Willy Wonka before or after Tim Burton's rendition of it, but I like most of his other films.
I love backstory, but I try to keep myself from writing it. I love the movie Fargo, by the Coen Brothers. It's a modern masterpiece. Look at the character of Jerry Lundegaard. He needs money at the beginning of the film. He's trying to scam GMAC for money using nonexistent cars as collateral. He's trying to sell his rich father-in-law on some kind of parking lot deal. He even (the plot of the movie starts here!) has his own wife kidnapped for ransom. This is a man who NEEDS money. But why? We're never told Jerry's backstory. It turns out that it doesn't matter why he needs money; all we need to know is that he does, and his need sets everything in motion. I try to keep that lesson in mind. Maybe the Coen Brothers know exactly what Jerry did that screwed up his finances to the point where he was willing to ransom his own wife. But they don't tell us, and it doesn't matter. Let me reiterate that: It doesn't matter! The movie is great without having to know how Jerry got into his financial problems. Sure, we gradually get to know about his difficult relationship with his contemptuous father-in-law, but that is slipped in masterfully. No infodumps. Just smooth, exciting, often funny storytelling. Fargo is a masterpiece with no backstory. I highly recommend it as a movie, and as an example of terrific storytelling for novice writers.
The distinction that I make is whether the backstory comes up naturally as part of the events of the story: Mom shut the refrigerator drawer. "Peggy called. The airline lost her luggage, but she's already broken her record for Star Tours." versus being explained by the narrator: Johnny's Aunt Peggy was a regular visitor to Disneyland. Now, my "part of the events of the story" is a fairly bad example--I'm really just making "Mom" tell the reader what I don't want the narrator to tell them. But with a longer chunk of story, I could probably convey the information to the reader without it being obvious.
With the exception of certain novels where backstory is critical to the plot, I'd say yes. Too much backstory is definitely a sign of weak storytelling and possibly even a lack of confidence on the part of the writer.
My writing tends to be dialog heavy, so back story is almost always revealed by the characters instead of the narrator. I only reveal details when it makes sense that the characters would be having that particular conversation.
That's fine, as long as you don't mean that you have the characters telling each other bits of backstory instead of the narrator telling it. That's just as bad.
Usually that's true. But if you do it right, having a character tell a small portion of their backstory can be very powerful. Look at Quint's 'Indianapolis' speech from Jaws. Terrific writing (and a magnificent performance). EDIT: If you haven't seen it, please go to YouTube and search 'quint jaws speech'. It's widely regarded as the best monologue in modern film. If you want to know how to have a character tell a story, it's golden.
It's a great speech but personally I wouldn't say it's the best monologue in modern film, since it's mostly giving facts in a deadpan style. It's not particularly great writing, but it's good movie work. The thing is, in films everything has to be either dialogue (conversation or voiceover) or visual. Writers have some extra leeway in showing internal thought and description, IMO. There's more...texture to their descriptions and dialogue, I find. Also, in a novel, a monologue may come across just as a chunk of backstory, like I said--and anyway, not many people can jabber on fluently unless they are Hamlet.
I like my stories to be linear, without back story. In the first story I wrote, you're left wondering more about the main character -- she doesn't reminisce -- instead of knowing everything you needed to know and then some. Then, the sequel tells a story that answers some questions the prequel might've left you thinking about.
I think the other thing to remember is that readers aren't stupid. You don't need to spell out a whole backstory for them; throw them a couple of references here and there, and let them piece it together. Not only are they able to do it, they enjoy doing it - think of the zing you get when the pieces fall together for you before the story makes it plain. You don't need to be arcane or cryptic, just make your characters speak naturally, with the same assumed knowledge they'd have in-universe. People doing this are also increasing their buy-in for your story's universe - by engaging with it in this way, they're acting as if it's a real place, with real rules, and action happening beyond the page. It increases immersion.
I like to show important characters from different perspectives BEFORE we meet them in the flesh, which kinda allows a bit of backstory but also lets the reader ancitipate meeting them. For instance, when a new slave arrives in the household, the other slaves all fill her in on the goings on in the house, and tell her about the mistress before she meets her - in fact before the reader has even met her. They explain that all is not right between the master and the mistress, and give a few hints as to why that is. It's backstory but it feels more natural because it's in the form of gossip. I also like turning that gossip on it's head when you eventaully do meet her, and their description of her doesn't seem to match her behaviour. After all, everyone gets the wrong end of the stick sometimes, and people can give misleading impressions of their character.
Good points. Film, being a different medium than the written word, has different "rules of the road". If you "novelized" a film - recording the visual as narrative and the dialogue exactly as shown in the film - you'd probably have way more dialogue than a reader would be comfortable with. Descriptive narrative passages would be very long, in order to capture the same level of detail that the visual gives you on screen, and even then they'd never have the same impact the visual scene has on the audience. A really good example is in the film Dr. Zhivago. When it was released in 1965, there were no multiplexes, and theaters had much larger screens than they do now. In the beginning of the film, when Yevgraf is starting to tell Anna the story of her father, there is a scene change to a time when Yuri Zhivago was a boy, visually from the office of some industrial project to a plain somewhere in Siberia, not far from Mongolia. It is a vast, open area, with towering mountains in the background. A small group of people - a funeral procession, as it turns out - is in the foreground. But the people are rendered insignificant in that first glimpse by the surrounding scene, and on a wide screen, it absolutely took my breath away. In written form, it would be impossible to achieve that kind of impact.
