My book is about a struggling actress who is trying to make it big in a competitive movie industry. It is vital to explain the MC's childhood life and about her family as they influence the decisions she makes in her adult life. I dedicated the entire first chapter to explain her childhood life and from the 2nd chapter the story moves to the current date and the challenges she faces in her daily life attending auditions facing rejections etc. Just finished revising the 1st chapter and it is 14 pages long, 4k words. I realise it is way too long, and all the advice I read against info dumping comes screaming at me. I believe the backstory is necessary, but I also liked the stories that started with an action. I find the writing of my backstory is interesting, but I doubt if the readers feel the same way. I do want to give the backstory as that says a lot about MC, and her character. How can I make it in such a way that readers dont feel like info dumping? There are some dialogues, not a lot.
Easy. Don't dump it all at once. Sprinkle and reveal a little as you go. Just because it's backstory doesn't mean it has to chronologically before everything else. There is nothing the reader needs to know about a character before the opening scene.
Backstory isn't something that needs to be presented for readers, it's for the writer, so you understand the character well. You'll probably pepper in bits and pieces of it here and there, but not all of it needs to be shared, some of it can be inferred, and some just left out. As the writer you should know it, but the reader only needs to see the effects of it.
Yeah, cut that first chapter entirely. A childhood background chapter isn't a good way to engage readers. I do understand having those thoughts of like, "the reader needs to know X so they understand why the MC does Y!" But they definitely don't. With the suggested "sprinkling," later on in the story, the reader can read those bits and then think, "ohhhh, that's why they did Y." It's much more fun for a reader to discover information this way, rather than simply being told, in something like an info dump, which you're right to be concerned about. Just writing about this reminded me just how much I hate the majority of prequels. If you want to answer potential readers' "why" questions, make sure they're the ones they want answering. This is where beta reader feedback can be most valuable.
I agree with the others. I really dislike it when authors do info dumps and I especially dislike it when they do it first thing in the book. The main issue with info dumps is how they are boring most of the time. They're called "info dumps" because you throw a barrage of information at the reader all at once, and the reader is supposed to remember most of it for the chapters that are to come. Otherwise, what's the point? There is no guarantee that your readers will remember a rather big 4,000 word history lesson on your character. And I do think that bored readers are less likely to remember because they won't pay as much attention—but that of course assumes that they are willing to keep reading if they are bored. Most won't and they'll give up. For me to be into a backstory, you've got to make me emotionally invested in the character. You've got to make me care enough that I'll want to learn more about her. If you don't, she's nothing more than another stranger, and no offense, but I don't really have the time or energy to learn the backstories of random strangers. So, in my opinion, you have two issues here all at once. Can you make that chapter work in the way you want it to? Sure you can! There is always a way. But some ways are just longer and harder than others. Is the risk worth it?
As has been stated by others sprinkle. Brief flashbacks of a paragraph or two when the MC is faced with a choice, are one way to answer that way.
Not trying to hijack the thread but the subject is relevant to my WIP. There are a couple instances where I add in flashbacks, which are sort of info dump-ish. I have two scenes in two different chapters where the character thinks back to something that happened long ago, and I go right into a few paragraphs telling that story before returning to the current scene. There really was no other way to sprinkle it in other than through dialogue (which I do enough of), but rather I wanted to get into the character's memory, at that moment in the scene, of a past event that is relevant to the plot. EXAMPLE 1: A character is driving to visit his father's gravesite, and is on the phone with a man who was there when his father was killed. As the other man speaks, the driver's mind drifts back to the event that killed his father. EXAMPLE 2: Two characters are talking about how they landed in their current predicament, and one of them thinks back to an event that started all their troubles, years ago. His memory of said event prompts further dialogue. They aren't very long diversions from the current scene(s), and it feels like they fit okay to me. But I'm curious as to any rules of thumb here. (Im not at my personal computer so I can't post direct examples.)
It's fine if executed well and isn't too intrusive or divertive. Goes for just about anything in the writer's toolbox. Where writers get into serious, serious, deep doo-doo trouble is adopting the mentality of "I have to explain this or the reader won't get it!" That's bull-poo. Almost nothing needs explanation. That's what imagination is for... and for the sprinkles and hints that can be dropped into dialogue beats, interior monologue, and convenient little character-reveal asides that can fill the dead space between plot point. And where I think most writers fail to make the evolution from good to very good--and you can see examples of this almost everywhere in this forum--is failing to conflate POV with explanation and understanding they both move in lockstep. You see this in Fantasy and Sci-Fi all the time, particularly with the over explanation of technology, magic, or other fantastical things. Spaceships are the perfect example. The POV of a pilot tooling around the galaxy in the year 10,000 is no different than me tooling around town in my car in 2024. That's a regular day for both of us, and from a POV there is no need to explain how a spaceship works anymore than for me to elucidate the reader with the mechanical explanations of my Toyota. The fact that reader is well familiar with how a car works but not a spaceship is completely, absolutely, 100% irrelevant. That's what immersion and realism is. Granted you will probably need some form of explanation beyond the dropping of hints--and there are a million tricks to do that--but it present in blocks of glaring explanation is a fatal move. I swear, that's where most writers top out in talent and ability... failing to marry the realism of POV with every other writing component. A lot of people get right up to that level and plateau.
I think you're asking two things here: 1) Can I provide all this back story? 2) Can I just dump it in the first couple of chapters? The answer to (1) is 'yes', but to (2) it's 'no'. So just avoiding dumping it. Maybe have her go on a first date. They can talk about their careers, and she can mention how she's struggling. And then you can have her date ask about where she grew up. So you add some more detail, while sprinkling it with a fun and lively, or embarrassingly bad, date. Next scene, she gets a call from her sister that her aunt has died. Queue discussion about their childhood, ...
Agree here. I was going to say something similar before my post above. IMHO a good way to sprinkle in backstory is through dialogue, especially if two characters are getting to know each other or as relevant anecdotes to a conversation. "You know, that reminds me of this time when..." or "When I was growing up, there was this..."
Yup. Those work so long as they're not too obvious/inappropriate. None of that "As you know, Bob" crap. One thing that blows hot/cold for me is the mission brief/debrief they use constantly in thriller, military, espionage stories where all the characters get into a room and the backstory and how the plot is likely to unfold is literally dictated to the reader bullet point to bullet point. One of those things that does happen in real life so it's not like it's unrealistic, but some of them feel a little forced. Cop and crime stories, too, though that mechanic does make them a hell of a lot easier to write.
Yeah, the brief/debrief are okay when cherry picked for the right reasons, but not just thrown in there for the sake of backstory and info dumping. For example, they work really well in military/historical fiction when an actual brief likely took place. I have a chapter set in WWII in my WIP about a particularly harrowing bombing missing into Germany, so I open the chapter with the briefing. It's a short section, just to establish the historical accuracy and setup the dread the bomber crews start to feel.
Thank you all for the reply. I am starting to wonder if my backstory is indeed a "backstory" or just a part of the story with the events that happened 10 years earlier in the timeline. The Chapter 1 takes through MC's childhood, yes, but does that mean it is a backstory? It has interesting scenes, twists and turns. And that chapter ends with a surprise element which tells a lot about MC. In Chapter 2, MC is 10 years older and from there the readers are taken through her struggles in trying to make it big in movie industry.
Probably the thing to do is go ahead and write it, and afterwards you can decide if it's really necessary or if you should remove it and sprinkle the important details in as backstory. When in doubt, just write it and consider it part of the drafting process. It's easier to make decisions on things like this after putting something down on paper.
That's really good advice. I 100% agree. The 14 pages sounded brilliant in my head, only after writing it, I realised there is no action. Thank you...
You'll find plenty of bits and snippets in there to cut and paste later, should you not keep it in its front loaded entirety. I do that all the time. Hit a lull, need some filler between a two scenes that work better with some distance or contrast between them, insert a scene I cut and saved in another document.
I'm grateful for this thread. I'm trying to get through a beta-read where the first chapter (5,800 words) is nothing but an overwhelming, convoluted info-dump re: the MC's distant and recent past. I presume the author put it all there to justify the morally atrocious decision the MC makes at the very end of the chapter. That said, I've started Chapter 2 and it's just more info dump. What you guys have said here will help me frame my response to the author.
I'm a little late to the party, but hopefully I can still contribute. The first time I tried to write a novel, I wrote three prologues: a 20-year-prologue (i.e. the villain sails off to siege the protagonist's mother's city), a 15-year-prologue (the protagonist is conceived - and the villain and his mother fight), a 14-year-prologue (the protagonist is about to be born, and the mother wishes him to exact vengeance on the villain)... ... and later I realised that none of this was necessary. Yes, Terry Pratchett wrote three prologues for Going Postal, but they were spare and sparse - no more than a few two-sentence paragraphs, full of action. More like teasers than prologues. Something to whet your appetite with, to spoil the reader, to tempt him to read on. Yay! That's how to do it. In comparison, mine were nothing more than info-dumps. So I cut them. Ruthlessly. The thing about info-dumps is this: they are 'nice to haves'. They are there so you can get to know your character. But to a reader, they spell instant boredom. As Homer, Xoic and Set2Stun said: use this info sparingly, and sprinkle it here and there, not all at once. It helps to think of your story as - say - a nice, big, juicy steak. Your info-dump is the herbs and spices that go on the steak. You wouldn't want to eat handfuls of oregano or paprika, would you? You just sprinkle a little of it on the steak, to bring out the flavor. The same applies to your info-dump: reading it all at once is boring. Give us a detail or two at a time, while we're reading more exciting things, like action scenes or conversation pieces. And now I'm hungry for steak. Hmm ... steak. </Homer Simpson slobber>
A character's backstory should be sprinkled through the story with a spoon when relevant. Not laid on with a back hoe, A back story should be fairly straightforward, not convoluted, with the only things not clearly understandable at first glance, being the character's internal reactions to events. Emotional confusion on the MC's part is understandable and can be used to pull the reader in to a greater degree. While there might be a justification for an info dump in some genres, they should be minimized as much as possible, and done in the context of the world the story is set in. One technique I have come to like is framing the information in a quote from a historical work from the world.
Now you mention it this is probably why hard sci-fi always features a POV engineer somewhere along the way. They just can't bear to not tell the reader about all the research and background work they've done on that blasted spaceship. I like hard sci-fi, but those sections are always so, so skip-able.
Not to may taste either, but some of those sci-fi hardos love to read about it, which I get. My issue with all that is more or a POV thing than an inherent content issue.
Have you tried this exercise: Take those 14 pages, and summarize them. Then try to summarize them again. How much can you summarize them without the story losing context?
Whatever you do, make sure you've got good engaging stuff at the beginning to draw readers in. You need a hook and shortly after it an inciting incident that pulls the character into the story and forces them to start engaging with it. You don't want all of this pushed several chapters in, with nothing but dull exposition up front. One way is to start with a powerful engaging beginning that sets the hook and yanks it hard (the hook and the inciting incident), then do a flashback with some of the exposition in it. But keep it interesting and keep things moving—don't bog the story down. Let me link to a similar thread from some time ago: How many chapters before the trigger event?
