Backstory

I have been wrestling for some time now with the issue of backstory. Where to put it, when to put it and how much to put it.

Backstory kills the action and should be used sparingly, I'm told. Spread it throughout the story, I'm told. Only about two paragraphs of backstory at a time, I'm told.

But then, I read something by some famous author and there are big chunks of backstory, often at the beginning of a novel. Case in point, THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER (Putnam, 1997) by Jack Higgins. The entire first chapter, some 23 pages long, is backstory.

Now, love the book and, frankly, the first chapter is one of my favorite parts. But why is Higgins exempt from the "use backstory sparingly" rule and I am not.

I know. That is a stupid question. He is a rich famous author and I'm . . . well, uh, not a rich famous author. He gets a pass on that rule and probably many others as well. This is not where I go on about 'life's not fair.' If it were fair, I would perhaps be a bestselling author and no one would have ever heard of teenage sensation Justin Bieber. (I'm not hatin', I'm just sayin'.)

What I am saying, however, is that it is hard catching a break when the rules I'm expected to play by can be such moving targets. There are whole sections of my first novel, FIGHTING CHAOS, I will have to cut if I ever hope to sell it. (The whole book needs another total re-write, as I have said before, but that is a subject for another day.) They are sections rich with funny, moving detail, and they flesh out the characters and establish them more as three dimensional people.

That is my complaint for the day. Backstory. I have a cold and have been in bed most of the day and I guess I just felt like whining. So there you have it. I'm going back to bed.

But you get back to work! And thanks for reading.