How far would you go in a backstory?

When I write, I often find myself writing about a character's backstory that is not relevant to the story, but when I remove it, it looks just so empty. And I do like to go into detail. Would you write more irrelevant things so that the reader has a good image in their head while reading, or would you sacrifice it for the sake of story progression?

Oooh, this an excellent question. 😘 With the backstory I go as far back to explore their motivations, hints of their personality, and (I love this new word I have learned) I provide a sense of foreshadowing about what could happen. Very basically, I want them to be understood.

I don’t like backstory. Imply it with current reactions, don’t spell it out. Don’t tell me, show it.

Backstory is important to establish the plausibility of what is happening but I prefer it to be succinct. Get to the action.

I don't read this stuff for the quality writing, I have Libby on my phone for that.

Quote by Ensorceled

I don’t like backstory. Imply it with current reactions, don’t spell it out. Don’t tell me, show it.

"Show don't tell" is overrated. Backstory has its place. If you are writing a 1000 word story and an incident in a character's past is relevant to the action, there's no time for a flashback.

"As he entered the room, John thought back to the night he had entered that same room to find Lizzid waiting in the nude. They had made love until dawn, then she had moved on. Would it be the same with Tina?"

Backstory in four sentences.

Don't overdo it, and if you can "show, don't tell", do so, but backstory is not the villain some writing teachers (rarely actual writers) make it out to be.

Most of my stories have some and I don't get complaints.

Quote by Seeker4

"Show don't tell" is overrated. Backstory has its place. If you are writing a 1000 word story and an incident in a character's past is relevant to the action, there's no time for a flashback.

"As he entered the room, John thought back to the night he had entered that same room to find Lizzid waiting in the nude. They had made love until dawn, then she had moved on. Would it be the same with Tina?"

Backstory in four sentences.

Don't overdo it, and if you can "show, don't tell", do so, but backstory is not the villain some writing teachers (rarely actual writers) make it out to be.

Most of my stories have some and I don't get complaints.

You can do it in five words.

He entered the room to find Lizzie waiting in the nude. His heart quickened, his cock grew restless. Would she be like Tina?

I agree telling has it’s place. But a scene is nearly always more memorable.

Quote by Ensorceled
He entered the room to find Lizzie waiting in the nude. His heart quickened, his cock grew restless. Would she be like Tina?

Well, aside from the fact that you reversed the women, it is okay. But in a real story I might include some details about what happened to cause that reaction. Why is it important that Tina be like Lizzie. In a 5000 or 10000 word story, sure I would do a flashback. But when space is at a premium? Telling is ultimately shorter than showing and can be done effectively if you're on the ball.

In the end, I think we are on the same page, really. Show whenever possible, tell effectively when needed.

Oh, and I would argue that a flashback to show the past event would still be backstory.

Quote by Seeker4
In a 5000 or 10000 word story, sure I would do a flashback. But when space is at a premium?

My thinking as well. If I write a 6k word long story and give a character a 200 word long backstory, it doesn't hurt the flow but gives the reader a bit more understanding. But if I were to write a short story, a thousand words or less, then the backstory wouldn't be as important as action would be.

The ideal length of backstory is like the ideal length of a book. Write it till there’s enough and then stop.

More specifically, the length of time you spend on last events should be fairly relative to the story. If it’s a 4 page story and 2 of those pages are catching the reader up than likely it’s unbalanced (exemptions available in special cases). Sometimes they are completely unneeded. The ‘fap piece’ genre of erotica that focuses on the sexual acts at the primary chunk of the text often need little to none.

Presentation of the backstory is also something to consider. A lot of times opening with it is weak, especially in longer pieces. Many times it’s better to sprinkle it throughout the story.

For my longer pieces I actually have tons of fleshed out story that helps me as a writer understand my character and write for them, but often chunks of it are not included in the work as they aren’t needed or give too much away.

A couple examples of some extreme but well done backstories: I recently read Enterprise of Death, a historic piece of fiction about a necromancer woman and a soldier who saves her from burning. The characters full backstory is somewhere between 1/3 to 3/8th if the book. However the story alternates between the present story with the soldier alternates every chapter with her backstory. It was brilliantly done with the backstory chapters giving context to her actions in the present.

The Hobbit is to the other extreme where the backstory is a very pleasant few pages entitled ‘concerning hobbits’ and two pages telling us about Bilbo. After that we’re into the meat of the story and never turn back.

So there is no way to have a definitive answer other than the general advice for most writing, give them just enough of what they need and no more.

Quote by RowanThorn
give them just enough of what they need and no more.

I love that!

Quote by Rosiex369

I love that!

As do I. Basically, I find there comes a point where if your backstory is turning into a story of its own, time to write a prequel or something.

Oh, one more thing. Don't forget about using dialogue to drop bits of backstory. Having a character talk about themselves (and other characters react to it) can be more effective than a simple infodump. From my story "Heavenly Sinner":

“But it does mean we need to be pretty careful if we keep having sex. You’re hardly my first in case you didn’t realize it,” Lisa told me, “My last ended because keeping Daddy in the dark was proving difficult and stressful, especially given we were in a small town. Dad knows nothing, of course.”

So we learn that Lisa had already lost her virginity before the hookup described in the story along with the impact her place in the church had on it, something that eventually affects her relationship with the narrator. All in a couple sentences of dialogue.

I'm no expert by any standard. I enjoy some backstory. There are definitely some things that can be implied and others that can be brought into the story through a brief explanation. I also struggle with when things are appropriate. I'm working on writing a series that tells the same timeline through the distinctly different experiences of three characters. The constant challenge is covering interactions with other characters already written about quickly.

For example, I will reuse dialogue to sync time between the character's experiences. It is useful for both backstory and character development to insert language that indicates their personal take on the conversation.

I hope I've not further muddied the waters with my answer.

Side note: I read erotica for the same reason people used to watch Cinemax late at night. It wasn't fully porn, and it certainly wasn't a blockbuster production. It was often real people doing realistic things in exaggerated situations. Sometimes softcore porn, though. 😐

Quote by Spendingtime

I read erotica for the same reason people used to watch Cinemax late at night. It wasn't fully porn, and it certainly wasn't a blockbuster production. It was often real people doing realistic things in exaggerated situations. Sometimes softcore porn, though. 😐

There's a reason for the "Skinemax" nickname, eh. 😉

Quote by Seeker4

In the end, I think we are on the same page, really. Show whenever possible, tell effectively when needed.

Yeah, it’s a little silly to talk in generalities, since writing is so specific. And I think we are all saying pretty much the same thing, put best by Rowan, that you should use as much as you need, and no more.

I do think you can gain a TON of immediacy by staying in the present, no reference to the past. Just drop the reader in the deep end. It works best with short stuff, I think.

If you've got a limited attention span, jettison all backstory, character development, plot, etc. Just get straight to hardcore explicit fucking, focusing on nothing but disembodied genitals and BDSM madlibs. I suspect that for many readers, that's all they want. And for some authors, it may be all they're capable of. You can churn these stories out to your heart's content with little effort required. It's a great way to get impressive publication stats if that's what drives you, but it won't really differentiate you from the literally thousands of other writers writing these kinds of cookie-cutter porn-scenes.

However, there are some readers who actually look for quality storytelling in their stories. To do that well, establishing backstory is essential. It's especially important for the author to understand their own character's histories and motivations. Who are they? Why are they here? What is the nature of their relationship? What drives them towards each other? How do you explain the ways they interact with each other? What challenges do they have to overcome to get to what they want? How much of that makes it onto the page may be another matter. As Ensorceled and Seeker mentioned, backstory can be revealed through dialog and action. Too much explication can bog things down. But backstory can't be an afterthought or completely neglected because you (as author or reader) are too impatient to get to the end. My focus is more on building momentum throughout the story leading up to the big payoff (sex). I hate being thrown into the middle of an anonymous sex scene with characters I know and care very little about. I need that back story in order to be engaged. At the same time, the back story has to be relevant. If you set your story on a cruise ship, I want to know what these people are doing on the cruise, etc., but I don't need the entire history of the American shipbuilding industry, nor the characters' reminiscences about their childhood pets unless it has some bearing on how they're perceiving the present events of the story.

From a writing point of view, I think the best process is to write whatever's on your mind in the first draft, fill out what needs further explanation or clarification in the second draft, and then mercilessly trim anything that doesn't actively deepen our understanding of the characters or move the plot forward in the third draft. Then spell/grammar check and publish.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know
If you've got a limited attention span, jettison all backstory, character development, plot, etc. Just get straight to hardcore explicit fucking

That's true. It's just the same in porn. Some people watch the whole movie/video, some skip to the parts that they like. And I believe we shouldn't sacrifice the backstory of the characters to appeal more to the latter. They will skip anyway to the parts that they want to see, however minute the backstory is. could be 1000 words long, or only 100.
Everybody can write a sex scene, but to make someone care about a character and their motives is a work of art, that shouldn't be sacrificed to people who don't want to read it anyway.

When I read an erotic story for the first time, I read every single word of it. I want to know what they think, feel, and what they have been through. And if it's a great piece I often find myself coming back to the same story. Only then do I skip some parts of the backstory, as I already know and care about the characters.

But if it doesn't contain any or only a little backstory, I don't find myself coming back to the story and more often than not, don't bother to finish reading it.

I'm not quite grasping this "more backstory = better writing" argument. Writing with less backstory is not lazy writing. In fact, it usually requires more time, to find another way to insert what needs to be said as succinctly (or cleverly) as possible. One of my problems with backstory is the writing tends to be kinda flaccid, lots of passive sentences, lots of "was" and "did" and "had." If you write it as a scene that stuff falls away.

Just because you tell me the girl's parents were cruel, or their upbringing was poor, doesn't automatically make it a more thought out story. Finding a way to reveal that info in other ways is the harder route.

Obviously you need to put a lot of thought into the character's background and history. Just don't tell me.

That is an excellent question. I think backstories have a place in most stories, but not all. So my answer would be, that it depends on what type of story you looking to write. A novel would require some sort of backstory, which could be upfront, layered through the story or come out later. A short story could be action-biased with minimal backstory.

I always think adding back stories can pull your audience in, and give story characters three dimensions.

Back story is only as important as it is relevant to the story itself. Can be very brief as the others mentioned, then you move on. Going too deep when unnecessary will make people lose interest in my opinion.

It depends on the story. If you want to do a back ground story make sure it is interesting and something the readers can get into.

I suppose it depends on why you're adding a backstory. I like to use a backstory to embellish my characters, or my story, or to introduce a new facet, to pause and slow the action. I think many book authors use it so their story has 300 pages.