(What) You Don't Show: The Fine Art of the Tease

As I work on beginning a new project, I begin with a scenario in mind, a scenario with such an intense conflict and harrowing backstory, I can hardly wait to put it on the page.

Though I absolutely know better -- knew while I was writing it that I was going to be forced to cut or rewrite -- I couldn't help myself. I started with a delectable chunk of flashback, so I could capture with crucial event that serves as a catalyst for my story.

For a few days, I even deluded myself with the thought that the flashback was dramatic and compelling. Surely readers wouldn't mind if just this once I started...

Many of them wouldn't, but the truth is, the backstory is so emotionally strong that leaping ahead into the "real time" of the story would dramatically lessen the book's tension. And having so quickly given up the goods of its most dynamic secrets, the story might lose the interest of its readers before it once more gathers steam.

Definitely, I thought, imagining a strip tease artist too quickly revealing all her goodies.

Darn it, I thought, demurely tucking the bare flesh of backstory into my outtakes folder. Afterward, I restarted the story, beginning with the heroine whose entire life has been profoundly affected by the backstory. Setting her up quickly and, I hope, relatably (broke single mom trying to get home on a snowy Christmas morning after a night shift), I raise question after question as she responds to the escalating, immediate conflict tossed into her path. (Any character who finds herself in the opening of one of my books had better darned well brace for impact.)

And all the while, I flash the plot's shoulder here, a hint of leg there, tiny clues something's a little off about the heroine's situation and her reaction to the first character she encounters. The reader is teased with snippets of dialogue and internal thought meant to intrigue rather than to lay bare the mystery... at least enough to force my story's audience to keep turning pages to satisfy mounting curiosity.

Of course, you'll have to increasingly reveal more, satisfying at least some questions, or the reader will stomp off, taking his/her frustrations elsewhere. But if you give up too much, too quickly, you certainly risk losing not only the reader's, but your own interest before you finally bare it all.

Pictured: Demi Moore in Striptease (1996)

Backstory Breadcrumbs

Joni's post yesterday (and the lovely Edna St. Vincent Millay poem used as an example) got me thinking of my own theory of backstory, or the setup explaining all that came before the start of any narrative.

It's critically important to begin a story with some conflict, action, inciting incident, or at the very least, a hint of tension. (One of the most common flaws of manuscripts is having pages and pages of dull and static set-up, where a character basically sits around thinking of how he/she came to be at this point.) To really pull your reader in, start dropping your breadcrumbs - tantalizing little hints of something really intriguing, yet mostly shrouded in mystery (though it doesn't have to be a deep, dark mystery) in the background of the unfolding story. The breadcrumbs are there to raise questions, but you don't want to answer them too quickly -- not unless you've dropped an even tastier tidbit farther along the trail.

Suspense builds in the space between the dropping of any breadcrumb and the satisfaction of the reader's hunger to know. Yet by the time you've rewarded the reader with an answer, you've hopefully laid down enough additional questions to get the reader well and truly invested in the story.

There's a balance necessary. Give the payout too quickly, and you lower the reader's tension enough that she won't care what happens. Bring up too many questions or wait too long to answer at least some, and you risk confusing or frustrating the reader.

For a masterful use of "breadcrumbs," check out the opening paragraph of Jeanette Walls' fabulous memoir, The Glass Castle. Notice the magnitude of the question raised, even as the protagonist (Walls herself) exhibits forward motion.

I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster. It was just after dark. A blustery March wind whipped the steam coming out of the manholes, and people hurried along the sidewalks with their collars turned up. I was stuck in traffic two blocks from the party where I was heading.

To read a longer excerpt, click here. But I warn you, if you do, you'll almost certainly be hooked.

The author's handling of backstory can absolutely make or break a book. And especially in the book's beginning, it can be one of the most challenging aspects of the story to get exactly right. But it's definitely worth the effort, even if it means having to revise your opening scene a multitude of times.

Come up and see me some time (Edna's visit to the nuthouse = great lesson on backstory)

I was trying to express the concept of backstory to someone the other day: what needs to be told and what needs to be left unsaid, fully known to the writer but barely glimpsed from the corner of the reader's eye -- and how to tell the difference. The best example I could come up with was this wonderful little poem.

"A Visit to the Asylum"
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Once from a big, big building,
When I was small, small,
The queer folk in the windows
Would smile at me and call.

And in the hard wee gardens
Such pleasant men would hoe:
"Sir, may we touch the little girl's hair!"—
It was so red, you know.

They cut me coloured asters
With shears so sharp and neat,
They brought me grapes and plums and pears
And pretty cakes to eat.

And out of all the windows,
No matter where we went,
The merriest eyes would follow me
And make me compliment.

There were a thousand windows,
All latticed up and down.
And up to all the windows,
When we went back to town,

The queer folk put their faces,
As gentle as could be;
"Come again, little girl!" they called, and I
Called back, "You come see me!"