DON’T LET BACKSTORY SLOG THE PLOT By Christina Hamlett

Chapter One: I am Born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

If Mr. Dickens’ opening pitch for DAVID COPPERFIELD were to cross the desk of a 21st century agent, it would likely be rejected before ever reaching the second chapter. Where’s the hook? Where’s the compelling conflict? Where’s the reason to keep reading? 

The journey from infancy to maturity may have been riveting to the self-absorbed Dickens in this semi-autobiographical tome. Likewise, its monthly serialization in periodicals prior to publishing would have kept the interest of hardscrabble Victorians for whom books and literacy itself were considered luxuries. The forced gap between installments allowed them to thoughtfully chew on what they had just learned and spend time wondering what might come next.

In contrast, today’s modern readers have the relative attention span of gnats. If something doesn’t hook them from the opening pages, they are likely to wander off in pursuit of more gripping entertainment. In a nutshell, if you start your story in the wrong place (i.e. “I am born”) or embroider the personal histories of even the most minor characters with extraneous details, don’t expect your audience to stay with you for the full journey.

STARTING IN THE RIGHT PLACE

One of the most common mistakes I see with my aspiring cozy mystery writers is the absence of a dead body in the first chapter. We know it’s going to show up eventually but how long should we be expected to wait? If a writer starts out with a protagonist deciding to move to a new town, looking for an apartment, agonizing about a job, having sleepless nights, and discovering a cute bakery where she buys herself a glazed doughnut—Okay, halt right there! Full stop!

It’s one thing to have fiction imitate life but not at the glacial pace in which nothing interesting actually happens for long stretches of time. Begin your story with the inciting incident which kicks the action into high gear. On page one, she goes into the bakery she noticed during her first week in town. A glazed doughnut catches her eye. So, too, does the dead body of the owner sprawled behind the counter. Makes you want to read on, doesn’t it?

THE CURSE OF FLASHBACKS

Obviously, it’s important to fill your readers in on how your characters came to be. Why is your protagonist so bitter about romance? From whence sprang her phobia about feral cats? How did she get the scar above her eyebrow? As the story progresses, a lot of these things can be revealed through inner musings and dialogue. Where many writers stumble is in the attempt to introduce flashbacks.

When used sparingly and consistently, they can certainly work. (Just don’t give your readers whiplash going from present to past and back again.) What needs to be kept in mind, though, is that every time you incorporate a flashback, it diminishes immediacy and puts the momentum of the current plot and conflict on hold. Nothing can move forward in the excessive revisiting of prior events and, in fact, can potentially impede a reader’s ability to smoothly jump back into the present-day rhythm.

Along with disrupting the narrative flow, flashbacks can dilute the full development of one’s characters by focusing on the past instead of developing their personalities as they are presented with unfolding challenges in the now.

NOT EVERY CHARACTER NEEDS A CV

Whether one is writing a novel, a play or a film, there’s an endearing but quirky tendency to want to make every single character feel important even if s/he has only one line. As actors in theatre will tell you, it feels much more empowering to list “Miranda Delgado” on their credits rather than “Girl in Crowd.” (For all anyone knows, Miranda may have been the lynchpin of the entire production. Girl in Crowd? Not so much.)

In the spirit of making all the bit players in a plot feel “seen,” authors often go to great lengths to supply full names, exhaustive descriptions and detailed backstory for each of them. The portly doorman who is thrice divorced and a closet drinker. The freckle-faced lesbian barista who’s from Parma, Ohio. The balding DMV clerk who has a pet mouse named Roland.

If these people are seen but once in the course of 300 pages and never referenced thereafter, why do we need to know so much about them? The truth is that we really don’t. When readers tuck into a new book—a murder mystery, for instance—they are trusting that the person who wrote it is supplying them with vital information they will need to retain for later in order to understand context, recognize discrepancies and interpret clues to solve the crime. Every time someone new is introduced, they automatically think, “Oh, this is a detail I need to remember.” Unless it’s your intention to over-stuff their brains with superfluous clutter, it’s best to err on the side of remembering that minor characters don’t need major spotlights.

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Former actress and theatre director Christina Hamlett is the author of 54 books, 281 stage plays and squillions of articles and blogs. Learn more at www.authorhamlett.com.

Is there a cozy mystery in your future? Whether your goal is to write standalones or a series, learn the ropes in the four-week online “Let’s Get Cozy” class I offer through Wow! Women on Writing. Unlike a regular chat room or Zoom course, students work at their own pace, receive personal critiques on homework assignments and can even avail themselves of do-overs if they feel they need extra practice mastering the concepts of the cosy genre. New classes start the first Monday of every month. Find out more HERE

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