by Donald Maass
As you can see, it can be quite effective to withhold backstory. Think about doing so in your current novel. You will not want to. That backstory stuff in the first few chapters feels awfully necessary. But it is not. It may be more useful later in the story. If when you get there you find you don't need it after all, then maybe you didn't need it in the first place.
_EXERCISE
Delaying Backstory
Step 1: In the first fifty pages of your novel, find any scene that establishes the setting, brings the players to the stage, sets up the situation, or that is otherwise backstory.
Step 2: Put brackets around this material, or highlight it in your electronic file.
Step 3: Cut and paste this material into chapter fifteen. Yes, chapter fifteen.
Follow-up work: Now, look at chapter fifteen. Does the backstory belong here? If not, can it be cut outright? If that is not possible, where is the best place for it to reside after the midpoint of your novel?
Conclusion: Backstory is less important than most novelists think. If you must include it at all, place it so that it answers a long-standing question, illuminating some side of a character rather than just setting it up.
Low Tension Part III: Tension on Every Page
Okay, I warned you in my introduction, and here it is: the exercise and follow-up work that everyone knows is necessary, but that no one wants to do. It is a heck of a lot of work. Tension on every page is the secret of great storytelling. Everyone knows that. Practically no one does it.
Do you think you are the exception? Of course you do. Do you want to take that risk that you are wrong? That's a tougher call, isn't it? There's just a shred of doubt in your mind. Could there be just a wee bit more tension in my manuscript?
Count on it. There could be much more. Let's see how some breakout novelists get through material that trips up many others.
How interesting is it to hear two people passing the time of day? Usually, not very. Why is it, then, that so much dialogue in manuscripts is of the how-are-you-would-you-like-a-cup-of-coffee variety? Mere talk does not keep us glued to the page. Disagreement does. Friction in dialogue arrests our attention. It begs the unspoken question: Will these people be able to resolve their differences? We slow down and read the next line to find out.
Mystery writer Harlan Coben knows that empty dialogue cannot satisfy. Even when two characters are allies, he sets them against each other, albeit sometimes in friendly fashion. Toward the beginning of Gone for Good, Coben's protagonist, Will Klein, goes to his job as a senior director and runaway counselor at New York's Covenant House. There we are introduced to one of the shelter's street workers, a part-time yoga instructor, Squares, so nicknamed for the geometric tattoo on his forehead.
Will and Squares are fast friends, but you might doubt that as Will thanks Squares for bringing flowers to Will's mother's recent, and lightly attended, funeral:
"Thanks for sending the flowers," I said.
Squares didn't reply.
"And for showing up," I added. He had brought a group of Covenant House friends in the van. They'd pretty much made up the entire nonfamily funeral brigade.
"Sunny was great people," he said.
"Yeah."
A moment of silence. Then Squares said, "But what a shitty turnout."
"Thanks for pointing that out."
"I mean, Jesus, how many people were there?"
"You're quite the comfort, Squares. Thanks, man."
"You want comfort? Know this: People are assholes."
"Let me get a pen and write that down."
Silence. Squares stopped for a red light and sneaked a glance at me. His eyes were red. He unrolled the cigarette pack from his sleeve. "You want to tell me what's wrong?"
"Uh, well, see, the other day? My mother died."
"Fine," he said, "don't tell me."
The light turned green. The van started up again. The image of my brother in that photograph flashed across my eyes. "Squares?"
"I'm listening."
"I think," I said, "that my brother is still alive."
A less experienced novelist would strive to show the warmth and support between these two friends. Coben knows that tension all the time is more important, and so shows us their friction, letting the friendship under the surface show through.
Janet Evanovich is another mystery writer who understands the importance of tension on every page. In fact, it is her mastery of constant conflict that allows her in One for the Money, the debut of her popular series heroine Stephanie Plum, to go against the principle I was pushing in the previous chapter and to open her novel with a lump of backstory.
How does she do it? The backstory concerns the childhood of Stephanie Plum and in particular her seduction (twice) by neighborhood bad boy Joe Morelli. In itself this is not particularly interesting—we all have childhood stories to tell—nor can this piece of backstory be wholly carried off by Stephanie's wickedly ironic first-person narration, either. But look closely, and you will see that Evanovich cleverly sets up conflict in these passages.
Take, for example, the first time Joe seduces Stephanie, wKen she is six. As I mentioned earlier, he lures her (willingly) into a garage to teach her a dirty game called "choo-choo." Evanovich does not simply relate the incident; instead, she precedes it with a stern, if vague, warning by Stephanie's mother:
When I was a kid I didn't ordinarily play with Joseph Morelli. He lived two blocks over and was two years older. "Stay away
from those Morelli boys," my mother had warned me. "They're wild. I hear stories about the things they do to girls when they get them alone."
"What kind of things?" I'd eagerly asked.
"You don't want to know," my mother had answered. "Terrible things. Things that aren't nice."
From that moment on, I viewed Joseph Morelli with a combination of terror and prurient curiosity that bordered on awe.
Did you notice the key words in the passage above? Stephanie didn't just ask her mother for more information about Morelli's rumored bad behavior— she "eagerly asked." When the exact nature of the bad behavior is left unspoken, Stephanie regards Morelli with a "prurient curiosity" that is, to say the least, a bit unusual for a six-year-old. Thus, Evanovich quickly uses what might have been an ordinary scene to set up tension: For good reasons Stephanie's mother wants her to keep her away from Joe Morelli, yet Stephanie is dying of curiosity about him. What will happen? Who will win out, Stephanie or her mom—or Joe Morelli?
Those questions now underlie this piece of backstory, and we eagerly read the next few paragraphs to see how things turn out. Evanovich then immediately uses the same technique in setting up the second seduction of Stephanie by Joe, this time behind a display case filled with eclairs at Tasty Pastry, the bakery where sixteen-year-old Stephanie works after school. Again, Stephanie is warned in advance:
My best friend, Mary Lou Molnar, said she heard Morelli had a tongue like a lizard.
"Holy cow," I'd answered, "what's that supposed to mean?"
"Just don't let him get you alone or you'll find out. Once he gets you alone . . . that's it. You're done for."
I hadn't seen much of Morelli since the train episode. I supposed he'd enlarged his repertoire of sexual exploitation. I opened my eyes wide and leaned closer to Mary Lou, hoping for the worst. "You aren't talking about rape, are you?"
"I'm talking about lust! If he wants you, you're doomed. The guy is irresistible."
Will Stephanie escape Joe's clutches? Does she even want to? The tension inherent in the unspoken questions that Evanovich now has planted in the reader's mind makes the next couple of paragraphs impossible not to read. When is Stephanie going to encounter Joe next? What will happen when she does?
In any novel, it is difficult to avoid slack moments when nothing overtly is happening. Such a moment occurs early in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, which I discussed earlier. Twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis is bent on capturing a fairy. With his obedient butler
, Butler, he has staked out an ancient oak tree by a river bend where he is certain he eventually will observe, and
snare, a fairy come to renew its magic under a full moon. But this takes time. Four months pass with Artemis and Butler crouched in a sort of high-tech duck blind:
It was always the same. They would crouch in their foil-lined blind in complete silence, Butler repeatedly checking his equipment, while Artemis stared unblinking through the eye of the scope. At times like these, nature seemed deafening in their confined space. Butler longed to whistle, to make conversation, anything to break the unnatural silence. But Artemis's concentration was absolute. He would brook on interference or lapse of focus. This was business.
Notice how Colfer introduces tension into a paragraph in which nothing at all is happening; indeed, which portrays inaction. Silence must be maintained during the fairy watch, yet Butler longs to make noise. If he does his employer will be displeased. Nothing happening? Dig deeper. There is plenty of tension to be mined in a slack narrative moment.
Dialogue, backstory, slack moments—these are just three of many low-tension danger spots that breakout novelists make can riveting. It's so simple, really, and yet so many manuscripts that arrive at my office go right back to their authors in their self-addressed stamped envelopes. Why? The number one reason is insufficient tension. Believe it: Tension on every page works. Low tension does not. Make it your mantra.
____EXERCISE
Adding Tension to Every Page
Step 1: Turn to any page in your manuscript at random. Put your finger on any line at random.
Step 2: Find a way to add tension at this moment. If there is already tension, skip to the next line, and heighten the tension there.
Follow-up work 1: Pick another page at random, then pick another line. Heighten the tension at this point.
Follow-up work 2: Pick at random a third page and a third line. Heighten the tension at this point, too.
Follow-up work 3: Go through all the pages of your novel in random order and raise the tension on each one.
Conclusion: Go back to your favorite novels. Read them with an eye for tension. You will find that your favorite novelists always—always—have tension on the page. Tension, in some form or another, on every page is the secret of great storytelling.
First Lines/Last Lines
No doubt about it, a great first line pulls us immediately into a story. It hooks. It intrigues. It opens a world in which things already are happening, in which discoveries await. Or it can. Sadly, many first lines lie flat on the page doing nothing helpful at all, merely setting a scene or in some other way getting ready for story rather than telling it. Weak first lines greet us like a limp handshake.
What makes first lines effective? Let's try out a few. Listed below are some first lines from recent novels, followed by a rating scale. Read each one and then rate (five being the best) how interested you are in reading the line in the novel that will follow it.
1. I searched for sleep curled up in my quilt—the one made for me at my birth by my paternal grandmother's own hands.
1 2 3 4 5
2. If half of all marriages end in divorce, how long does the average marriage last?
1 2 3 4 5
3. Mike always teased me about my memory, about how I could go back years and years to what people were wearing on a given occasion, right down to their jewelry or shoes.
1 2 3 4 5
4. When my father finally died, he left the Redskins tickets to my brother, the house on Shepard Street to my sister, and the house on the Vineyard to me.
1 2 3 4 5
5. When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her.
1 2 3 4 5
6. Upon waking this cold, gray morning from a troubled sleep, I realized for the hundredth time, but this time with deep conviction, that my words and behavior towards you were disrespectful, and rude and selfish as well.
1 2 3 4 5
7. Tal stretched out his hand and pulled himself up onto the next out-thrust spike of the Tower.
1 2 3 4 5
8. I was never so frightened as I am now.
1 2 3 4 5
9. Watch your step.
1 2 3 4 5
10. In the fleeting seconds of final memory, the image that will become Burma is the sun and a woman's parasol.
1 2 3 4 5
11. Through my binoculars, I could see this nice forty-something-foot cabin cruiser anchored a few hundred yards offshore.
1 2 3 4 5
12. He plunked two ice cubes into the glass and submerged them with Johnny Walker Black.
1 2 3 4 5
1. Sullivan's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank
2. The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney
3. The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer
4. The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen J. Carter
5. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
6. Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
7. The Seventh Tower: The Fall by Garth Nix
8. Affinity by Sarah Waters
9. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
10. The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
11. Plum Island by Nelson DeMille
12. Jitter Joint by Howard Swindle
Which of these first lines worked for you, which didn't, and why? All are taken from successful novels, some huge best sellers, and yet not all of them lead to the next line as effectively as others.
All, however, have their points. Some speak in a narrative voice that engages, talking to us directly as if we are already listening (1, 3, 6). Others have buried in them a little question that is begging to be answered, that makes us wonder, What does that mean? (2, 4, 10) Others present a physical situation that is in some way vivid or arresting (5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).
Notice that none but one (12) tries to set a mood with flat description. Mood setting is a weak way to go, though this opening to Jitter Joint makes sense once you realize that the protagonist is an alcoholic and the plot concerns a murder in a rehab clinic.
However you rated the effectiveness of the first lines cited, each in some way leads us into the world of the novel. Each has a little mystery or intrigue that makes us want to know more. For instance, in The Emperor of Ocean Park (4), why did Talcott Garland's father carve up his estate in that particular way? Was the division fair? Does Garland think so?
In that simple but striking opening to Affinity (8), what is Margaret Prior afraid of? When soprano Roxanne Coss is kissed by her accompanist in the opening moment of Bel Canto (5), what happens next? Is the kiss welcome? Even a detail that is a bit out of the ordinary, such as the spikes "out-thrust" from the Red Tower in The Seventh Tower: The Fall (7), can set us wondering why this place is different.
There are many ways to describe this effect, but I call it the intrigue factor. It is the element that makes us wonder—"What does that mean?" or "What happens next?"—and therefore leads us to the next line where we may find the answer.
All this happens so fast that we are unaware of it. In the few seconds it takes to read an opening line, our subconscious minds already are racing ahead. Without us being aware of it, our eyes jump eagerly to the second line. Will that line tell us what we need to know? If not, maybe the third line will.
And so it goes. We are hooked.
Just as surely as an intriguing first line can draw readers into a novel, a stunning exit sentence can propel a reader onward in wonder—wondering, perhaps, when your next novel will be out.
Earlier I discussed the sixth book in Laurel K. Hamilton's series about vampire hunter Anita Blake, Blue Moon. Anita, a committed Christian, is deeply unsettled about her work, especially the increasing ease with which she kills. In Blue Moon she breaks her own boundaries in still more ways, including sexually and magically. When she finally has rescued the world from the demon that is behind the evil in small town Myerton, Tennessee, Anita absents herself from her home city, St. Louis, for a time to reflect on the changes she has
undergone and the remorse she feels.
The last paragraph of Blue Moon sums up the irresolvable difference between what Anita Blake is and what she would like to be:
I faced a demon with my faith and prayer. Does that mean God has forgiven me my sins? I don't know. If He has forgiven me, He's more generous than I am.
Do you see the point, here? Anita's story is not over. There is unfinished business, even if it is only the business of forgiving herself. Hamilton's last line opens doors rather than closing them. I, for one, will be reading the next novel in the series to find out what happens next. So, I suspect, will many others.
This same forward-looking quality can be found in the last lines of Kris Nelscott's Edgar Award-nominated first mystery novel, A Dangerous Road, the story of a black Beale Street detective, Smokey Dalton. The novel is set in Memphis in February, 1968, the time of a sanitation workers' strike, riots, and the assassination of Smokey's childhood friend Martin Luther King Jr. As the Civil Rights movement marches toward a bloody turning point, Smokey is hired by an alluring white woman from up North, Laura Hathaway, who hires him to investigate a puzzling question: Why has her mother generously remembered Smokey himself in her will?
Smokey's investigation leads him down a dangerous road indeed, to an explanation of how he and Laura are linked and the reason why his parents were lynched. The novel ends with Smokey on the run with a little boy, Jimmy, who saw King's assassination and can identify the man who shot the civil rights leader (and it is definitely not James Earl Ray).
Smokey's world has been torn apart by his love affair with Laura, the secrets he has uncovered and the death of his friend. Jimmy represents truth, innocence, witness to the past, and hope for the future. Smokey is determined to safeguard him, to find a place to make a new start. In the novel's closing paragraphs, Nelscott leaves Smokey grapping with the changes that have overcome him—and America—as he and Jimmy run:
