Refine background stories, maintain narrative tension
Telling a character's backstory can effectively reveal their motivations and mindset. However, the key lies in how skillfully it's integrated, deepening the character without letting the narrative get bogged down in excessive exposition. The following techniques will help you balance depth and flow.
The 5 w’s of story – where, what, why, who and when – can all change to create variety and interest. None of these elements must change. The characters in your novel or your setting could remain fairly constant. Yet change opens up possibilities for new developments and intriguing new scenarios. These keep your novel exciting and interesting. To avoid your story stagnating in a single location, shift somewhere new – another town or country, from the city to the countryside or vice versa. Make sure any change of setting makes sense in relation to the story.
Backstory too long? Cut it decisively to optimize the reading experience
This article kicks off a series on creating backstories. More practical tips will be shared later. Feel free to suggest topics you're interested in the comments section.
Match Focus Express
It’s great that you share these tips with young and aspiring writers. Even though they may not be writing novels, I believe it will be very useful for them to learn something new from a really skilled writer like you. I’d be glad to hear some recommendations on how a writer can develop the plot without cutting down chapters (I often see it in the books of young writers). Anyway, thank you for this post, it is very informative!
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I strongly agree with the point about conciseness, and I'm also looking forward to an in-depth discussion on how to develop relationships between protagonists, which would be very appealing.