LAYERING IN BACKSTORY
“The first draft of my second novel, Common Murder, began with five beautifully crafted chapters of backstory for my protagonist. When I sent it off to my agent, she said, ‘Lose the first five chapters. They’re lovely, but they don’t tell the story. Everything you’ve told us here can be fed in as and when we need to know it.’”
That anecdote comes from bestselling crime writer Val McDermid, and it has a valuable lesson. Creating a back-story for your characters is critical to any novel you write regardless of genre, but it’s especially helpful in mysteries. In order for backstory to be effective, it must be layered and well-integrated with keen attention paid to when readers need to know specific information about your characters.
Suppose you’re writing a novel that starts with a brutal rape and murder. In the opening scene, medical examiner Renata Ruiz examines the body. The reader doesn’t know that Renata grew up poor on a farm in central California, put herself through college, modeled for to make ends meet and, most importantly, was the victim of a brutal rapist who also raped and murdered her best friend. You want to convey all these aspects of the backstory because, by
