{"id":8630,"date":"2020-11-05T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8630"},"modified":"2020-11-04T18:36:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T23:36:13","slug":"where-writers-ideas-come-from-slivers-of-backstory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8630","title":{"rendered":"Where Writers\u2019 Ideas Come From: Slivers of Backstory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Authors are constantly admonished not to dwell in backstory\u2014especially early in a book or at the introduction of each new character\u2014yet there are aspects of a character\u2019s prior experiences that writers want readers to know. Unless you start your book at the very beginning of a character\u2019s life, like David Copperfield<\/em>\u2019s \u201cI Am Born,\u201d there are relationships and episodes you need to review in order help readers understand who the character is in the today of the novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since my character, Archer Landis, is in his early sixties in 2011, he was in his mid-twenties as the Vietnam War was ending (I have done this arithmetic about a hundred times, convinced I have it wrong!). The war, the draft, the demonstration would have been very much top-of-mind to him at a crucial and formative stage of life, with indelible impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than take a deep dive into his war experiences\u2014like Michael Connolly did so well in his first Harry Bosch story, The Black Echo<\/em>, which was so immersive that when the story returned to the present day, I was briefly discombobulated\u2014I doled out Landis\u2019s war memories in small bites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He briefly returns to his Vietnam experiences at three points in the novel. I hadn\u2019t realized it as I wrote, but looking back, in each case, they come to his mind at times he is very much in peril. It must be the intensity of the hazard that resurrects them. For example, late one afternoon, Landis is standing in front of a window in his office, and someone shoots at him from across the street. He reflexively dives to the floor. No standing there, thinking, \u201cWhat? Where did that come from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some chapters later, anticipating a possible violent confrontation, he hearkens back to his Vietnam experiences and the way the Viet Cong would enter hostile territory and contrasts that with his options in the situation he finds himself in. It causes him to reflect on the kind of person he has become. I\u2019m not telling a war story; I\u2019m showing who he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many pages later, when an attack on him and a well-armed colleague is expected\u2014this is now forty years after Vietnam\u2014he asks whether he should have a gun too.
\u201cYou done much shooting?\u201d his colleague asks.
\u201cNot since Vietnam.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s your answer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These snippets are reminders that Landis engaged in the issues of his day and was a part of them. They help me\u2014and the reader too, I hope\u2014see him as a fully rounded person who has a past, but is not dominated by it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For how to think about this aspect of his past, I relied on Karl Marlantes\u2019s fine novel, Matterhorn<\/a>. Marlantes is a Yale alumnus, was a Rhodes Scholar, and served as a Marine in Vietnam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authors are constantly admonished not to dwell in backstory\u2014especially early in a book or at the introduction of each new character\u2014yet there are aspects of a character\u2019s prior experiences that writers want readers to know. Unless you start your book … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Where Writers\u2019 Ideas Come From: Slivers of Backstory - Sometimes, instead of making a giant meal of backstory, you can parcel out the essentials in manageable bites.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,61,40,174,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-character","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2fc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8633,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8630\/revisions\/8633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}