2 K.M. Weiland on Unveiling Backstory

K. M. Weiland, author of Behold the Dawn and A Man Called Outlaw, does a great job of keeping the reader turning pages. Her latest video post on How to Tell If Your Backstory Is Boring uses The Three Musketeers to illustrate how to incorporate backstory into your novel seemlessly. The Three Musketeers happens to be one of my favorite books, and Dumas does backstory beautifully, so I think it is a brilliant example.

View the video at: http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-to-tell-if-your-backstory-is-boring.html

I like to think of the process of cutting backstory as maintaining urgency. If my backstory interferes with the reader's need to know what happens next, I have to cut it. And I know and angst about every single spot in my work where I have to incorporate backstory and can't do so in the midst of conflict. Seeing the video this morning inspired me to go back and revisit a couple of scenes. My thought for the day: backstory creeps on sneaky feet.

Happy writing,

Martina