{"id":3995,"date":"2016-08-26T08:18:22","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T12:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skelleyverse.com\/?p=3995"},"modified":"2016-08-25T22:35:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T02:35:11","slug":"where-it-all-came-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/where-it-all-came-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Where It All Came From"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-41\" src=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/r-avatar-e1443983880436.png\" alt=\"r-avatar\" width=\"81\" height=\"81\" \/>Backstory is a fraught topic for writers. Without getting into the debate about how much, if any, belongs in your finished product, we can say definitively that it serves a crucial purpose in our writing process.<\/p>\n<p>The outline for Son of Science Novel is complete. This sequel introduces many new cast members, whose lives have been complicated since well before they intersected with our story. There&#8217;s a lot to know about them, so we are formally outlining the backstory, giving it the same kind of development attention as the &#8220;proper&#8221; narrative. Not only is it beneficial in getting to know these new people, but it also serves\u00a0a debugging function, keeping us from basing story events on flawed reasoning. It&#8217;s alarmingly easy to overlook gaps and contradictions when you view things from 30,000 feet. A lower-altitude pass is essential.<\/p>\n<p>Another place where backstory has been tremendously important is in the music novel. The protagonist&#8217;s outlook on life, and the experiences that shaped it, can&#8217;t be sketched in. A sketch would\u00a0rely on the reader&#8217;s preconceptions to fill it in, and that would make it misleading. None of our readers has\u00a0said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t need to know this.&#8221; Which raises the philosophical question of whether it really constitutes backstory. But to us, there&#8217;s no question at all. It&#8217;s pertinent, interesting, and unexpected, which places it within the scope of the narrative regardless of its chronology.<\/p>\n<p>Working with a partner gives you a great resource for gut-checking things like how much backstory is needed. And, someone to listen when you do your thinking out loud, to catch the inconsistencies before they undermine your plot structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Backstory is a fraught topic for writers. Without getting into the debate about how much, if any, belongs in your finished product, we can say definitively that it serves a crucial purpose in our writing process. The outline for Son of Science Novel is complete. This sequel introduces many new cast members, whose lives have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[324,323],"tags":[289,418],"class_list":["post-3995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brainstorming-inspiration","category-plotting-outlines","tag-music-novel","tag-son-of-science-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3996,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3995\/revisions\/3996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}