You’ve probably seen the same thing, maybe in your own writing. You might not be certain what’s wrong or know how to fix the problem, but if your story has all the proper elements and should be strong but isn’t engaging—for you or your readers—maybe you’re keeping readers at a distance. Maybe you’re using filters that hold emotion and the impact of a scene away from the reader. Maybe you’ve created a separation, an extra step, between action/event/emotion and the reader.

Do any of the following phrasings sound familiar?

Jen turned toward the window. She heard a sound, a footstep, crunching the gravel outside. She figured she should hide, so she dropped behind the couch.

——–

As soon as he entered the foyer, he saw a body swinging in the entryway. He also saw the rifle against the wall. He heard the gentle tinkle of the chandelier.

——–

I felt the wood under my fingers, rough and brittle.

——–

I heard a cracking sound before I felt the room shake violently.

Reporting what a character sees, hears, feels, and watches can keep readers at a distance. These words can serve as filters to lessen the impact of the action or the emotion. Instead of encouraging the character and the reader to experience the elements of a scene, filters mute the power of those elements. The impact is weakened when it should be heightened. The reader is pushed away rather than pulled close.

A comparison—

Jen turned toward the window. A footstep crunched the gravel outside, only two feet away. She dropped behind the couch.

——–

He rushed into the foyer. A body hanging from the chandelier twisted with a gentle tinkle. A rifle, the rifle, lay against the wall.

——–

Rough wood broke under my fingers, brittle and dry.

——–

A thundering crack preceded the room’s violent shaking.

These are simple sentences, true. With simple changes. Yet the simplest changes can make a big difference to a piece of fiction. The effect of again and again reporting what a character experiences adds up over the course of a scene, a chapter, and a story. It adds up to distance. Can you imagine how a story would read if Jen always told us what she was doing rather than inviting us to experience those events with her?

Not all fixes for the problems in your story will be tough ones. Sometimes the answer is as simple as a word choice.

Let action unfold without a report. Let emotion be experienced, not noted.

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Are there times when reporting an action and using these filtering words would work for the story? Of course. A blindfolded character might note what he could hear as he was driven away from his home. A woman might say that she tasted the chocolate in her coffee if she hadn’t expected the flavor. Another character might report that she could actually see a ghost, surprised by the sight. 

When the sensing is more important than what is sensed, reporting that a character sees, hears, or feels something works well. When the event or emotion is—or should be—the focus, then you don’t want to diffuse the moment with words that report.

Help readers experience the events of your story by inviting readers into the action. Let them see, touch, hear, and imagine at the same time the characters do, not a step or two behind them.

Don’t let characters get between action and reader unless you’re creating distance for a purpose.

And definitely don’t push readers away from emotions, either the characters’ or their own.

Stir emotions and then push forward without pulling back again to make note of those emotions. That is, let the emotions stand on their own. Don’t point out they are emotions and that both the character and reader should now feel something.

Which would you rather read, especially if the style was consistent throughout a novel?

Jen trembled. She knew she should run, but she felt the fear lock her feet to the floor.

OR

Jen trembled. Fear locked her feet to the floor.

The emotional impact is usually far stronger without commentary from writer and/or character. 

Trust yourself. If you’ve written an emotion-inducing moment or scene, let the emotion play out without resorting to a play-by-play of what led to that emotion or what the reader should be feeling.

Get to the point. Rather than tell the reader about something, show that something. Let readers feel, not only hear about an event or emotion.

My suggestion here is to be mindful of the words you use to describe an event. Think close rather than distant, direct rather than filtered. Do a word search for felt, thought, saw, watched, heard, tasted, smelled, and knew. These tend to be the words used most often as filters and to create distance.

These are not necessarily wrong words and they’re not always overused, so don’t think you have to cut each one. But do check to see how many times you use each. See how many additional filter words you use in the same passage or scene. If there are too many, if the effect is distancing for the reader—if readers don’t engage with your characters or story events—consider changing your words.

Unless distance is required, rewrite sentences to draw readers close. Allow readers to experience actions and emotions as if they were present in the scene, not reading a police report or diary or even a character’s thoughts.

Keep readers close and interested.

Keep the words interesting for them.

Write engaging fiction.

***

If the desire is strong enough and I’m thwarted—especially by someone I don’t want to be bested by—I’ll work even harder to achieve my goal.

If I’m eight years old, I may pull a cone out of the freezer and eat it even if my mother tells me it’s too close to dinner or if my sister tells me the last cone is hers.

I may want one so badly that I steal one. Not a whole box, because of course that would be appalling. But I might sneak one out of the case at the convenience store. Which will get me into trouble and still not see me satisfied if my mother or the store manager catches me before I can eat the cone.

My goal may be all-encompassing, may have me ignoring rules or laws. I may steal from money from my mother’s purse to buy from the ice cream vendor who trolls the neighborhood.

My goals may push me beyond accepted and acceptable behavior.

My goals may be so strong that I hurt myself and my reputation in order to pursue them.

Or, at the other extreme, my goals may not stand up to any pressure and I may give up at the slightest challenge or roadblock.

Goals and desires can be of different strengths and thus produce different behaviors.

_______________________

Characters need goals.

Character goals drive a novel. Novels without character goals go nowhere. Or they go everywhere but nowhere special, prove to be aimless and without direction.

Novels without character goals have little meaningful purpose.

Stories without character goals have an incomplete structure.

Okay, I’ve made several claims here. Just what am I talking about?

Characters, particularly the protagonist and antagonist, have specific aims at the story’s start. They want something or they want something to happen or they want something not to happen. Maybe they want to be left alone, want to just finish their day’s work and not be bothered by anyone. Maybe they want to hide from the world, from a friend, from an enemy.

But once a story begins, both your protagonist and antagonist have their lives interrupted by others or by events beyond their control. They’re pulled into a mission or quest or an adventure they hadn’t planned for.

And now their goals have changed. Maybe a man still wants to be left alone to grieve but suddenly finds he must first save a friend’s daughter from the same man who murdered his wife.

Maybe a young woman must scour the universe for the man she thinks is her father.

Maybe a retired spy must save the planet from an enemy he knows inside and out, one no one else has ever been able to find or identify or capture. Maybe he has only five days before his nemesis secures the feisty but unwilling scientist who can complete his nefarious plan and put it into motion.

Your protagonist now has new goals, goals that push and pull him through your story, that logically get him from scene to scene and meeting characters who either help or hinder him.

He has goals that drive him, that allow him no respite because someone’s going to die if he doesn’t achieve them. Or someone’s going to hate him forever. Or someone will be disappointed. Or he’ll be disappointed in himself.

Or he’ll let somebody down.

Goals are objectives or maybe aspirations. They are a place a character has to reach for or get to, a task he has to complete, a monster he has to conquer, an enemy he must vanquish.

Goals may be based on a promise or be the result of a bet. They be may lofty or earthy.

There may be much more to the pursuit of them than a character could ever imagine.

_______________________

Goals come in varieties and levels.

Your main character could have that ice cream goal, a save-the-world goal, or a private-self goal.

The first, securing an ice cream cone for himself, or even for his daughter, would be way too thin to power a novel. Getting an ice cream cone is fairly easy for almost all of us. The pursuit of it wouldn’t involve too much effort or planning or angst.

Easy goals or short-term goals might come into play for a scene or for several chapters, but characters need potent long-term goals to get them through everything you plan to throw at them over the course of your story. The short-term goals are important to move a story from scene to scene, but I want to focus on long-term goals in this article.

There’s the second kind of goal, that of saving the world. This type of goal would be sufficient to see you through a genre novel. Your MC might literally save the world—from aliens or world destruction or Mr. Evil’s great-grandson. Or your MC could solve the crime, discover the murderer, prevent a murder.

Of course, not all save-the-world goals are literally about saving the world. This is an example of an external goal that a character reaches for outside himself.

The third type of goal—protect the self—would be enough for a literary novel. To go after this type of goal, your MC might have to discover who he is. Or he might already know who he is and instead try to hide his nature from others, so they don’t discover who he is. He may try to protect the status quo and not rock the boat. Or, perhaps your MC is a boat-rocker and she’s determined to shake up her family in an effort to discover who she is and where she came from.

This protecting-the self is an internal goal and is often much more personal than the external kind.

Both saving-the-world and protecting-the-self goals can produce powerful stories and riveting characters. But can you imagine the story you’d create if you gave your lead character powerful external and internal goals? You could drive him relentlessly, playing the goals off each other so he has no choice but to succeed, no option to turn back. He can only go forward because to quit would shame him before the world (the literal world or his own world of friends and family and co-workers) or shame him in his own eyes. His failure might result in the destruction of that world.

A story with competing or complementary character goals would make for a powerfully compelling and engrossing novel.

A story that taps into a man’s fears for society and into his fear for himself will have a strong hold on readers.

So . . .

What does your protagonist (and/or your antagonist) want?

Societal or external goals: save the world, save the princess, recover the national treasure, discover a new world where mankind can make a fresh start, destroy the enemy, uncover the plot, recover the President, diffuse the bomb, neutralize the pathogen, identify the murderer, get a wife back, graduate from college, complete a masterpiece.

Personal or internal goals: prove himself, to not be found wanting, be a success, be the best concert violinist (ball player, father, whatever). persevere, show himself a better man than his father (or better than his father’s predictions), succeed or die trying, make it one more day, not kill himself, do it alone, ask for help, show himself a friend, love unconditionally, love for the first time.

There are many, many options for your character’s goals. But something should drive him. Something should keep him pushing forward when everything and everyone is pushing back, standing against him, discouraging him. Killing him either literally or figuratively.

Goals keep characters on task when they’d otherwise gather up their toys and go home. Or go hide in a cave. Or flip the world the finger and tell it they’re not going to put up with the garbage any more.

More about the goals—

Societal or external goals may be stated bluntly—Paul Booker’s got 72 hours to stop Dr. Badman from releasing his toxin. His only problem is that he’s no James Bond and therefore he has no national agency supporting him, no cool gadgets to aid him, and no experience in chasing crazed madmen across Europe.

A private or internal goal may not be as obvious and only reluctantly revealed through dialogue or backstory or action. Many people don’t like to reveal their weaknesses, not even to themselves, and may have a hard time admitting their primary goal every morning is simply getting out of bed or facing the job one more day. Maybe we see a character who drinks himself to sleep every night and who only slowly reveals that he does so because he doesn’t want to dream anymore of the fire that took his family four years earlier.

While an external goal might raise a few eyebrows, an internal goal may be belittled, even by the protagonist’s allies. Maybe especially by his allies.

It may be used against him by the antagonist as a means to prevent the protagonist from achieving his societal goal. It may be used as a distraction, as a weakness.

This internal goal may be stronger and more deeply entrenched than the societal goal. It, this internal ambition, may be all that sees a hero through when victory seems hopeless, when failure seems assured.

Pursuing either goal could get the protagonist into deeper trouble or pull him out of a difficult situation.

_______________________

All characters have goals—it’s the goals of the protagonist, the antagonist, and major secondary characters that fuel your fiction.

If characters don’t have a reason—a strong enough reason—to keep moving forward, they won’t. They’ll stop. It’s your job to give them strong goals—internal and external—and make those goals known to the reader. Hiding character goals from readers would have the same result as a character having no goals—there would be no believable reason for a character to push beyond the first challenge. And when characters have no believable reasons for their actions, readers tend to doubt their common sense or the storyteller’s skills.

Goals make a character’s actions seem inevitable. Reasonable. Justifiable.

They give purpose to character action.

They are necessary to see characters through the mess you’ve created for them.

Stories need characters with compelling goals. Readers need them.

Characters and goals go hand in hand in fiction.

And you have the task of making certain character goals are sufficient for you fiction adventures.

*******

Character goals are not the same as the writer’s goals.

Your character wants to make it through the bar fight alive. You want to create tension and show your character’s fear of dying as well as show off his karate skills. He wants to save the world. You want to entertain the reader.

Give your characters something to strive for, to reach toward, to desire. Give them a reason to go on.

Give them worthy goals.

And give your readers a story to remember.

***

While we’re writing, we tend to live in our fiction. We know the setting—we can hear, taste, and smell our worlds. We know who might come sauntering down a lane. We see the sunsets, feel the biting wind, walk unbalanced on shifting sands.

But sometimes a writer’s got to step away from the fictional world and analyze it, study it objectively.

When it’s time to check your story—to make sure you’ve covered all the craft issues, make sure you’ve got a solid product—you’ve got to disconnect from the emotional ties that bind you to your story.

You may have lived with your characters for years, may know the layout of their villages and planets better than you know your own city, but at some point you need to go outside and look through the eyes of a stranger. An analytical stranger, one without connections to your fictional world. One without understanding of that world.

And then you’ve got to coldly study the world, examine it. See what it lacks.

As every municipality has weaknesses and sub-standard services, maybe even absent services, so too will your story world have weaknesses and be missing vital elements.

You may never have noticed these missing parts because you’ve spent all your time with a few select characters and their area of town is built up, complete, without lack.

But look across the tracks. What have you forgotten to build into your story world? What have you skimped on? What did you ignore, thinking you’d eventually get to later? What missing elements did you hope no one would notice were missing?

What is overly portrayed, so much so that it masks the lack in other areas?

Take the time—no sooner than after your first draft and maybe only after the second—and dispassionately look at your story world. Make an honest assessment. What’s missing? What did you skimp on? What’s noticeably thin? Barren? Never mentioned?

What should be there, maybe in a support role, that’s not there at all?

What do you spend too much time with? What’s mentioned so often that readers would be comfortable skipping over the next time it’s mentioned? What is overly explained, left without mystery?

Make a list or a spreadsheet and investigate your story world as a student of literature might. Point out setting details and characters and plot threads. Assign weights to the elements of your stories.

Weigh the page time of characters. Weigh the amount and heft of their dialogue. Does your protagonist get more page time than anyone else? What of your major antagonist? Have you neglected your antagonist, given his minions, especially that outlandishly ghoulish one, more attention than the character who’s supposed to be the main challenger to your lead character?

Do incidentals overwhelm? Are necessities given too little emphasis?

What of secondary characters? Has your lead’s best friend been relegated to not second place but to fifth or sixth in terms of plot duties?

Does anything worthwhile happen, or have you forced your characters to think for page upon page rather than act or feel or speak?

___________________________

Don’t allow yourself to make excuses—well, this happens like that now, but the pace picks up (or something exciting happens or a new character makes a major revelation) twenty-five pages after this.

If you wouldn’t put up with it, with a lack or an overabundance of some element in a book you read, don’t put up with it in a book you write.

No dozens of pages of recounting an event from the past. No dialogue that runs forever without action. No dialogue that runs forever without interruption. No story-halting recitations of explanations for behavior or events.

No author intrusion, not even those oh-so-cool details about quarks that fascinate you even now, two years after you read about them.

Look at your story as an outsider would, one with no attachment to your words, phrases, details, characters, or scenes.

Examine—not necessarily read—your manuscript with an eye toward missing elements, under-reported elements, and heavy-handed elements.

Rather than reading one more time and getting lost in plot or story world, lost in detail, narrow your eyes and look at the big picture. Are there puzzle pieces missing? You’re not putting the puzzle together at this point, so you don’t need to connect individual pieces. You do want to step back and see where the gaps are. Is there a big empty space at the center of your puzzle, with connected pieces both before and after but no connections between? Are some pieces richly detailed and others murky? Are some pieces nearly colorless or maybe nearly blank because you didn’t know what to put there?

How about the edges? Usually puzzle edges are easy to put together, but maybe your edges are what’s murky because you don’t know where you’re sending your characters, don’t know their ending scenes. So instead of a full puzzle, you’ve got a jumble, unfinished, with missing pieces, extra pieces, and non-matching pieces that you’ve shoved together. And you’re hoping no one notices the places where pieces are missing or incorrectly joined.

The truth is, they’ll notice.

So fix the problem areas.

Fix your puzzle. Make the pieces themselves clear and then make them clearly fit with what comes before and what comes after. Any place a plot thread or character or setting detail touches another element, ensure that the fit is tight. Leave no gaps, because readers will find them. And once readers are distracted from the fiction, it’s hard to get them to buy into a story a second time.

Think tight fit. Think interlocking. Think tabs fitting into grooves (or innies fitting into outties).

Pieces must not only fit tightly, they must actually form a picture that makes sense. So while several tabs might fit into one groove, you have to make sure the resulting picture is a true picture.

Yes, I’ve taken the analogies around and around a couple of times here. But the point is to look at your stories from outside rather than only from the inside. For first-time writers, being able to step back, to step outside the story, is often tough.

Sometimes it’s nearly impossible.

It helps if you can put your manuscript aside for a while. Don’t look at it. Don’t think about it. Don’t imagine what you could’ve, should’ve, written in that one scene.

Immerse yourself in another story world. Or in your real world. Shake off the emotions and thoughts about this one story. When you can think of it coolly, go back and examine it.

Again, we’re not talking about reading and enjoying each step of the unfolding plot. We’re talking about the big picture and the connections and the elements that make up stories.

Where is there too much of any one thing—too much detail or too many characters or too much emphasis?

Where is there too little?

Where is there overlap?  What of missing connections?

Where is connection forced, so that pieces sort of fit but don’t do so smoothly? Where have you manipulated a puzzle piece, some story element, so that other pieces are squished, pushed out of shape, so they no longer smoothly fit the pieces they were once connected to?

 ___________________________

I admit this is one of the most difficult tasks for some writers. It’s hard, hard, hard for some to look at their work dispassionately. Characters or story world have become so much a part of their lives that they don’t know how to separate themselves from that world. They may not want to. When you’ve invested years in a project, it bears your blood, your life, everything you gave up in order to spend time creating. Who wants to admit that after all that time, a story is still not perfect?

The writer who wants a better story admits it. So does the writer who knows that both identification with a story and separation from it will strengthen it. The writer who can lose himself in the depths of story as well as ruthlessly cut out fabulous scenes and remarkable characters because they ultimately don’t fit knows it as well.

I hope this is the kind of writer you are, one who can both get lost in your fiction—write from your heart—and set yourself apart from it—analyze and rewrite from the head. Both skills will serve your writing and your stories.

If this isn’t your natural approach, not one of your strengths, have faith; both skills can be learned and sharpened.

Both skills will give your readers more engrossing adventures.

Both skills should be eagerly pursued.

***

So . . .

My first suggestion is that you plan for your series in advance. If you know you’re going to write a series, you’ll include teases and clues in book one that will have their resolution in some other book in the series. If you don’t plan for a series, it’s likely book one will not be as rich a source for series material as it could be. Also, you might answer too many questions at the end of book one, leaving little to bleed over into subsequent books.

So, if you have any plans for writing a series, flesh out at least some of those plans before you begin the first book. Or, if while you’re writing that first book you decide the characters or setting or story line would make an engrossing series, stop writing that first book and make some notes.

What makes you think you’ve got a strong series? Is it that the story is too big for one book? Too involved for a single protagonist? Too encompassing for one character’s lifetime?

Start your notes and follow some to their conclusions. See if you do indeed have enough story to fill several books. If you do, start planning. No, you don’t need every detail, such as character names and every event. But make notes on what you do know. And start sketching out how characters and events and locations intersect and connect and influence one another.

Consider a talisman or other object(s) that will appear in every book. Consider a wise counselor who’ll be called upon in every story or an arch villain who’s not vanquished until the last climax. Consider a series theme that will unite the stories. Consider a series goal that will not be resolved until the final story is told.

Could you decide about a series after you finished the first story? Of course. But you’ve made your already difficult job much more difficult.

If you’ve not yet published the first story, you’re still in good shape because you can weave in the elements and events and clues and characters you’ll need for subsequent stories. But don’t imagine that it’s a simple matter of tossing in a character or a reference to some event. Those characters and events have to mean something for the current story as well as being a setup for future stories.

_______________________________

What specifics should you think about if you’re writing a series?

Decide if you’re writing a series based on a character, a fairly consistent one, who stars in every book. If so, learn something about that character. Realize that he or she will probably not grow a lot over the course of each book and maybe not much over the course of the series.

The recurring lead character is a draw because readers enjoy that character’s quirks and flaws and style. Readers will come to subsequent books because they want to see this character get in and out of jams. If you change him too much, you may lose your audience. That’s not to say that he can’t change. Just that readers will no doubt expect consistency.

Recurring characters are a staple of mysteries and some westerns.

If each story features a different lead, then you might have introduced all your series’s main protagonists in the first book or introduced each lead as a secondary character in the preceding book.

This introduction of the next protagonist as a secondary character is common in romance series.

Of course, maybe the emphasis is not on the introduction of a lead character but on the story world.

If your setting or fictional world is the connection between your stories, characters don’t necessarily have to appear in multiple books. You may be writing an epic or saga that spans ages and eras in your story world. What you’ll want to do in that case is let that setting, that world, be the connection. You may show what happens to a kingdom or planet over time. One set of characters may begin your epic; another set—perhaps related to the first, yet not necessarily so—may close out your epic. But even if the world itself is what connects the stories, add touches in one story that remind readers of the other stories.

Maybe it’s neither character nor setting that unites the stories in your series. Maybe it’s an event. Perhaps nuclear war or an alien invasion or a natural disaster destroys much of Earth. You could create individual stories in different pockets of the world for your series. No characters have to be the same, but there could be a meeting of characters in one or more of the stories. Or, a resolution could bring major characters together for the final story.

Other than the broad issue—character, event, setting/story world—that connects your books, what else should you consider?

Decide on connections.
If the story world is the same and books will share characters, be sure to introduce some (it wouldn’t have to be all) characters in the early books. Leave unexplained clues and mysteries in all books but the last. Do keep in mind, however, that each book must satisfy its own internal structure and its readers. That is, satisfy and at the same time tease the reader.

Teases can be as simple as an unexplained whisper or glance, the discovery of an object whose purpose is unknown, a promise unfulfilled.

Decide on the depths of the ties between stories.
Are stories only connected by place and time or by event or by a single character? Or are there lots of links? Many related events and characters? Do all characters move through all the books or is it only a few? And if there are only a few who do, what purposes do they serve?

Consider timelines.
Are stories concurrent or consecutive or is there some overlap? What has to happen when? Before what other events? To which characters? Who has to know about the events?

When events in one story have to happen at a specific time relative to events in another story, be aware of seasons and incidental events and the locations (and availability) of necessary characters.

You might want to plot out a timeline before writing the first story—determine who must be where and when. Don’t forget to include notations for scenes in which a character could not take part.

Consider high points and climaxes.
Will the climax of each story have a different flavor? What about the ultimate climax for the series? How are they related? Different? How do the early ones, the ones from each story, affect the high points and climax for the entire series?

Consider secondary characters.
Which secondary characters should be used in multiple stories? Can a character skip a story or two and be returned to the series?

Plant clues/explain clues.
Plant clues for future stories. Explain mysteries from earlier stories. Deepen mysteries across stories if you’re not ready to explain them until a later story. Make sure clues fit the story they’re in, even if they aren’t explained or explored. And if they’re not explored, make sure you’ve got a solid reason for that lack of exploration. Readers like mysteries; they don’t like big issues to go unexplained unless there are strong reasons characters can’t investigate.

Each story must be complete and stand alone.
Each book is not just one chapter in the series, though it could be likened to one.

Both chapters in a book and books in a series leave readers wanting more, with a sense of anticipation toward future events. Yet a chapter, while it may provide some answers, doesn’t provide all. There’s a definite feel of the unfinished with book chapters.

In a series, books still point to future events and a full series resolution, but each book also answers its own internal questions and story setup. You get to decide the number and depth of the ties to the other stories in the series, but you also must complete each book.

Satisfy your readers along the way so they know you can carry through with your setup. So they feel the completion of your stories.

Fulfill your promises.

Books in one series may have more ties between them than what is found in another series. There may be more unanswered questions in one series than in another. The books in one series might refer often to events of earlier books. The levels are up to you. But each novel is still a novel and subject to the rules of good fiction writing. That means a complete story.

Consider the end of the series. Decide if some event will end your series or if the series will be open-ended. Detective novels can be theoretically never-ending. Do you want to write until you run out of ideas for your characters or do you envision a stopping place? Your attitude and plans will influence the stories you write.

Creating Links.
Other than the sharing of characters, events, and story world, how can books in a series be connected?

Create related titles. This could mean a repeated word in each title. It might mean a different flower or color or make of car for each title. Titles may play on emotions or different verbs or even on the names of beers. Anything that can connect a series of stories can be used in the titles. Remember to consider a series title as well. That title may have more to do with the series setting or events or theme than the individual book titles will. The book titles themselves will probably be focused on the events in each particular story.

Begin or conclude unfinished business. Let story events leap between stories to pull characters and/or readers to the next book.

Maintain a similar tone or style. Use tone and storytelling style to link your books. Book Two shouldn’t be a lighthearted romp if Book One was murky suspense.

Connect or elaborate on themes. Each story may have an individual theme, but each should also fit into the whole. One story should not work at cross purposes with the others.

Think backstory. Rather than recapping events from earlier stories, treat that information as backstory and fold it in as you would any other backstory.

Tie stories together by using shared objects. This may mean a talisman is a help to the characters in each story. Or maybe it’s the object of the search in every book. Maybe the shared object is a mascot, a lovable or not so lovable creature or animal. Maybe the shared object is a crown or jewel, some symbol of power.

Use repetition across books. Repeat an event or a snippet of dialogue or a passage that invokes a memorable moment or image or emotion from an earlier story. But make sure it fits the current story just as well as it fit the earlier story.

You could repeat one book’s closing line as the opening line in the next book. But you could give it a twist. Put it in the mouth of another character, maybe one far from the events of the earlier story.

Present a known story event, but from a different character’s point of view.

_______________________________

Books in a series, then, should be both dependent on and independent of the other books. There is wide variety in the degree of the connections, and no rule to limit your creativity concerning these connections. But if you’ve got a series, you do need some connection points.

Are there questions that might help a writer working on a series, help him decide what to include and where to start? Sure. How about . . .

Do events of early stories lead directly to consequences or events in subsequent stories?

Are the stories fundamentally different or is each a continuation of the previous story?

Are stories concurrent or sequential?

Is there a strong cause and effect between stories or can they take place at the same time without a problem?

Does it matter if stories are read out of order? It’s certain that they will be.  How does this knowledge influence the unfolding of each book in the series?

Is the point of view the same? Not the same viewpoint character, of course. But is Book One first person and Book Two third person? Is there a sufficient reason to change the POV between books in a series?

 A series holds challenges that individual books don’t bring. But the satisfaction of writing them, the fun of creating a memorable character who can sputter or love or trip through multiple adventures, is strong.

If you have a character or story world or epic event that demands a series, write it. Have fun with the crafting of related books. Enjoy the weaving of events and series threads that connect those books, that make your series a memorable and well-crafted one.

But prepare for the special needs of a series. Don’t forget what makes strong fiction; just remember that you’ve got to take a few extra steps to carry that strong fiction from book to book.

***

You’ve been toiling along, writing according to your outline, or you’ve been pantsing without an outline and the words have just come tripping off your fingertips. You’re following the plan and it’s been good. Solid. Dependable.

No, not boring. Not predictable. Just . . .

Hmm. So maybe the plot is predictable. Maybe this passage . . . this scene . . . yeah, maybe this chapter and the last three have been rather steady. And flat. And steady. Did I already say that? It’s not that the action all sounds the same or the dialogue is a rehash of something from five chapters back. It’s just that . . .

Yeah, it’s boring.

So what are you doing wrong?

Maybe not a lot. And maybe you’re just too close to the work to see it clearly. But just maybe it is boring, boring because you’ve forgotten to include something—a revelation, the introduction of a new character, an unforeseen event—that was so unpredictable that you haven’t even surprised yourself for the last hundred pages.

Maybe your characters take only right turns and always peek around corners before they venture around them and so they’re never surprised by what they encounter.

Maybe the predictability of the characters and plot would lull even the most devoted reader.

Have you forgotten to surprise characters and readers? Have you been so slavishly committed to what you think the story should do (not to mention paying attention to all the rules and the mechanics of writing) that you’ve put a stranglehold on your characters so that even if they want to step out boldly, you won’t let them?

Let me suggest that you allow room for story surprises, both for characters and readers. Don’t let either group remain unsurprised as they travel your story world.

Introduce the unexpected and do so more than once. And make each surprise different from the others—

use different characters to spring the surprise

make use of different story elements

use twists but make them fresh twists

change the emotional level of the surprise

stir up a different emotion with each surprise

Use surprises to send the story in a new direction, maybe a darker direction. Use something new to shake up your protagonist or to stir up your antagonist.

Imagine a figurative hornets nest falling on your protagonist and his buddies. What happens? Might they scatter, chased away by the stings or simply the fear of stings? Might this leave your protagonist isolated? Maybe lonely? Maybe wondering why he’s been deserted?

Maybe your lead character is chased so far by the crazed hornets that he no longer recognizes where he is and has no idea how to return to where he’d been. Who can he rely on now? Where can he seek wisdom? Who can he trust for comfort?

This is your chance to add new characters or a new setting, maybe something dark, something totally foreign to your lead character.

Or, maybe it’s the antagonist who’s surprised by the hornets, and he’s made so miserable that he lashes out and steps up his attacks on the protagonist.

We’re not talking true buzzing hornets here. We are talking something surprising that shocks or challenges your characters. Something that wakes up your readers.

And this surprise, whatever form it takes, needs to be written in by you. Planned for by you.

So as you’re writing or rewriting, check for surprises. If your plot is predictable, you could use a surprise. Your characters and readers could certainly use one.

Note: Don’t confuse well plotted or tight-fitting with boring. I’m not talking about messing up the rhythms and balance of a strong story that fits snugly together with inevitable reactions following inevitable actions. I’m talking about changing the predictable, not the inevitable.

Inevitable is satisfying. Predictable is boring. Inevitable is strong story with balanced elements. Predictable is the same old story maybe set in a new city to give it the veneer of freshness.

If you’re bored or if your beta readers are bored or if your characters cross their arms and raise an eyebrow at you in your dreams, demanding something fresh, then add something surprising. Even if you’re not bored, check to see if you’ve included surprises for both characters and readers. If you haven’t, consider an addition.

Introduce a new character

Reveal a secret

Kill a character

Close up an escape route

Force a showdown

Embarrass a key character

Make your protagonist fail

Give a moral character a major moral lapse

Turn an enemy into an ally

Turn an ally into an enemy

Have a character tell a lie; have another character corroborate it

Raise someone or something (a long-abandoned dream) from the dead 

Ratchet up the emotion factor tenfold for a scene

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Remember to set up surprises before they’re needed—they need to make sense in terms of the plot and characters you’ve already got working.

Surprise not only readers and characters, but surprise yourself. Write something you didn’t think you had in you. Expose yourself and your emotions and your fears. Step out—leap out—of your comfort zone. Add power to scenes and action and dialogue by moving beyond what you thought you could say or write or declare.

Purposely surprise characters and readers so your stories will be those remembered and talked about. Give readers a reason to anticipate your next book. If they couldn’t guess what would happen in the last one, they’ll never guess what you’ve got in store for them in the next one.

At least that’s what you want them thinking and anticipating.

Take the time now—or make a note to do it later—to search for surprises in action or word choice or plot events or story threads. If you find no surprises, add a few. If you do have a couple, make sure they’re powerful and effective. Make sure you’ve given each a sufficient setup. Make sure they’re not simply one more story element—make them a successful story element.

Eliminate boring and non-engaging passages.

Add surprises to keep both characters and readers involved.

Write the unexpected, the good stuff. Write unpredictable fiction.

***

The end of a chapter—the last scene, the last paragraph, the last sentence—brings closure to one chapter but at the same time needs to lead readers and characters to the next scene and chapter and story event.

A chapter ending that doesn’t satisfy the events of the chapter, at least some of them, hasn’t done its work. And the chapter ending that doesn’t pull readers deeper into the story, fill them with anticipation for what comes next, also hasn’t accomplished all that it should.

A chapter ending that does neither fails the chapter completely.

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So, what in particular should chapter endings accomplish, and how does a writer make sure she writes successful endings?

Except for the first and last chapters,  the purposes of most chapter endings will be similar.

Endings will address and resolve or address and deepen story problems introduced in that chapter and/or earlier chapters. No, not every problem is resolved, but there will be some closure. At the same time, some new event or twist will raise the tension level. Will raise the interest level of readers. Will entice. Some answers will be provided, but those answers themselves might be what drives character and reader into the next story event. And into the next chapter.

Successful endings will raise tension for readers, keeping them involved in the story, keep them wanting to read just one chapter more, just until they find out who planted the bomb or who the prime suspect is or how hero and heroine will get together.

Not every chapter will have the same degree of closure as surrounding chapters; you’ll want variety in the feel of chapter endings, just as you want variety in many of the elements of your writing. But endings should reflect in some way what has come before, if only to mention an event or character or repeat a word or phrasing that will tie story elements together.

That is, you’ll use chapter endings to make connections to earlier events so events and characters are related in some manner. Otherwise your story will lack that interlocking feel that so appeals, that makes a story complete and full in itself.

Could you write for several chapters without such connections? Sure. Some authors—think writers of geo-political thrillers—may have a string of seemingly unrelated chapters. But eventually connections are made. Connections are revealed.

While a good chapter ending doesn’t ignore, with a few exceptions, what has come before, it definitely doesn’t ignore what comes after. This is where chapter-ending hooks come in.

Chapters end with hooks to draw, entice, push, or pull readers into the next chapter. Without appropriate hooks, readers have little reason to keep turning pages. If you satisfy past story events without giving the reader something to look forward to, readers can easily put your book aside.

Instead, you want readers unable to stop reading. You want them staying up late to finish the next chapter and then the next. You want them unable to put your story down because they just have to find out what villain Xerxes has in store for your hero or how your protagonist is going to pull his foot out of his mouth after his last boneheaded comment.

Chapter endings give readers an excuse to read on.

In simple terms, what do good chapter endings do? What’s their purpose? What should a hook accomplish? What shouldn’t a chapter ending do?

Good endings are goads and prompts and impossible-to-resist temptations.

Chapter endings will not put readers to sleep.

Chapter endings should introduce or raise tension and/or conflict.

Chapter endings can introduce new problems.

Chapter endings can reveal something new about a character’s personality or his reasons for being involved in whatever story issue has a hold on him.

Chapter endings can introduce new characters, new aspects of old characters, new events, and secrets.

Chapters can end with dialogue or with action. They should contain something new or surprising.

Chapters should never end with a character yawning and going to bed—readers will join that character in turning in.

Could you get around this final prohibition? Sure. You know I’m all for trying anything. But yawns and beds make readers want to put books down, not keep reading. Are you willing to risk putting your readers to sleep?

Chapter endings (other than the one for the final chapter) will not resolve all story issues revealed up to that point. If they did, readers would have no reason to keep reading. If all the story issues you introduced prior to chapter ten are solved by the end of chapter ten, what reason have you given readers for turning to chapter eleven? If there are no outstanding issues to be solved or resolved or pondered, chapter eleven would be just like chapter one and you’d be starting your story over.

While the ends of most chapters have similar purposes, both chapter one and your final chapter have additional purposes.

Chapter One
The end of the first chapter should compel readers to read on. A good ending for the first chapter will promise answers to story questions asked in that chapter. Chapter two will of course not answer every question, but a good ending to chapter one will convince readers answers wait just beyond the turn of the page.

The end of chapter one should show your protagonist (or your antagonist, if you choose to begin with him) dealing with the revelations of chapter one. Or it might show some new problem ready to fall on your main character’s head.

The end of chapter one should give the reader some idea of what the book will be about, whether we’re talking plot or tone or emotional impact. It should ensure that the story hook has been baited and dangled in front of the reader.

The end of chapter one, as with all of that first chapter, should make promises to the reader. Promises that the following chapters will need to fulfill.

The end of chapter one has to make the reader’s choice to purchase or read your book worthwhile. A reader still near the beginning of a book can be easily turned aside—he doesn’t have a lot invested in terms of time or emotion or thought spent on figuring out what’s been going on. That first chapter break is a time readers can still find it easy to put aside a new book—make sure you don’t give them any reason to put the book down and give them several reasons to keep reading, to invest their lives in your story world.

Make the end of chapter one as or more enticing than the opening lines. Convince readers they made the right choice in picking up your book.

Give not only readers but characters a reason to get involved in the plot you’ve crafted for them.

Final Chapter
The end of the final chapter will wrap up story threads, answer the most important of the story problems, will show whodunit, will bring the lovers together, will follow the hero to his home with his prize.

The end of the final chapter may also tease readers about the next story in a series.

This chapter may end with emotion, creating resonance for the reader, giving her feelings that last for more than just the moment it takes to read the final pages.

For the final chapter, think fulfillment. Fulfillment of every tease you’ve written, every enticement you placed before character and reader. Think completion and resolution. Think of making the investment in your story world well worth the reader’s time and money.

And worth every other activity he had to forgo in order to spend time with your characters.

I’ve talked about story resolutions in a couple of articles—Deliver the Payoff and Resolution: Tying up the Ends—so you can find more specifics about the final chapters of your novel. For purposes of this article, just know that the final chapter truly has to bring closure. Major plot threads cannot remain loose or unresolved. Characters have to complete their journeys. Some kind of ending must occur. And the more satisfying that ending is for character and reader, the more likely readers will return for the next of your stories.

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Use your chapter endings to look back and to look forward. Use them to satisfy, on the one hand, and stir up on the other.

Use cliffhanger endings if that works for the genre and the style of story you want to tell.

Use anticipation and fear and any emotion that will keep readers turning pages.

Shake up your story and characters with the unexpected at a chapter’s end. Satisfy and tease at the same time.

Write captivating chapter endings.

Write enthralling fiction.

***

So, let’s look a bit at story length.

The short answer to the question about the length of a story is to say every story should be as long as it needs to be. It should satisfy the story setup and problem without overwhelming the reader with more words than are necessary.

Right. But what does that mean?

That means that you don’t drag out your resolution. You give each story an ending that balances the length and depth of the narrative that has come before. You don’t drag it out.

But you also don’t drag out chapters. Or scenes. Or dialogue. Or even sentences. Get the point across in the fewest words possible. Tell the reader what he needs to know and then move on.

Don’t belabor any point. Cut off scenes while they’re still strong rather than leaching out all their power with too much detail and unnecessary explanation. Make readers want more, in a good way, rather than have them wishing you’d shut up already.

If you’ve made your point, get on to the next one.

Cut out repetition. Cut out fluff. Cut out the zillions of unimportant actions between one scene and the next.

Cut clichés.

Cut out any word, phrase, character, or scene that doesn’t contribute to the current story you’re writing. That is, write one story without trying to force a half-dozen into the same manuscript.

On the other hand, put in words that flavor your passages. Give readers enough detail that your characters seem real. Their plights believable. Their goals meaningful.

Write scenes, not only summaries. Write dialogue that serves to increase conflict and move the story forward.

Write fresh phrases. Write events. Create an interesting story.

Give readers no more and no less than is necessary to complete the story.

And write with story standards in mind.

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There are common word counts for not only different genres, but for different categories of fiction. If you’re looking to go the traditional publication route, writing to industry standards is a wise choice. No, not every piece of fiction fits neatly into a typical word count, but most do. And if you’re a new author, you’ll want to use every advantage to get your fiction accepted.

You wouldn’t want a story to be rejected solely based on word count, would you?

I can lay out guidelines for story length, but keep in mind that these are guidelines, not absolutes. Check publishers for their needs and limitations before you submit to them.

Guidelines for story length

Adult

Short Story         up to 7,500 words

Novelette           7,500 to 20,000 words

Novella              20,000 to 50,000 [some say 40,000] words

Novel                 over 50,000 [some say 40,000]

——————–

Children

Picture books     up to 500 words [absolute maximum of 1,000]

Easy readers       anything from 200 to 2,500

Chapter books    6,000 to 10,000 words [even up to 25,000]

Middle grade      30,000 to 45,000 words

Young adult        45,000 to 70,000 words

Keep in mind that there are exceptions and allowances at both ends of these ranges. There are also sub-categories that could further refine these counts.

While these are general word counts, some genres allow for longer stories. Sci-fi, fantasy, paranormals, and epics allow for higher word counts in both adult and children’s fiction.

Also keep in mind audience and publisher needs. Novels that are too short might not appeal or might not fit a publisher’s needs, and novels that are too long may be rejected simply for length.

Publishers typically won’t consider a writer’s first novel if it’s too long. The maximum standard word count for an adult novel is about 110,000 words (some would say 130,000 words). Anything from 80,000 to 110,000 is common, with many novels falling in the 90,000 to 100,000 count range.

The romance genre has word count standards of its own.

Category romance      55,000 words

Single title                 90,000 to 110,000 words

There’s also a lot of variety in the mystery/thriller genre. Cozy mysteries are typically shorter, maybe as few as 65,000 words, though even that word count could be higher.

If your first novel is 145,000, 190,000, or 250,000 words, start cutting. If you intend to be published by a traditional publisher.

Or take your 280,000 word epic and make it three books instead of one.

The reality is that new writers have to prove themselves before publishers can take a chance on a long novel from them. So prove you can write a killer novel—or two or three—that comes in at 95,000 words. Then when you make millions for the publisher, offer them that 180,000 word masterpiece.

And yes, before you say it, there are exceptions. But one exception out of thousands and thousands of manuscripts isn’t great odds. Don’t handicap your chances at being published for the sake of word count.

Pick up any novel, especially those written in a different era, and you may well find a wildly different word count. Yet you are writing today, so your options depend on today’s gatekeepers and marketplace.

Note: There are different rules for self-publishing. If someone else isn’t laying out the money and their reputation for your work, you can write longer stories. Keep in mind, however, that you still have to please readers. No matter what the length, make it a great story.

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Both stories that are too short and too long are hard to sell. Try to keep yours within the standard ranges. Give yourself an edge by fitting in. Yes, you do want your writing to stand out, but there are some areas where standards rule. Let your characters and plot be wild and adventurous. Let your writing be bold. But let industry rules give boundaries to your creativity. Think of industry standards as the frame for your writing.

Write creatively. But do so in a way that will give others the opportunity to read your work.

Know when following rules and standards is to your benefit.

Write—and publish—your good fiction.

We can’t wait to read it.

***

What if everyone loved my newest novel? What if it was talked about from country to country and unanimously praised? What if billions of copies were sold in mere weeks? What if everyone—and I mean everyone—found something so profound in it that the world was changed?

Hmm . . .

The truth is, no matter how many people enjoy your stories and tell you that they enjoy them, not everyone will. And those who don’t like them may be more vocal than those that do. At least it may seem that way.

Not everyone will like what you write. Not everyone will like or not like it to the same degree. So you may have diehard fans, so-so fans, indifferent readers, and what might feel like actual enemies who seem to wish you ill each time they see you’ve published. Maybe any time they hear your name.

You can’t please everyone. You won’t please everyone. Not with the same piece of fiction. Not with a particular writing style.

You’ll have detractors and you’ll meet those who simply have other interests. I want to tell you that it’s not personal, the dislike of your writing, but sometimes it is. Sometimes a reader won’t like what you write because he’s envious of your skill or your fame or the fact that you always outscored him in some sport in high school.

Some won’t like your success or your attitude or the subject matter you write about.

Some won’t like the names you choose for your characters or your themes or the conclusions you draw about life.

Some simply won’t like your genre.

It’s inevitable that not all readers will praise your stories and your writing. While it may be fun to dream that everyone will, it just won’t happen. Tastes differ from person to person, between age groups and cultures, between those with one experience and those with an opposing experience.

Dan Brown, J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, and Ian McEwan have all been praised and vilified. Hemingway, Faulkner, Poe? Mark Twain? Graham Greene or Edith Wharton or John Grisham? Shakespeare? Not all universally admired. Respected as writers? Sometimes. But not always. No matter how popular they are in some camps, some writers aren’t admired in others.

And we all know there’s nothing wrong with that. Some love coffee, some hate it. Neither camp is right; the opinions of both sides have merit.

Even the Bible, one of the most widely purchased book in history, isn’t universally loved. It’s both enjoyed and ridiculed, revered and mocked. It does, however, capture the attention of a whole lot of folks and has done so over a very long period of time. Now that’s something all writers could hope for. Strive for.

Do you want only positive attention or will any attention do? I can’t answer that for you.

I just wanted to remind you that not everyone—not your mother, your wife, your husband, your best friend, your boss, or your child—will be as enthusiastic as you think they should be about your books. You probably won’t even feel the same about your books from one year to the next.

Even your most zealous fans will move on, will be interested in the next story. Or their child’s first words. A new job. A move across the country.

Interests wax and wane. Highs don’t last forever. We get tired of one style of anything if that’s all we’re exposed to.

You must write to please yourself. You must satisfy characters and readers. But you’ll never satisfy all of us. And if you try, you’ll only create a muddle of a story.

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Writing well doesn’t mean including every tidbit that would entice every reader. If you try to include something for everyone, you’ll create a story for no one. I don’t read the same stories my brother does. If you write to please his sensibilities, you won’t be writing to tempt mine. One book will not please us all. It just can’t happen. Not in a book that’s consistent unto itself, that doesn’t try to be a zillion and one different stories. Even a story that’s a million pages long couldn’t please everyone.

In fact, such a book would make no one happy.

So, settle it in your mind and in that deep place that dreams: you won’t please everyone. You can change your style to please a new group, but you risk losing established readers. That’s okay if you want to try something new. Just don’t be surprised if longtime fans become former fans. Readers like what they like and they don’t need to follow you if you’re the one who changes.

Of course, readers themselves change. Their tastes may alter over the course of their reading lives. And they may grow out of your stories and your style and your approach.

They may just tire of your genre and want to find something that’s  fresh to them.

Don’t worry;  there are plenty of other readers looking to switch from their favorite authors to new ones. So while you might lose readers over the years, you’ll also gain them.

Keep writing quality stories. Keep up your end. The readers will find you.

Just don’t expect that every reader will find you. Or like you. Or recommend you. Or hold back his negative opinion. Not in this age when we can instantly know who did what and who thinks what at the click of a mouse.

Expect your fans and your detractors to rant about your work. If you’ve written the best story you can, you’ve done your part. You don’t have to give your blood for your fiction, even if some non-fan demands it. Give up a lot of your days? Yes, that’s a requirement. Your nights too.  But when non-fans are calling for your blood, refuse the call.

Give your skills, your emotions, your heart, and your mind. Give your free hours and your sleepless nights. But don’t think you have to give your essence, the you that’s separate from your writing, even if it’s what gives life to the writing. Giving that would never be enough for some of those demanding more from you.

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We are different. With different tastes. And you can’t make one book palatable and tasty to all. Imagining you will or can is like Don Quixote tilting at his windmills—pointless and without a satisfying conclusion because what you imagine to be true is not true and the outcome you imagine arising from your actions will never come about.

It’s not likely you’ll change the tastes and preferences of thousands of readers. Maybe not even a dozen. But you can adjust your own expectations. Dream big, but entertain reality as well. Don’t allow unrealistic expectations to drown true success.

Am I suggesting you resign yourself to a fan base smaller than the whole world? Yes. That’s exactly what I’m recommending.

At the same time, be encouraged that there are still millions and millions of readers who could enjoy your stories. Who might praise you across every facet of social media and in more intimate settings with their friends. Who might just say, “This is one fine book.”

Write for the audience who will enjoy your fiction. Write for your characters who have adventures to explore. Write for yourself, to satisfy the creator in you.

And allow readers to enjoy the stories and genres and styles that move them.

If it’s your fiction that moves them, entertains or takes them to another world, that’s great. You’ve done more than many can hope to do.

Now write something else. Take readers on a new adventure. Don’t expect the whole world to embrace you and your stories, but create stories that can be enjoyed. Write your best story.

Write enticing fiction.

And satisfy those readers who do get lost in your story worlds.

***

Backstory is the accumulation, the totality, of the earlier events and histories of those people and things and places that make up your story world.

Backstory is the story before the story. It’s the events that transpire before the story events you’ve chosen to highlight and reveal and invite the reader into.

What’s in backstory are causes for the events of the story you put on the page. Backstory covers motive and history and the roots of character personality and motivation.

Backstory gives reasons and excuses for events that happen in the now of your story. But backstory isn’t that now. And if you dump too much of the past in at one shot, it slows the unfolding of the current story, may even deaden the impact of current action and event. It leaches the emotional power out of the story action that’s unfolding on the page in the story’s present.

Backstory is part of the setup for plot and characters; it is not a substitute for unfolding events.

As a woman might have to pull her hair up before she take a sweat-inducing exercise class, so might your character have to deal with something from her past before addressing something in the present. The putting up of the hair is not the important element; the exercise class is. Same with backstory and story events. The element of the backstory that you share is not the main event; it’s only the preparation for it. It needs very little attention, only enough to reveal what it is and what it accomplished in order to ready the character for the real action to come.

Backstory is the failing grade from a middle school math class that compelled your protagonist to work so hard at school that he had no time for friends and outside activities, a practice that extends to his lifestyle as an adult.

It’s the uninvolved father who turned your female antagonist against men over a certain age so that she only seeks lovers in their twenties. Even though at story opening she’s celebrating her fortieth birthday.

It’s the holocaust or world war or alien invasion that created the need for martial law that led to the fascist government that rules the world in your dystopian sci-fi series.

Backstory is everything that happened in your story world and to your characters prior to the point you open that world to readers. It’s the antecedents. It’s part of the cause for which you are showing the effect. It’s the setup of your story.

It’s what has made your opening page possible. Inevitable. Engaging.

It’s the history of both your story world and your characters. It’s the events and people who have shaped characters and story setting.

It’s not your unfolding story but it is everything that makes that story possible and necessary and inescapable.

Backstory accounts for the why of the story events and actions that occur at the top of your story. It’s the explanation for your protagonist’s and antagonist’s attitudes and motivations and drives.

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Backstory can and should be revealed in a variety of ways. You can slip it in so it seems incidental, as if revealed only because you were revealing something else, or you could explain it plainly so there’s no doubt you’re writing a paragraph of backstory.

Use both methods, knowing they create different effects.

When backstory is dribbled in, revealed piecemeal, the reader learns a character, gradually develops an understanding of his motives. When backstory is laid out though exposition, the reader is clearly told what’s happened and perhaps how it affected character or elements of the setting (government policies, social mores, religious practices and so on).

There is a time for both styles of revelation, but direct explanation can pull the reader out of the fiction. Use it sparingly, knowing that any such explanations can have a reader feeling he’s being taught a lesson rather than getting to know a character the same way we get to know people in the 3-dimensional world.

But don’t think you can’t ever express backstory through direct revelation. Sometimes that’s the quickest way to lay out a revelation. And sometimes that’s more important than spending three pages on a min-scene that would eventually reveal the same information.

Consider such explanations for use in narrative summary or when you introduce a new scene. Or even when a character has a moment of clear reflection and comes to some glaring conclusion about his own motives.

Straight revelation can work. But you’ve got to control its flow and the effects.

The introduction of backstory, except in prologue, should never come before current story elements. No opening chapter one with a flashback—open with the now, get the reader involved in it first, and then reveal essential or noteworthy elements from prior days or years or eras. Do you remember the Paul Masson wine ads? We will serve no wine before its time? Let that be your pledge regarding backstory: Never too early and always just enough.

The quick details—

Show backstory

through sections of exposition, perhaps at the top of chapters and scenes

through dialogue

through character thought and reflection

through flashbacks

through a prologue

to reveal character motivation

to slow the pace

to set up subsequent scenes

to provide meaning for events and character action and reaction

to add veracity to a character’s stands and personality

to provide distractions and murky motives and red herrings (yes, you can manipulate backstory for purposes other than straightforward revelation)

An event or action or word of dialogue or setting prop may stir a character into thoughts about a past event—make sure that characters have a reason to suddenly remember and dwell on a moment or past event rife with deep meaning. That is, people don’t usually stop in the middle of a crosswalk because they’re overwhelmed with the memory of a car crash from 20 years earlier. Give the character a prompt for diving into memories or thoughts of the past.

And use the memory to create an effect on the present. Show events from the past only as they make an impact on the current story.

Backstory is best digested in small doses. Take care to not pile up revelations and merely pour them out in boring clumps via info dumps. And remember to include backstory before it’s needed, otherwise it reads as coincidence.

Let backstory influence character decisions and attitudes and actions. Use it to give a character’s actions consistency.

Keep in mind that you, the writer, need to know much more about character history and earlier events than readers ever need to know. Let your knowledge color, flavor, the story. Let backstory bring shadings to a character. Let it fill in details about place and time and the cultural expectations of the people groups in your tale.

Use backstory for depth, so characters have a history, a full life, before the moments of your current story.

Use backstory to make characters realistic, as if they’d been in motion all along and you merely captured them in a moment of time. Use backstory to make readers believe that just as characters were real, involved in their own lives before page one of a book, that they’ll continue with their lives after this episode of their lives is complete and the reader closes the book.

Reveal only the backstory that’s important for the story you’re writing. That is, some events of a character’s backstory might work for a different tale, one you could write or might write. But include in your current story only what you know of a character that has importance for the current story events or to set up subsequent stories for that character.

Don’t tell every secret of your characters’ lives, just those relevant for this story. Allow your characters some privacy.

Don’t spill all about character history or setting events, but do share those moments and earlier events that directly lead to your story’s action and character motivation.

Reveal causes for a character’s stand on an issue or the reasons he is who is he or the reasons he must act on an issue.

Don’t give readers more than they need; keep them curious, at least a little bit. Provide answers, yes. But don’t necessarily connect all the dots. Be clear about events that occurred before your story begins, then reveal how those events formed your character’s personality or dreams or goals as he moves through the events in your story.

Flavor the now of story with bits from the past, but don’t allow the past to take over the now.

When you’re tempted to tell all, remind yourself you’re writing fiction, not a treatise on the effects of World War II on fictional characters. Know a lot; learn to keep secrets.

And learn when to uncover secrets for startling effect.

Use backstory, but make sure it works in the background without drowning out current story events.

Write stories with depth.

Write characters with pasts and futures.

Put backstory to work for your fiction.

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You’ve been through your manuscript front to back and back to front and weeded out and added in.

You’ve straightened out your characters and tightened the plot and you’ve proofed for every conceivable error you’ve ever read about.

Both protagonist and antagonist get what they deserve or what they’ve earned or what your readers will love.

You’ve got conflict and chapter-ending hooks and emotion-evoking phrases.

You’ve got an opening that delights, a middle without sag, and an ending that satisfies.

You’ve got ups and downs and breathing space and breathless action. You’ve included emotional responses for characters that are guaranteed to touch the reader as well.

The number of modifiers—both adverbs and adjectives—doesn’t overwhelm.

Dialogue is strong. Setting is clear and works for the story. Characters are unique. Style is consistent.

You’ve been through your checklist and you’re happy about what you’ve created. Your critique partner says it’s ready, your writer’s group says it’s ready, your heart says it’s ready.

So . . .

What’s next? Is there anything you can do as a final check of your masterpiece before you release it to the world?

Sure. For your final pass, check once more for—

Your favorite words. We all have them and they sneak in despite our desire to keep them out. Can you cut one or two more instances of each?

Your favorite unusual sentence construction. The unusual gets noticed. Don’t overplay those touches that stand out.

The overuse of character names, especially in dialogue. People just don’t call each other by name when they talk to them.

The opening line and opening page. Do they accomplish all that they can? Does the opening set up the story arc, get the plot rolling, introduce your protagonist, introduce tone and/or setting ?

The ending. Does it address the story opening and the character’s problem? Does it finish the several hundred pages that come before it? Is the last line a memorable one?

Words that don’t fit. No okay before its time.

One-time character names. If you’ve changed a character’s name, make sure you’ve not left any instances of the former name.

Space holders. If you use space holders for elements you’re not sure of—asterisks, blank lines, hash tags—be sure to remove them. And be sure you’ve filled in the blanks.

Words used too often. They might not even be favorite words, but their use and overuse can weaken your scenes.

look, looked, looking (one of the most common verbs used for sight)

there (stood there, sat there)

over (walked over, ran over)

felt, heard, saw, watched, thought (you don’t always need to report that a character is doing these things)

Words/phrases that add nothing and might in fact dilute a scene.

at this time

at [in] this moment

in my opinion

any three-word phrase at the end of a sentence (search for prepositional phrases you use often)

try and [verb] (use try to rather than try and)

for example

suddenly

hopefully

already

just

there is, there are, there were (especially to start sentences and open paragraphs)

oh, well, and oh well (especially in dialogue)

That one scene that niggles at you, the one that still doesn’t seem quite perfect.  Yes, make the time for one more try to fix it. If it bothers you, it’s going to bother the reader.

Chapter breaks. Make sure chapters begin on new pages. Make sure chapter numbers are sequential.

Manuscript format. Before submitting, format your manuscript in the proper format. Don’t forget page numbers and the correct info for the headers. Check for consistency with scene breaks—have you used asterisks or hash marks or simple line spacing?

Spelling. Your word processing program might not catch everything, but it catches a lot. If you make any changes, be sure to run spell check one final time. Let this be the final major step of your cleanup. And repeat as many times as necessary if you continue to make changes.

 __________________________

This is not an editing checklist, but a helpful last step before you submit your manuscript to agent or editor. If you’ve not truly edited your manuscript, start with these steps before moving to those listed in this article.

These suggestions are not meant as a tool for procrastination: please don’t hesitate to submit when your story is ready. Do what’s necessary for making both story and manuscript error-free and then let the story go. Start your next project or complete another story you’ve begun. Put an end to this one.

And remember that it’s likely a few errors will slip through even the best proofing. Yet also remember that a few simple errors will not be what keeps your story from being accepted. Submit your manuscripts when it’s time without making yourself crazy looking for phantom errors.

Finish your story.

Send that good story out so others can read it.

Share your good fiction.

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