“Smoothly add bits of backstory along the way in ways that will not interrupt the story’s forward thrust. Information should blend in perfectly with the whole story, not feel like it’s the writer telling us a necessary thing in order for the writer’s story to work.”
~Steve Cuden

A reader asked: “I was told that having a backstory in your musical interrupts the narrative drive, confuses the audience and is basically the kiss of death for your story. Do you agree with this? How do you handle revealing a key secret from the past? My musical tells the story of a known person.”

Steve: All stories need some kind of a backstory, whether inferred within the telling or as obvious pieces of exposition within the story.

The question I think you are asking is, if you suddenly stop the forward thrust of the story to explain something from a character’s background, will that stop the story?

The short answer is: probably.

Integrating Backstory Seamlessly

Any and all backstories should be weaved into the telling of the tale in as seamless a manner as possible that does not interrupt the story flowing forward. Most well-integrated stories pepper in backstory over the course of the tale by dropping it into dialogue and action—when appropriate and when it belongs to the moment—not just added to the story for the sake of adding it. It has to be fully integrated into the whole, not separate from it. Like a Swiss watch—all the gears must mesh and flow as one.

This isn’t always easy to do—but when done well, writers often make big money because audiences love it. This can sometimes require many drafts to figure out—and that, for better or for worse—is the nature of the beast when it comes to being a successful pro writer. The art of storytelling is in the rewriting.

Don’t ever do what I call “Info Dumping,” in which you deliver all the backstory in a lump. Spread it out as breadcrumbs of information for the audience to discover along the way with your protagonist.

Many writers attempt to tell the whole backstory in the first few minutes of a story so that the audience will understand where the hero is coming from. That almost never works well. It can seem clunky and forced.

Smoothly add bits of backstory along the way in ways that will not interrupt the story’s forward thrust. Information should blend in perfectly with the whole story, not feel like it’s the writer telling us a necessary thing in order for the writer’s story to work. The writer must disappear behind the telling of the tale and not stick out as a part of it. In short, try to avoid being obvious in your storytelling.

Secrets from the Past: Early Revelation vs. Late Revelation

Re: handling secrets from the past. It depends on whether or not the secret is being withheld from the protagonist, other characters, or the audience.

Does the audience need to know the secret up front and then watch as the characters figure it out?

Then the joy is in the audience watching the characters discover the secret we already know. That kind of secret must be revealed early. This device was made very popular in an old TV series called Columbo in which the audience often knew who the bad guy was, but Columbo had to figure it out. The joy was in watching Columbo put the clues together.

Or is this a secret that the audience doesn’t know until it’s revealed much later in the story?

This is far more common. If so, then it is incumbent on the author to lay groundwork for the reveal. You must give us clues—preferably not overt ones. Foreshadowing the secret in some way is good. Dropping in a clue here and there is good.

Here’s a huge storytelling principle: It’s okay to deceive the audience but you must never cheat them.

In other words, the audience must know that they have been given the info they need to understand and absorb the secret—even though they haven’t quite figured it out yet. Be sure you don’t suddenly reveal the answer to the puzzle at the end without the audience being able to look back and see that the answer was there the whole time, even if only inferred. Best example ever of laying in clues along the way is the movie, “The Sixth Sense.”

Suddenly dropping on the audience an answer they had no way to realize was part of the story is called a “Deus Ex Machina.” That’s an old Greek term meaning Machine of the Gods. In the original Greek theater a character would descend at the end of the story to wrap it up and tell the audience what actually happened and where things may go. This technique is now heavily frowned upon in almost all modern storytelling.

I hope this has been helpful in some way to your storytelling.

Best wishes in your writing!

Have a storytelling question for Steve? Ask away!