How the Rule of Three Can Help Writers Avoid Backstory Slumps

This week editor Linda Clare tackles Fatal Flaw #4—Too Much Backstory. In this month’s posts, we’re looking at the pitfalls of dumping backstory into our scenes and showing ways writers might creatively introduce important information pertaining to a character’s past or necessary to understand the world of the story. 

When you use backstory in fiction to deepen characterization or add information about the story, it’s easy for readers to become confused. If readers enter a flashback or backstory and wonder when or where they are supposed to be, confusion often turns to frustration and they stop reading. That’s why it’s so important to craft backstory in an effective way.

Backstory is any narrative passage or scene which occurred in time before the “present-time story.” Your POV character is in a scene when her “mind reels back.” How can readers keep a firm understanding of when and where, in time and space, the story takes them?

Nobody Likes Cold Mashed Potatoes

A simple rule I call the Cold Mashed Potatoes Rule will help ensure that your readers are always oriented to time and place.

The Cold Mashed Potatoes rule goes like this: A character in a scene (maybe the Lady in the White Evening Gown!) sits down at a banquet table and is served a plate of steaming hot, buttery mashed potatoes. Her mouth waters as she digs a forkful and raises it to her lips.

But then something happens. The mashed potatoes remind her of her grandma’s mashed potatoes. Lady remembers that she looked forward to them every year at family dinners. Lady reminisces about how smooth those taters were, how her brothers fought over second helpings, how Grandma always surprised everyone by bringing a second heaping mound out of the kitchen. Grandma’s potatoes had impressed everyone so much that she learned to make a double batch.

While we are learning the reasons for Lady’s love of mashed potatoes, we are transported to Grandma’s kitchen. But what about the banquet table where we started? The forkful of mashed potatoes is still hovering in midair, paused as we travel back in time. And the longer we remain in the backstory, the colder those potatoes get.

I use this illustration to help writers remember that the longer readers are in the backstory, the more the real time scene recedes from their awareness—which is a bad thing.

The Rule of Three

It makes sense, then, to limit the number of backstory sentences you write before at least touching back on the present-time scene. The Cold Mashed Potatoes Rule is easier to work with if you also use the Rule of Three: For every three sentences (or in some cases, paragraphs) of backstory, go back to the present scene at least briefly, to remind readers where the character is actually on stage.

A couple of other considerations will also help you know when and where to insert your backstory. My colleagues all agree that first chapter backstory, if used at all, needs to be short and woven in and around the present action. For every detail but the most crucial, save the backstory for after readers are committed to your character. Use the past perfect (had) only at the beginning and the end of a backstory bit.

And a word about backstory within backstory: don’t do it. Readers are likely to feel hopelessly lost if we begin a flashback about Lady’s grandma and then move into Grandma’s memory of who taught her to make delicious mashed potatoes. If the backstory about Grandma’s youth is more interesting than Lady’s memories, you may want to start the story in a different place.

Let’s look at a before and after example:

Before:

Lady W sat down and smoothed her white silk gown. The butler helped push her chair closer to the table—laden with Sir Lumphrey’s chipped bone china and tarnished silverware. “Evening.” She smiled at her seat mate, Lord Havemuch, and his corpulent wife.

Lorna Havemuch leaned across her husband. “I hear there will be mashed potatoes and roast duck,” she said, licking her lips. “Sir Lumphrey always has the best mashed potatoes.”

Lady W stared at the woman. “That so?”

“Why yes!” Lord Havemuch tied his napkin round his neck. “I can’t wait!”

The servers emerged, bearing steaming tureens of Lord Lumphrey’s famous potatoes, ladling fat globs upon every plate. Lady W picked up her fork, breathing in the delicious buttery smell. As she guided her forkful of potatoes to her mouth, her grandmother’s legendary potatoes came to mind.

When Lady W had been a girl, she looked forward each November to Gran’s luscious mashies. Lady would dream of those delicious potatoes and could scarcely wait until Gran called everyone to the table. Then Gran would present the mashies—so good that Lady’s brothers always fought over who got seconds. Gran refused to tell anyone her secret recipe, although Lady begged her grandma to share it.

When Gran was on her deathbed, she whispered to Lady, “Come closer, dearie. I’ll tell you my secret for those mashies.”

Lady listened closely. Gran had been just a girl herself when her gran had given out the secret recipe. Great-gran took Gran out into the nearby wood, Gran’s worn-out shoes slipping on the loose earth under a tree. She carried a small burlap bag for the secret ingredient, as Great-gran called it.

Suddenly, Great-gran dropped to her knees beneath the oak tree and began scratching at the ground. She bent forward and sniffed loudly. “Hand me the bag,” Great-gran ordered. Gran had obeyed, uncertain how what looked like dirt clods could be the reason the mashed potatoes tasted so heavenly.

Gran heaved a ragged sigh. Lady leaned in closer. “What was it, Gran?”

But Gran’s eyes had closed for the last time, and Lady W had felt tears slide down her cheeks.

“Pass the potatoes, won’t you?” Lord Havemuch’s voice was much too loud and held a vague irritation.

Lady W startled, then stared at her fork, which still hovered in midair. She slid the bite into her mouth, laid down her fork, and passed the tureen. Ugh. The potatoes had not only grown stone cold, they’d never taste like Gran’s. Sir Lumphrey was far too cheap to spring for shaved truffles in a bowl of potatoes. She pushed back from the table.

OK, I admit to having a bit of fun here. The writer probably does need to know how Lady W found out what made Gran’s potatoes so wonderful. But if the backstory is crammed altogether as in the above example, it’s difficult to keep track of when and where readers are supposed to be.

Now let’s see how we can streamline the backstory, using the Cold Mashed Potatoes Rule and the Rule of Three.

After:

Lady W sat down and smoothed her white silk gown. The butler helped push her chair closer to the table—laden with Sir Lumphrey’s chipped bone china and tarnished silverware. “Evening.” She smiled at her seat mates, Lord Havemuch, and his corpulent wife.

Lorna Havemuch leaned across her husband. “I hear there will be mashed potatoes and roast duck,” she said, licking her lips. “Sir Lumphrey always has the best mashed potatoes.”

Lady W stared at the woman. “That so?”

“Why yes!” Lord Havemuch tied his napkin round his neck. “I can’t wait!”

The servers emerged, bearing steaming tureens of Lord Lumphrey’s famous potatoes, ladling fat globs upon every plate. Lady W picked up her fork, breathing in the delicious buttery smell. As she guided her forkful of potatoes to her mouth, her grandmother’s legendary potatoes came to mind.

When Lady W had been a girl, she’d looked forward each November to Gran’s luscious mashies. Lady would dream of those delicious potatoes and could scarcely wait until Gran called everyone to the table. Then Gran would present the mashies—so good that Lady’s brothers had always fought over who got seconds.

Lord Havemuch elbowed Lady W. “Pass the butter please.”

Lady W set down her fork and obliged. Lord Havemuch piled at least five butter pats upon his potatoes. Gran’s potatoes had never needed that much butter—they were scrumptious all by themselves.

Gran had refused to tell anyone her secret recipe, although Lady had begged her grandma to share it. Then, when Gran was on her deathbed, she’d whispered to Lady. “Come closer, dearie. I’ll tell you my secret for those mashies.”

Now Lady tasted the potatoes in front of her. No, these were definitely not as good as Gran’s.

Lady remembered that Gran had heaved a ragged sigh and leaned in closer. “What is it, Gran? What’s the secret?”

But Gran’s eyes had closed for the last time, and Lady W’s tears had slipped down her cheeks.

“I said, pass the potatoes, won’t you?” Lord Havemuch’s voice was much too loud and held a vague irritation.

Lady W startled. She slid the next bite into her mouth, laid down her fork and passed the tureen. Ugh. Sir Lumphrey’s potatoes had not only grown stone cold—they’d never taste like Gran’s. Sir Lumphrey was far too cheap to spring for shaved truffles in a bowl of potatoes. She pushed back from the table.

In the second example, we only go into one flashback. I used the Rule of Three in each bit of backstory, careful to insert the past perfect “had” at the beginning and ending of that bit. By bouncing back into the real time scene, readers are reminded of where Lady really is, and confusion is lessened.

So, yes, you do need bits of backstory. But if you abide by the Rule of Three, keeping those cold potatoes in mind, you won’t lose your readers.

Your turn:

Have you ever read backstory that was a story within a story and became confused or read it twice? What’s the most difficult aspect of writing flashback or backstory for you? Do you have other methods of inserting backstory into a scene?