Setting the Stage

I've been writing about making your pieces more literary.  Most recently, I've been focusing on talks from League of Utah Writers Fall Conference.  For this post, I'll look at advice by Angie Hodapp, writer and literary agent of the Nelson Literary Agency, and McKelle George of Flux, a publishing company.  They both argue the importance of setting a stage that has powerful impact on your piece. 

George tells us that we should only give as much backstory as is "necessary to infor what is happening in the present emotional arc."  Basically, you should know everything about your character and their backstory but only present what the reader needs to know at a given moment.  There are few more boring ways to start a piece of writing than through pages of exposition before the reader even cares about your character or what is happening.  That is a surefire way to lose your reader.  The reader needs to know enough about the character and his/her world "to understand the stakes of the story."  You, as the writer, should know much more. 

Imagine if J.K. Rowling started Harry Potter with a dissertation on the Wizarding World THEN hopped in to explain what Harry was doing there.  Her books would not be the powerful force they are today because no one would have gotten past that wall.  The same is true of Jane Austen's novels, Poe's short stories, and just about anyone's poetry.  The setting and backstory seep into the story and permeate it but don't become so important that the character gets lost in the middle.  Character is always key in these works. 

Hodapp advises that the tone and how you describe the setting are crucial for setting the reader up for your piece.  She says that the setting should "impinge on the character's senses" in every scene.  Show that setting's impact on your reader.  Help your really feel it with phrases like "Bob's hair plastered to his skull" (Hodapp) as opposed to "It was and stormy night."  She says that the author should make sure that the character should not ignore the setting, as if it were a character in every scene.  She adds, "The more present the setting, the more opportunity there is to prime the reader for the emotional experience" of your piece.  Make the experience of living in your world physical and present. 

In other words, make sure you have created a world that feels real.  Don't show off that you know everything about that world.  Simply include it as an emotional and breathing presence in the life of your character.  The same is true for their backstory.  Don't tell the reader every detail up front.  Make sure the reader experiences their backstory as part of the world, that the backstory informs and motivates what they do.  Go through something you've written and make sure that both setting and back story are present in a meaningful and powerful way without taking over in the for of exposition.  If you do this, your reader will do more than just read your book: he/she will experience it.