By Cynthia Owens
In my workshop Those Who Forget History: Using Backstory to Enhance Your Novel, we examine various methods of revealing backstory, such as prologues, motivation, and more. But there’s another way backstory can help you write your novel. Plotting.
I’m not a plotter. I rarely plot more than a scene or two ahead, and sometimes not even that. Since my stories are character driven, I invariably begin with a single character and his backstory.
Once I’ve written the bare bones of the backstory, I expand on it, writing scenes that may or may not make it into the final story. I might use one or two as a flashback, but most of the time I use these scenes to work out my plot.
In my book, Deceptive Hearts (Claddagh Publications, 2022), my hero and his family fled famished Ireland on a coffin ship. His father died of ship’s fever, and Shane promised to look after his mother and younger siblings in America. From that small bit of backstory, I created the plot wherein Shane feels responsible, not only for his family and friends, but for the heroine.
Think about your character’s backstory. What is his best/worst memory? Perhaps his family died in a tenement fire, and he became a firefighter. Or a woman’s dearest friend betrayed her by sleeping with her husband, and she’s vowed never to trust her again.
Take a look at these facts. Bare bones, yes, but what could they become? Your firefighter might meet a woman whose career involves some form of fire—perhaps an arson investigator. Your plot might revolve around the search for a serial arsonist, who turns out to be the same arsonist who set fire to your hero’s building.
If your betrayed woman hears from another friend that her bestie has terminal brain cancer, your plot could revolve around her struggle to forgive. Maybe she misunderstood what happened between her friend and her husband, or there’s some secret the friend is holding back that might lead to a reconciliation.
By using your character’s backstory, you can develop a multi-layered plot that will drive your story to its most satisfying conclusion.
Book Blurb
Like the Wild Geese of Old Ireland, five boys grew to manhood despite hunger, war, and the mean streets of New York…
He survived war, and returned to devastation…
A hero of the Irish Brigade, Shane MacDermott returned home to New York to find his family decimated and his world shattered. He’d vowed to protect those he loved-but can he protect the woman who came to mean everything to him?
She risks her life to save the people she loves…
Lydia Daniels will risk anything to protect the women she shelters beneath the roof of her elegant Gramercy Park mansion-even if she has to trust the one man who can destroy her.
Shane and Lydia both hide secrets that could destroy them-and put their lives in jeopardy. Can their love overcome their carefully guarded deceptive hearts?
More About the Author
I believe I was destined to be interested in history. One of my distant ancestors, Thomas Aubert, reportedly sailed up the St. Lawrence River to discover Canada some 26 years before Jacques Cartier’s 1534 voyage. Another relative was a 17thCentury “King’s Girl,” one of a group of young unmarried girls sent to New France (now the province of Quebec) as brides for the habitants (settlers) there. My passion for reading made me long to write books like the ones I enjoyed, and I tried penning sequels to my favorite Nancy Drew mysteries. Later, fancying myself a female version of Andrew Lloyd Weber, I drafted a musical set in Paris during WWII. A former journalist and lifelong Hibernophile, I enjoyed a previous career as a reporter/editor for a small chain of community newspapers before returning to my first love, romantic fiction. My stories usually include an Irish setting, hero or heroine, and sometimes all three. I’m the author of The Claddagh Series, historical romances set in Ireland and beyond, and The Wild Geese Series, in which five Irish heroes return from the American Civil War to find love and adventure. I also teach specialized workshops for writers on a variety of subjects such as research, settings, backstory, and more. I’m a member of the Romance Writers of America and Hearts Through History Romance Writers. A lifelong resident of Montreal, Canada, I still live there with my own Celtic hero. I have two adult children. Connect with her here:
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Don’t Miss Cynthia Owen’s
On-line Workshop
Using Backstory to Enhance Your Novel:
Those Who Forget the Past
This 4 Week Course Starts December 5, 2022
Sponsored by FF&P
Find out more and register HERE
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