on Helping Writers become Authors:

What are the best backstory techniques you can use in your story?

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been discussing some of the options writers have for sharing backstory in their stories. So far, we’ve talked about four specialized techniques, analyzing their respective advantages, disadvantages and best-use practices:

All four techniques are important and useful, but most are only appropriate in specific situations when the author desires to achieve a certain effect. What we haven’t yet talked about is the single best backstory technique—the one used in every type of story, the one that is always a good choice, the one that offers the fewest possible disadvantages, and the one that is most effective in communicating important information to readers without interrupting the momentum of the main plot.

This technique is the “backstory drip”—and is actually several different techniques that come together to reveal backstory so subtly and effectively readers may not even think to distinguish it from the main story. Of course, the caveat is that it works this way when it’s done well. Today, we’re going to talk about how to do it well.