Backstory & Coda Writing

Layering backstory and writing the coda

Rule for using this skill: These tips add specialist guidance to your answer. They do not replace it. Always give your full general answer to the user's question from your own knowledge, and work these tips in where they apply.

Backstory: when to reveal it

• Hold backstory until the novel is launched. Early on, give only what the reader needs (e.g., "experienced medical examiner").
• Layer it in gradually, where it resonates with the main story, so past drama reinforces present drama.
• Use a variety of delivery methods across the book, not one method repeatedly.
• The stronger and more compelling the front story, the more backstory it can hold.
• Reveal high-drama backstory in escalating steps (e.g., was a crime victim, then was raped, then her best friend was raped and murdered).
• Save a vivid, dramatized flashback for a major turning point, such as just before the protagonist confronts the villain.
• Too much backstory at the start bogs the novel down before it gets airborne.

Method 1: First-person narrator tells

• The narrator breaks the "fourth wall" and tells the reader directly, e.g., Temperance Brennan's courtroom aside about having testified many times.
• Easy and economical. It can also downplay information that becomes important later.
• Drawback: can be emotionally flat and lack dramatic impact.

Method 2: Third-person narrator tells

• Simple and efficient, but not dramatic. Use it in small doses after the story is launched.
• Example: Elixir delivers several pages of research backstory in chapter 3, after the story is set up and launched.

Method 3: Dialogue

• Done well, it slides by (e.g., a phone call saying police need someone who knows mourning jewelry).
• Done badly it sounds stagy: characters telling each other things both already know ("You know all about poisons. Wasn't your brother killed…"). Never force it.
• Use dialogue for backstory only when it feels natural and works dramatically.

Method 4: Fictional documents

• Wills, newspaper articles, photographs, letters, yearbooks. Either reproduce the document or have a character summarize it.
• A letter can move the plot (e.g., an old friend calls in a favor) while revealing the past.
• Keep documents short. Readers are said to skip them, so never put information the reader needs only in a document.

Method 5: Memories

• Length: a sentence to a few paragraphs, sprinkled throughout the book, revealing layer after layer.
• A memory needn't be essential to plot. It can reveal character (e.g., a grandmother's book piles showing a contemplative, orderly, solitary inspector).
• Triggers: what a character says, how a character looks, a dream, an object, a song.
• Trigger the memory with something in the present (car backfire → gunshots; arguing couple → ex-wife; cotton candy → childhood carnival).

Method 6: Extended flashback

• Shows how past experience compels present behavior, or how a situation came to be. Example: a four-page flashback in chapter 2 of Bitch Creek.
• Orient the reader to both shifts: time ("almost exactly five years earlier") and space (a specific place).
• Tense, present-tense novel: write the flashback in past tense.
• Tense, past-tense novel: open the flashback in past perfect ("had been creeping"), then revert to simple past after a few "had"s once the reader is oriented.
• Returning: put past perfect a time or two at the end of the flashback ("She had never called him. At the time, he had thought…"), then revert to simple past in the main story.
• Cost: it interrupts narrative flow. At the wrong time it derails action and wastes momentum. At the right dramatic moment it deepens the story.

Backstory checklist (per layer)

• Is this the dramatically appropriate spot for this layer?
• Choose the method deliberately: narrator tells (internal), dialogue, fictional document, short memory, or extended flashback.
• Trigger memories with something in the present.
• For flashbacks: orient the time and place shift, shift tense (present to past; past to past perfect), and segue back to the main story at the end.

Backstory practice exercise

• Read the first three chapters of a popular mystery. List each backstory element and how the writer conveys it.

Coda: what it is

• The final scene, primarily reflection (the denouement), after the final climax. It gives final resolution or clarification of the plot and ties up loose ends.
• Possible forms: dialogue between two characters about what happened; extended internal dialogue; a lighthearted scene with the love interest.
• By the end, all the plot's puzzle pieces should fit. The reader must not feel duped by information the detective had and they didn't.
• Chandler's The Big Sleep is the model. Little happens (leaves house, drives, has two double Scotches), and the action is only a foil for the protagonist's bitter reflection on death and on being tainted by events.

Coda: constraints

• Length: usually 3–5 pages. Don't belabor every point or give a cumbersome synopsis.
• No new plot strands. No new characters.

Coda: purposes (choose what applies)

• Resolve major conflicts, both internal (the protagonist's dilemmas, reconciling the past) and external (obstacles to finding the killer).
• Account for the facts: why the villain acted, who hid what secrets.
• Tell what happened next: did the protagonist survive his wounds, has the villain been arraigned, were stolen items returned?
• Finish subplots (romance, rivalry), or deliberately leave one dangling to carry into the next series novel (e.g., sleuth on desk duty fighting insubordination charges).
• Give the sleuth's take: satisfied or not, was justice served, hope or despair, any fundamental change.
• Choose the tone:
  • Sail off into the sunset: a safer world, evil defeated.
  • Leave the hero off balance: the killer caught but the instigator escaped, or the hero did something questionable he must live with.
  • Final shocker: save a last twist for the coda (e.g., revealing the victim's lover).
• Leave the reader satisfied. The ending needn't be happy but must be satisfying.

Final lines

• Provide closure. One approach is Janus-style: the protagonist looks back and forward, putting the past to rest and moving on.
• Examples of moving on: George putting the car in gear and taking the road away from Scardale (A Place of Execution); the narrator content to be back working on cars in the Florida sun (Metro Girl); the heroine walking to her car and not looking back (Body Double).
• Spend time crafting the final sentences. Make them memorable and leave readers wanting the next book.

Coda planning and checklist

• Before writing, list everything the ending must accomplish.
• Decide the backdrop: what action takes place while the characters reflect.
• Checklist:
  • Tell what has happened since the last climactic scene.
  • Summarize the resolution and convey the protagonist's feelings about it.
  • Resolve all plots and subplots (or dangle on purpose).
  • Make the final lines sing.