Use Backstory, Not Prologue

This blog gives authors information to help them write better short stories. Readers of fiction can use this information to help them enjoy this art form.

Grabbing your readers’ interests at the beginning of your story is critical. If the story gets bogged down by too much explanation before action takes over, the reader will say “ho hum” and put the book down. Boring exposition is the result of a prologue. It’s an introduction or preface to the story that is about to begin. A prologue gives a narrative about the protagonist and background about main characters. For short stories, this is a waste of space, and it distracts the reader.

Short story writers weave a backstory into the plot to add some history to the main character. These stories usually have one main character or two at the most. Flashback, the main plot development technique used in short stories, works with the backstory to give the reader the character’s history with a minimum amount of words.

Your short story needs to start with action to identify character, one of the five elements of a story. The backstory then develops the other four necessary elements of motivation, conflict, change and resolution. You can read about these five necessary parts of the story in my blog dated January 25, 2014.

The short story “Sticks and Stones” uses backstory to move the plot. It’s in my book of short stories “The Device” that was published in 2013.

“Sticks and Stones” starts immediately in the middle of action that gives us location and one of the main characters of the story. A hired killer surprises a bar owner after closing time.  The owner co-operates with the armed man who is there to rob the bar, he thinks. The owner finds out he was condemned to be killed for not obeying the local mob’s extortion demands.

Phil, the bar owner, promises he will pay the extortion money as he begs for mercy. The hired killer responds calmly: “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. I’ve enjoyed our conversation. I’ll make it quick and painless.”

The backstory begins to reveal the killer’s history. We learn he is very proficient at his gruesome profession. He even perfected a technique of keeping his pistol quiet when it’s fired.

“The small-caliber gun made very little noise. Phil’s head served as a silencer. The stranger was smiling as he picked up the two small casings and put them into his pocket.”

The story gives the reader background about the killer by showing, not telling. That’s necessary in any story. I’m using two more characters in “Sticks and Stones” as examples.

One character is Susan Thompson, a licensed investigator. She has a backstory that explains her short career as a police officer. Her interesting tale is dominated by her unusual physical condition. The backstory shows that she was wounded during a police shootout during a convenience store robbery. She survived a bullet that went into her heart.

Susan’s client asks her about the incident that resulted in her being wounded before she retired from being a police officer: “I was shot in the heart during a convenience store robbery. My partner was killed. The doctors decided to leave the bullet alone. It’s still in me.”

Susan’s good friend and counselor, psychiatrist Dr. Johns, describes the story about the killer who is now her patient. Dr. Johns shows the relevant facts about the killer and helps to advance the plot.

Using backstory and flashback made this action story flow and stay short at 24 pages. Prologues are unnecessary writing tools that only make a story slow at its most important part—the beginning. Using the cumbersome technique of a prologue will drive off readers and, worst of all, editors who might buy our stories.

Thank you for reading this blog. A new one will be posted in about one week. My web page at www.joevlatino.com has information about “The Device.”