One of the most common mistakes is delivering too much, too soon—often, in the very first chapter. It seems logical. As writers, we want our readers to know as much about our characters as possible. How else are they going to sympathize with them or be interested enough to power through an entire novel? Ironically, however, ineffective backstory tends to have the opposite effect. It pulls readers away from the story and puts them in a waiting area. Imagine if someone was telling you an incredible tale and every time they reached an interesting part, they paused and said, “Before I finish, let me tell you about everyone’s childhood.”
Screeeech. That’s your momentum coming to a halt.
The trick to writing backstory is knowing what to reveal and when to reveal it. Easier said than done, yes, but writing isn’t supposed to be easy.
I presented the following scene to students at the 2025 Whole Novel Workshop and it sparked a robust discussion about what should stay and what should go. Everyone had their own perspectives, but all of us agreed on one thing: the excerpt needed a scalpel.
I eyed the red dragon with a sword at my side. The heat from its breath warmed me, made me sweat, almost too hot to bear, but I only clutched the sword tighter before raising it over my head. A howl came from deep within and cut through the air.
Once upon a time, I was terrified of dragons. Even as a young girl, when most of us are too ignorant to be afraid of anything. When their wings thumped from outside, my sister Adelaide would run to the window and squeal “Look, Maria, look!” with her finger pressed against the glass as I scurried under the blanket. Our eldest sister, Sofia, never ran to the window either, because she didn’t believe there was any creature more interesting than herself. But Adelaide was a friend to all creatures, especially the dragons.
It was her undoing.
The smell of her burning flesh still awakens me at night. She’d been caring for a young, injured dragon behind our house when its eyes glazed over and, suddenly hungry, it took my sister in two bites. There were many things I could have done in that moment—found one of our father’s daggers and drive it through the dragon’s flesh, for example, but instead I ran inside so I wouldn’t be taken too. My sister, my Adelaide, was gone in a moment, and so was the dragon—it was able to take off easily once it was full. Adelaide did a good job taking care of it.
The shriek of Sofia’s voice yelling why didn’t you do something? is burned into my memory just as deeply as the smell of Adelaide’s flesh.
My cowardice was stronger than my resolve then. But not anymore. I’ve spent years training for this moment. Years learning how to become the best dragon slayer across all the islands. Years searching for this particular dragon. And now, here it was.
If only Adelaide and Sofia could see me now.
The dragon moved to one side. I mimicked. When it spewed fire, I swung down my sword and lifted my shield. The flames hit it and burst back. The creature wailed in anguish. It tried to lift its wings but wasn’t able. I’d made sure of that—all the fruits I’d left outside the cavern were tainted.
“You shouldn’t have been so greedy!” I said. I didn’t know if I was speaking of the fruits or my sister. Maybe both.
I swung the sword in wide swaths in front of me. Benito, my trainer, had taught me well. My body was small and relatively weak when I started training with him. Now I am a beast. The sword may as well be a feather.
“You must wield the sword without aching afterward,” Benito said, again and again.
I am not aching now.
I am too full of rage for that.
Notice all the backstory packed into this opening scene. Notice how it slows down the pacing. Our narrator raises a sword over her head in an exciting confrontation with a dragon, but she’s left there, unmoving, as we launch into backstory.
Is it important to know that she had two sisters? Is it important to know that one of them was eaten by a dragon? Is it important to know that she holds some resentment and guilt? Yes, yes, and yes. But is it important for readers to know it at that exact moment? Not necessarily.
If your backstory were a loaf of bread, you’d want to scatter crumbs throughout the chapters that lead readers to the next scene. You want to raise questions that can only be answered if the reader continues. If you hand over the entire thing, what do you have to work with?
Here’s how I would edit the dragon scene:
I eyed the red dragon with a sword at my side. The heat from its breath warmed me, made me sweat, almost too hot to bear, but I only clutched the sword tighter before raising it over my head. A howl came from deep within and cut through the air.
Once upon a time, I was terrified of dragons.
Not anymore.
If only Adelaide and Sofia could see me now.
The dragon moved to one side. I mimicked. When it spewed fire, I swung down my sword and lifted my shield. The flames hit it and burst back. The creature wailed in anguish. It tried to lift its wings but wasn’t able. I’d made sure of that—all the fruits I’d left outside the cavern were tainted.
“You shouldn’t have been so greedy!” I said.
I swung the sword in wide swaths in front of me. Benito, my trainer, had taught me well. My body was small and relatively weak when I started training with him. Now I am a beast. The sword may as well be a feather.
“You must wield the sword without aching afterward,” Benito said, again and again.
I am not aching now.
I am too full of rage for that.
My rationale:
Once upon a time, I was terrified of dragons. Not anymore. Those two sentences immediately raise a question: What changed? Why isn’t she afraid of dragons anymore? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to keep reading.
If only Adelaide and Sofia could see me now. More questions. Who are Adelaide and Sofia? Why does their opinion matter?
I am too full of rage for that. Why is she full of rage?
In this small snippet, the reader already has three important questions they want to know the answer to. But they don’t need the answers right here, right now. They’re intrigued, but not confused. That intrigue is what pulls them to the next page and the next and the next.
My edits aren’t the only editorial answer—they’re just one. Other Whole Novel writers had their own ideas about what to keep or cut. Some didn’t think Benito needed to be mentioned at all, for example.
Writing would be much easier if there was only one correct answer.
Some of us cut more than others. But all of us cut something.
What does your reader need to know to navigate through the scene? How often do you pause to give the reader backstory? What happens if you delete that backstory—does it change anything? What breadcrumbs are you leaving for your readers? What questions will they have when they reach the end of your scene?
I’m in the first draft of a mg spy novel. A couple days ago I wrote a 1400 word chapter that, even as I wrote, I knew would be cut by half because its backstory. I might move some of it later in the book, or just dump it. As Brett Lott once told me (shameless name dropping), detailed back story helps the writer understand the character but it can put the reader to sleep. His advice was to write it out, then tuck most of it away somewhere as reference material for yourself.