There's a lot of it in my book. I think that's normal for crime novels, as the protagonist only gets into present jeopardy by uncovering the past.

But blummin eck, there's a lot of it!

Everyone's. Seems like every single person in the book has vast tracts of backstory that is crucial to the plot, or if not exactly that, then without it, there's not enough insight into current actions to make them comprehensible.

I'm looking at Kate Atkinson and Jodi Picoult and they happily skip back and forward in time, building the story piecemeal. Which is what my book does. But I can't help wondering if there's a more economic, elegant route.

I'm particularly torn by my antagonist's backstory. He is known locally as a thoroughly good bloke, but he's actually a scheming evil weevil.

I know how and why he turned out the way he did, and why he is fixated on what he's fixated on, but does the reader need to? If his history is not included (some quite poignant stuff about his childhood) will readers just go, 'Eh? Why is he this way? Can't see what makes him tick.' But if it is in, it runs the horrible risk of being explanatory.
" X was a lovely, innocent waif, as all kiddies are, until One Day Something Happened that hardened his innocent little kiddie heart forever. It's not quite that bad, but does childhood backstory on a villain run the risk of coming close...

I know I'm asking, 'How long is a piece of string?' since no one has read the manuscript, but I feel I'm drowning in questions and have no confidence in my own answers so am seeking a second opinion.

The key to backstory isn't quantity, it's quality, I think. I think bits and scraps and hints dripped in are the way to go with backstory, almost always. The intelligent reader is hugely experienced at picking up on these, and will 'get' what's what, without you having to explain stuff properly, or link it up.

To be crude if it's vividly written (which it will be) we only need to see him once get the shivers (or start smashing things, or sobbing) at the sight of a stranger's heavy belt-buckle, then the sound of the end of a football match on telly, to get that his step-father used to beat him on Saturday afternoons...

The ratio of MS I see with too much backstory, to MS I see with not enough backstory, is about 10 to 1... Honest to God, the reader almost never needs as much detail as the writer thinks they do - well, as I think they do, let's be honest. It's the emotional underpinnings of how they act now that matter, not the full logic of cause-and-effect, which will make the character-in-action convincing to the reader.

Emma

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grammar-and-punctuationfail:

It's the convincing emotional underpinnings of how they act now, which will make the character-in-action convincing to the reader, not the full logic of life story and cause-and-effect.

Would you really have that much backstory in crime? Even a line out of place can flag up to the reader who dunnit and why. Readers like to join the dots, especially in crime. Just reading Linwood Barclay's Too Close To Home (it's not particuarly well written) and just twigged who dunnit on page 330, out of 466.

Naomi, I think there's a fine balance. Personally I don't like crime novels that leave the reader mystified until the final three pages, where the protagonist meets up with her cronies in a cafe afterwards and says:
Johnson confessed. He had hidden the money on his speedboat which is why Milton couldn't find it when we ransacked the factory. The girl was Johnson's love child by his daughter's best friend Alanis, that's why she lied to us etc etc.

I've read so many crime novels that do this. Even the wonderful Sue Grafton resorts to it occasionally. Explaining all the stuff we weren't told after the event. To avoid this, you need to plant backstory with leads towards red herrings (oh I do love the mechanics of crime writing.)

But I agree that accidental revelation is a constant danger and I really don't want the reader to twig until the story is ready.

Yes, there isn't a single Ngaio Marsh where Alleyn doesn't "unorthodoxly" - and worrying away that it might be a disaster - gather all the suspects together and ploddingly explain the crime to them, at which point something breaks and there's an arrest/suicide-if-murderer-is-sympathetic. It's as if, having saddled herself with a Police detective, she stuck on procedure meaning she shouldn't really have a Poirot-like showdown, which would mean there's no chance to explain it all.

But in Golden Age detection you get away with it. Don't think you can, now.

Emma

With the proviso that I haven't read a crime novel since Agatha Christie in my twenties, I guess it does depend on what kind of a crime novel it is. I think yours is very much a psychological novel, isn't it, Susannah? So if a lot of the 'action' takes place in the minds and souls of the characters, then perhaps the backstory is doing more than just joining the external pieces of the crime together. It depends how deep you are going. If the backstory is also telling its own story - ie adding an extra, interesting layer which the reader would really like to know and which would deepen and strengthen the narrative - then it's necessary, I'd say.
Susiex

Hi Susie - yes it does do all you say. It has its own plots and pay offs, like short stories within a novel, but each one is fractured and scattered through the main story rather than offered in one sitting, if that makes sense.

I like the material in itself well enough. I'm just hugely doubtful about how it holds together structurally. Kate Atkinson does it so well. Gah!

At risk of being totally wrong, I wonder if your worrying about your backstory is an offshoot of being anxious about the new strand you have to incorporate this week? I suspect that once you get going on that strand and get really immersed in it, your other worries will magically disperse...
And I think you may even begin to enjoy it. Now that's daring of me.
Susiex

Personally I don't like crime novels that leave the reader mystified until the final three pages

'Gee, Perry' syndrome

I have lots of back story too, so am reading this with interest - thanks, Cherys, for posting.
Mine isn't a crime novel, it's a fantasy kids' Indiana Jones style novel and there's a lot of pieceing together clues from different archeologists through the centuries. But from what you say, I should perhaps be approaching it as a crime novel - interesting thought.

Archaeology and detective work have a lot in common, I think. So similar story structures suit them - lots of uncovering clues from the past and piecing together a true picture even though pieces of the jigsaw are missing.

Archaeology and detective work have a lot in common, I think.

I went to a historical crime event with Roger Morris and I think Edward Marston, and it was quite fascinating.

Roger (sorry if I'm over-simplifying, Roger!) says he starts with seeing a body on page one, and writing the novel is about uncovering the clues to discover the why and how the body got there. Edward said that he starts with the solution - the why and how, and all the dug-up clues in a heap - and writing the novel is a process of burying them - his metaphor, not mine - suitably.

Emma

Wow. It would never occur to me to think, technically, of it in the way Edward does. I definitely think more along Roger's lines, but actually, that's exactly what this draft has been about. Neat burials.

How wonderful. That is such a useful metaphor. I love 3D, visual/physical metaphors for the techniques of writing. Don't know why they are so helpful but they are. Much more useful than verbal, logical, cerebral ones.