145
44
The dropping in of backstory
should be active.
The active drop means you establish an active scene fi rst—
a character in motion, facing a disturbance—then you
drop in backstory within the action itself.
In his novel The House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus
III begins with action, with the character of Massoud
Behrani narrating:
The fat one, the radish Torez, he calls me camel
because I am Persian and because I can bear this
August sun longer than the Chinese and the Pana-
manians and even the little Vietnamese, Tran. He
works very quickly without rest, but when Torez
stops the orange highway truck in front of the crew,
Tran hurries for his paper cup of water with the rest
of them. The heat is no good for work. All morning
we have walked this highway between Sausalito
and the Golden Gate Park. We carry our small
trash harpoons and we drag our burlap bags and
we are dressed in vests the same color as the high-
way truck.
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We have one bit of active drop: the narrator is Persian,
but he does not simply describe himself that way. He
does it because another character calls him a name.
The scene continues when a worker named Mendez
gets in Behrani’s face. Then:
I pull my sack over my shoulder and to Mr.
Torez I say: “In my country I could have ordered him
beaten.”
“Sí, Camello? In Mendez’s country he would
have beaten you himself.”
“I was colonel, Mr. Torez. I was colonel in the
Imperial Air Force. Do you know this, Mr. Torez? I
was a colonel.”
More backstory comes in, this time via dialogue.
And since dialogue is action, you have an automatic ac-
tive drop.
Behrani and the crew begin to eat lunch (action).
Then the following:
In my country, I was not only a desk offi cer; I
bought F-16 jets from Israel and the United States,
and when I was a captain in Tehran, a genob sar-
van, I worked on the engines with my own hands.
Of course, all the best aerocompanies are here in
California but in four years I have spent hundreds
of dollars copying my credentials; I have worn my
French suits and my Italian shoes to hand-deliver
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my qualifi cations; I have waited and then called
back after the correct waiting time; but there
is nothing.
This is simple narration, but we accept it because we
are within an active scene.
What we know now is that Massoud Behrani was in
a position of great respect in his old country, has been
searching for a job for years, but is reduced to picking
up trash. We learn more as the chapter continues, with
Dubus alternating between action and backstory.
David Morrell begins Scavenger this way:
He no longer called her by his dead wife’s
name, even though the resemblance was strong
enough to make his heart ache. Sometimes, when
he woke and found her sitting next to his hospital
bed, he thought he was hallucinating.
“What’s my name?” she asked.
“Amanda,” he was careful to answer.
“Excellent,” a doctor said. The watchful man
never mentioned his specialty, but Balenger as-
sumed he was a psychiatrist. “I think you’re ready
to be released.”
The fi rst two lines show us the disturbance. A man in
a hospital bed. Backstory—his wife is dead—is mentioned
within the action itself.
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148
The scene continues with Amanda and Balenger in a
taxi, driving through Brooklyn and then about to enter
her apartment.
Amanda put a key in the lock.
“Wait,” Balenger said.
“Need to catch your breath?”
In fact, he did, but that wasn’t his motive for
stopping her. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Do you have another place to go, anyone else
to take care of you?”
In both cases the answer was “no.” During
the previous year, while Balenger searched for his
missing wife, he stayed in cheap motel rooms and
could afford to eat only once a day, mostly sand-
wiches from fast-food restaurants. His savings ac-
count was drained. He had no one and nothing.
[backst ory]
“You barely know me,” he told her.
“You risked your life for me,” Amanda responded.
“Without you, I’d be dead. [backstory] What else do I
need to know?”
Neither commented that at the time Balenger be-
lieved the woman he saved was his wife. [backstory]
“We’ll try it for a few days.” Amanda unlocked
the door.
Morrell has set up an intriguing opening, defi nitely
a disturbance to the Lead’s ordinary world, and used the
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active drop for a bit of backstory. My interest in the Lead
has been elevated.
Go through your opening chapter and highlight ev-
ery bit of backstory. Cut what can be delayed until later.
Use only what is useful for establishing some sort of em-
pathy with the character. Then drop those in actively.
Action fi rst.
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