Backstory... Just say no! (or yes)

Commonly held wisdom in the commercial fiction writing world is that while it's important to know your characters' back-stories—it's the kiss of death to put any of it in your book, except perhaps in the subtext. In fact, Donald Maass, in his “excruciating tension” workshop, asserts that you shouldn't include any back story—ever. (But he also does a workshop on breaking rules.)

Lately, I've been considering whether this “rule” applies equally to all genres of commercial fiction. My problem is, in women's fiction, relationships between the main characters are paramount (there not generally being a big suspense or mystery or romance or other plot involved) and it’s hard to develop deep, meaningful, believable relationships between characters (with their friends, lovers, family, etc.) without touching on how the characters know each other, or what problems they’ve had in the past.

So, what to do?

Without a doubt, in commercial fiction, what's happening to the characters and their relationships during the actual story (not the past), is the most important aspect of those relationships and should be the focus. I also concede that in well-crafted writing, it’s possible to reveal aspects of how those relationships evolved into what they are. That is, writers can find ways to reveal, in the characters' present, evidence of the baggage and history in their pasts. (without telling us exactly what that baggage and history is.)

But for me as a reader, in many of my favorite stories, tidbits of events which occurred between the characters in their pasts are like golden nuggets. The tasty nuts on top of the story sundae. Hence my dilemma and why the absolutely no back story advice gives me pause...

On a related side-note, my fellow drunk writers and I have spent the better part of the last year discussing why Emily Giffin's books are so dang readable. (Okay, Sinead and I have talked about it once or twice.) And I would assert that Ms. Giffin includes loads of back story about her characters and I think it’s often the back story that makes her books so rich and interesting... (And obviously lots of people think her books work, evidenced by the whole New York Times bestseller list thing…)

So, I've been busy developing my own back story rules and theories to apply to my writing... (Not claiming my rules are original… just that these are the rules I’ve picked out for me.)

Where am I right now? I think I have 2 main rules:

Any time back story is revealed, it should be as detailed yet succinct as possible. (I know, these might seem to contradict--but I don't think they do.) By detailed I mean I think it’s weak to say characters Jen and Kim had a big fight in Jr. High over a boy. I think it’s better to say Jen pulled Kim’s ponytail in the third floor girls room at Rolph Road public school when she learned Kim told Jimmy Fenwick that Jen had a crush on Billy Jones. (Okay, not so succinct, but my point on succinctness is that this shouldn’t be a ten page flashback scene showing the fight. Just some great details to make the reader believe that it happened, and was important enough to one of the characters that she remembers it vividly.)

Back story must come as late in the novel as possible—each back story detail arriving at a point where it has the most impact, where the reader is dying to know what happened between these people, or at a point when it surprises the reader and changes the readers understanding of everything between the characters. (And yes, when used with caution and very sparingly, as late as possible might be in the first few chapters, but the writer should think about this and consciously decide whether it wouldn’t be stronger to hold back that information until later.)

So, that’s what I’m thinking right now… Do you have any back story rules? Do you even care?