Use History Triggers to Get at Your Story's Past

While teaching fiction, I often tell my students that a story is a forward-looking and backward-looking animal at the same time. Forward as the story/plot progress, but backward because we often need to understand the character’s past to understand what they are doing in the present.

Unless your story starts with the character’s actual birth, then your character has a backstory. They, like all people, have history. If your character is 34 when your story begins, she has 34 years of experiences, and the reader will need to know some of those experiences to understand your character in the present. As I tell my students, “Who we are now is the sum total of what we’ve been through.” Our experiences shape our understanding of the world, our philosophies, etc.

But, how do you get at your character’s history?

Too often, I see characters start to think about the past for no reason. And then this will start to launch into the dreaded flashback. Flashbacks, especially if they are long, tend to slow or even stop the forward momentum of a story… and readers come for the forward momentum. Sometimes, if we linger in a flashback too long, it starts to feel like the present of the story. Then, when the present starts again, it’s jarring, and we have to readjust as a reader… “Oh, that’s right, that was a flashback.”

What I want to talk about is finding organic ways to get at the past/history of your story/character.

Sure, characters can think about the past or talk about the past.

But, I think there should be a History Trigger to get us there. What is a history trigger? It’s something that makes us naturally think about the past. It happens all the time in real life… and should happen in your fiction too.

You’re going through your closet to get a dress shirt or a blouse for a job interview. You’re going through the rack, and you come across a shirt that you saved when you cleaned out your father’s house after his death. Just seeing it, the past is triggered. You think of your dad. Maybe the last time he wore the shirt. Maybe what the shirt means. You remember your father was always happy in that shirt because it meant he was going fishing. Then, thinking of your father reminds you of some advice he use to give about job interviews: “Always accept the coffee they offer you,” he’d said. “Even if you don’t drink coffee. If they say, ‘Do you want coffee?’ and you say no, it starts the interview off on a negative note. You want to start with the idea that they are offering something, and you are accepting. It starts with the coffee, but then it’s a job offer.”

All of these memories of your father… they were triggered by the shirt. Had you not seen the shirt, you probably wouldn’t have thought of him at all. But, stumbling on the shirt, it’s believable (even natural) that you would think about the past… think about him.

That shirt was a history trigger. They happen in life all the time, and they should be used to make your characters organically think about or talk about the past. It is then believable that your character would leave the forward-moving flow of the story for a moment and think about the past.

Here's an example from one of my short stories called "That Which We Are," which is in my new book, The Neighborhood Division: Stories... here)

This is the opening scene of the story:

When I’d texted Holly to ask how long she was thinking, she took her time answering, and then only texted back, “uncertainly temporary.” That was three days earlier. Her grey-bubbled message was still there on the bottom of my screen next to the tiny thumbnail of her picture. The photo was from some trip she’d taken with a divorced girlfriend not too long ago and in it she’s smiling like crazy, something I hadn’t seen in person in a long time. That she’d switched to that picture still pissed me off.

In this instance, it is the seeing of his wife's thumbnail picture that reminds him of when his wife took the vacation with her divorced friend. It’s an important little bit of history because it suggests that she is generally unhappy around him. It’s that smile… seeing her smile reminds him how long it’s been since he’s seen her smile in his company. But, because of his own flaws, the picture only serves to piss him off.

 

And this comes back full circle at the end of the story. One of his conflicts is that his marriage is on the rocks. Yes, in the story he’s mainly dealing with his father who has it in his head that he’s going to drive through a snowstorm, get to the airport, and fly to Puerto Rico to help with the power outages. But, the main character’s deeper problem is that he can’t see how his own behavior is pushing his wife away. But the end of the story, and his reaction to this picture, triggers history that shows growth:

I lingered awhile then, how long I’m not sure, in my father’s basement. I stayed until even the drip from the drained water heater stopped. The cold from the concrete penetrated into my soles and crept its way chillingly up through my legs. I’d worked in bitter temperatures enough times in the past to know that it was a chill that would stay with me a long time, even after a hot shower.

I touched the screen on my phone and went to texts. Studying the thumbnail picture, I ignored the face of my wife’s divorced friend. It was Holly’s smiling face I wanted to see. There’d been a time that I could make her smile like that. How long ago it’d been, I didn’t remember. I just remembered there’d been a time that making that face smile was all that had mattered to me.

In this ending scene, he is in his father's basement, and his wife's picture kind of bookends the story... mentioned at beginning and now at end. But, because of his character arc, he is seeing that picture differently. No longer "pissed off" but instead trying to remember the man he once was that wanted only to make her smile.

That’s really it. Finding organic ways to bring the character/reader to the past… and avoiding the jarring/untriggered flashbacks that populate the clunkiest fiction.

In this modern world, there are so many ways to trigger or get at history organically. Obviously, objects can trigger history, as demonstrated above with the shirt.

Just recently, I was reading Duncan Barlow’s A Dog Between Us (read the review: here) and the scenes with the dying father in the hospital reminded me of the days leading up to my own father’s passing. The book triggered my memories. That can happen in fiction, too. Your character could be reading a book, and something about it makes her think about the past.

Another character can bring up the past… so dialogue can trigger history. Your character could reread an old journal or diary entry. They could look at their Netflix cue and see a movie under “watch again” and remember who they were with, what was done/said, when they watched the movie last. Boom… history is triggered.

They could (as we often do) reread old text messages or old emails or old Twitter or Facebook posts… and all of those things can trigger memories/history.

Your character looks at a text from an old friend. The last text from the friend (from months ago) reads, “I’m just tired of your bullshit.” Just reading that line can make your character remember what was going on at the time. It launches us briefly into history.

Your story will need history… will need a past. That’s part of fictional storytelling. We need to know what your character has been through to understand what they are going through. But, how you get us there should be organic and believable.

For that, use history triggers.

If you find my blog posts instructive, please consider purchasing a copy of my new book of short stories, The Neighborhood Division, as a donated payment for the "class."

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Book Trailer: here