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."

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

Book Trailer: here

New Review of The Neighborhood Division

I'll keep this short. Author Andrew James Rush recently reviewed my new collection of stories, The Neighborhood Division on his blog.

It's a super thoughtful review, and I am humbled by it. Read it: here

I recently did a book trailer for the book. Watch it: here

Subtext: An Important Nuance of Strong Dialogue

Not long ago, I did a blog post on the basics (and some of the nuances) of formatting and handling dialogue in fiction. You can read it: here

For today’s post, I’d like to talk about SUBTEXT in dialogue. I’m going to tell what seems like an unrelated story, but then come back full circle.

Last week, I brought a copy of my book, The Neighborhood Division: Stories, over to my neighbor’s house. “Hey,” I said, “I wanted you to see my new book.” He looked at it, turned it over, and then asked the question I wanted, “Where can I get one?” I told him, “From me!” And then I proceeded to sell it to him at cost ($9). After giving him a couple chances to back out, I inscribed the book personally to him. He informed me that he currently didn’t have any cash, but he’d get me the money on the weekend.

The weekend passed. Nothing.

Now, I could have just let it go. He’s a neighbor/friend. But, I only get like 10 to 15 complimentary copies from my publisher. I don’t even give them to my sister or brother. I hold onto them for possible reviews... or sell them for the full $14 profit! The other copies I have, I bought from my publisher at a 40% discount. Those I can sell on my own for anywhere from cost to $14. Obviously, the higher I sell it, the more money I make on the book. (Ok, technically, cost is $8.40… so I still stood to make 60 cents from my neighbor, which could have meant early retirement).

The point? I really don’t have copies to give away to friends or family. On principle alone, I want to get the $9 from my neighbor. I couldn’t just ask for the book back (awkward… and useless since it’s inscribed to him).

So, on Tuesday, he invited me to bring my dinner over to his porch. I did. We ate our meals, had a nice talk. Then he asked, “What did you do today?” Seeing my opportunity, I launched into a talk about the difficulty of marketing a book. How sales are struggling. How it’s hard to get the word out… the fruitless things I attempt on Twitter. I must have talked for 15 minutes. He eventually said, “That’s right, I still owe you nine dollars.”

Bingo… my subtext worked. I really wanted to bring up the fact that he hadn’t paid me. Instead, I talked about marketing the book, but in a round-about way, I was really trying to get him to remember the book and pay me.

For the record, I still don’t have my money.

But, the conversations above demonstrate subtext. As people, we generally don’t like saying anything that might be controversial or confrontational… especially if it’s in the context of a relationship that we might put at risk. We aren’t always forthright, but instead talk “around” subjects, but still wanting the subtext of our conversation to yield the same results of being forthright.

Too often, though, in fiction writing, we make our characters say exactly what’s on their mind. It’s dialogue that’s “too on the nose.” Our fictional people don’t feel like people because they are too forthright.

Subtext: Having our characters talk around subjects that are uncomfortable… not saying exactly what’s on their minds (that’s risky!) but instead dancing around the subject.

Think of the conversations above. When I told my neighbor that I wanted to show him my new book, that wasn’t completely true. If I were forthright, I would have said, “Here’s my new book; I want you to buy it.” That’s what was on my mind when I brought the book over to him. Later, when I went on my diatribe about book marketing, the subtext was, “Hey, it’s especially hard to market a book when people won’t pay you even after giving them a substantial discount. Speaking of which, how about my nine dollars, pal?”

Obviously, that would be much more confrontational… and could even put the friendship/neighborship at risk.

So, like most people, I spoke in subtext.

Imagine a married man. He’s gone out the past two Fridays with his friends… spouse free. They are going to go out again this coming Friday. He wants to go, but he also knows that he should probably take his wife out. But, he really wants to hang with his friends. On Wednesday, casually over dinner, he says, “We don’t have anything going on this Friday, do we?” What he hopes happens is that she’ll say, “No, we don’t. You should go out with your friends again!”

That’s what he wants to be the result of his subtext-oriented question. If he were being forthright, he would have said, “I know we haven’t gone out in sometime, but the guys are going out again this Friday, and I want to go.”

This is forthright, but also maybe too honest. He’s uncomfortable with the confrontation or disappointment that such honesty could cause. So, instead, he dances around the subject with a passive question… but hoping for the desired results.

This is human. And, your own fictional characters might seem more human if you looked for places to use subtext in your dialogue.

Often, what characters are talking about isn’t really what they are talking about.

Sometimes we hear subtext even when it’s not there. A wife says to her husband, “Is Hank still walking? He looks like he’s lost a lot of weight.” Her overweight husband might hear, “You should start walking like Hank. You’re getting fat.”

This could be what she meant. Or not. But subtext is a huge part of dialogue/conversations in real life… and should be in your fiction.

Let me see if I can give a specific example that’s fictional.

Background:

Bob and Ted have been married for six years. Bob takes his identity from his marriage to Ted. He believes they should always be doing stuff together. It bothers Ted that Bob doesn’t seem to have interests of his own. Ted feels a little smothered in the relationship, but he doesn’t want to hurt Bob’s feelings or cause a fight. Still, he wants something to change.

The Scene:

            Ted comes into the living room from the kitchen holding two glasses of wine. He hands one to Bob and then takes a seat near him on the couch.

            “Thanks, Dear,” Bob says. “Should we watch some Law & Order?”

            “In a minute. I wanted to ask you something.”

            Bob tells him to “ask away.”

            “Remember when we were first dating? You talked about how you’d always wanted to go to France, stay in hostels, and just have some time to discover yourself?”

            Bob nods, smiling.

            “You could do that. We could easily afford it.”

            Bob sets his wine glass on the coffee table and rubs his palms together. “Oh my god, we should! That would be great. I can start looking into—”

            “I don’t really want to go to France,” Ted says.

            Bob picks up his wine glass again. “Why did you bring it up?”

            “I just remembered it was something you talked about. I just wanted to support you if you still dream about it.”

            Bob takes a sip of wine. “That wouldn’t be fun by myself.”

            Ted shrugs. “Well, it’s not something I’d really want to do… but I really do support you if you want to. I know you worry about money, but we’re covered. You really could go.”

            Bob studies Ted for a moment. Then, he picks up the television remote. “What do you think, ready to indulge in the inner workings of the criminal justice system?”

            “Sure,” Ted says, picking up his glass and taking a long drink.

Now, let’s look at the subtext.

            Ted comes into the living room from the kitchen holding two glasses of wine. He hands one to Bob and then takes a seat near him on the couch.

            “Thanks, Dear,” Bob says. “Should we watch some Law & Order?”

            “In a minute. I wanted to ask you something.” (Subtext: “I have something I need to say to you.”)

            Bob tells him to “ask away.”

            “Remember when we were first dating? You talked about how you’d always wanted to go to France, stay in hostels, and just have some time to discover yourself?” (Subtext: “I think it’s really important to remember that we were individuals before we were a couple. Though we are in love and married, it’s still important for us to have separate interests. There were aspects of being by myself that were appealing. I want my own separate stuff, and you should too.”)

            Bob nods, smiling.

            “You could do that. We could easily afford it.” (Subtext: “I want us to focus on doing some things apart from each other. I don’t want to always do everything together. And, it can’t just be me with separate interests. You need to have your own.”)

            Bob sets his wine glass on the coffee table and rubs his palms together. “Oh my god, we should! That would be great. I can start looking into—”

            “I don’t really want to go to France,” Ted says. (Subtext: “It doesn’t matter what it is, but you need to find something, Bob. You’re smothering me.”)

            Bob picks up his wine glass again. “Why did you bring it up?” (Subtext: “I’m really confused by what you’re saying.”)

            “I just remembered it was something you talked about. I just wanted to support you if you still dream about it.” (Subtext: “I’m not trying to be a bad partner here. This is classic relationship stuff. Two people can spend too much time together. I don’t want to come to resent you, and I feel like I already am.”)

            Bob takes a sip of wine. “That wouldn’t be fun by myself.” (Subtext: “I’d want you to go. Period. I don’t like being away from you. Ever.”)

            Ted shrugs. “Well, it’s not something I’d really want to do… but I really do support you if you want to. I know you worry about money, but we’re covered. You really could go.” (Subtext: “You are suffocating me!”)

            Bob studies Ted for a moment. Then, he picks up the television remote. “What do you think, ready to indulge in the inner workings of the criminal justice system?” (Subtext: “I think I hear what you’re saying now, and I’m not comfortable with it. You’re suggesting we spend time apart, and I’m going to change the subject.”)

            “Sure,” Ted says, picking up his glass and taking a long drink. (Subtext: “No, not really, but this conversation is going nowhere so, yes, let’s watch Law & Order again like we do every single night.”)

Have you looked at your own fiction for opportunities for your characters to be implying something when they are really saying something else? Real people do it all the time, and your characters might seem less than real if they always say exactly what they want to say.

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."

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

Book Trailer: here

Duncan Barlow's A Dog Between Us: A Book Review

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am making an effort to purchase books from small presses and then reviewing them. I’m a small press author, and I think it important for writers to financially support the presses that may eventually showcase their work.

I will admit, after reading John Guzlowski’s Little Altar Boy, Madeline Miller’s Achille’s Song (admittedly, not a small press book, and hence no review), and Chris Geier’s Silt, it took me a number of pages to orient myself in Duncan’s Barlow’s A Dog Between Us. While the first three were strong on plot, Barlow’s book isn’t nearly as plot-driven. To be fair, more of a plot kicked in near the end of the book, and I believe this was deliberate on the author’s part to demonstrate character arc. The last quarter of the book reminded me of Saul Bellow’s Henderson, the Rain King… in the best way.

A Dog Between Us centers around a death, a relationship, and a main character trying to find his bearings in world through which he flounders… and his floundering is all the more pronounced since his father’s passing. After about 20 pages, the book had me, and I was fully invested in Crag’s (the protagonist’s) story.

I’m 50 years old, and within the last 12 years I’ve lost both of my parents to cancer. I remember the visits to the hospital, the tubes, the indignities for the patient… the wondering if I was truly a good son. Like the main character in A Dog Between Us, I also lived a distance from my dying parents. Fortunately, my brother and sister lived in the same town as my parents but, like Crag, I had to navigate the guilt of being far away during that difficult time.

Barlow beautifully and heartbreakingly captures the experience of watching and then having a parent pass. I recall sitting at my father’s side, not wanting to leave the hospital for fear he would die before I returned. I remember, though he couldn’t hear me, singing to him “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Sometimes his hand squeezed mine, so maybe he could hear me. I remember the medications, weighing side effects against my father’s comfort. I remember being angry with doctors and nurses who seemed indifferent, but also I remember the nurses that, through their compassion, made the experience almost bearable.

All of this and more is captured in Barlow’s book. In one scene, as Crag and his siblings discuss whether to continue with their father’s treatment, Crag tells everyone to leave the room. He asks his father if he wants to live:

“I sat in a chair beside my father. I pulled his hand into mine. I kissed it. I stroked it softly. The medical tape crinkled beneath my thumb. He looked at me. His eyes were wild. He opened his mouth in a child-like smile. His dentures were out. I told him that I loved him. I asked him if he knew that. He nodded. This gave me hope. I looked him in his eyes. I asked a question I’d never imagined I’d ask; do you want to die? He mouthed something round. Squeeze my hand, I said, if you want to go to hospice. He did not. Squeeze my hand if you want to fight and live. He squeezed my hand.”

A few passages later, Barlow seemingly sums up the entire experience of watching a parent fight death.

“Soon after, everyone left. I sat in the dim room with my father, and watched his chest rise and fall, again. The movements were much slighter. He was on the precipice between this world and the next. I would not stop watching. I would will it to continue. This is what it is to care, I told myself. We sit by our loved ones and will breath into them. We reseal the door between worlds. We cast furtive glances at the shadowy corners to ensure no family spirits call to them. We eat candy bars from vending machines for dinner and drink cola. We lose track of days and nights and sleep upright. We learn to ignore the clamor of machines and read books in the near-dark.”

So many beautiful and tender passages in this novel. The narrative moves seamlessly between the past and the present. Crag, like any of us, struggles with his relationships, his sense of purpose, and his longing to have something truly feel right and stable. The story also follows Crag’s relationship with Emma… an old and long-time flame. She has her own tragic tale, and Crag is left wondering what part he might have played in it.

The end of the book, the last quarter, is really quite stunning. I really can’t say more than that other than to say it is transformative for both Crag and the reader.

Compared to the other works of fiction I’ve been reading, A Dog Between Us, was a slow burn, but it was the burn it needed to be. Just like some recipes call for a boil and some for a simmer, Barlow knew exactly what he was cooking in his pages and set the heat accordingly.

The end result? Delicious writing.

Purchase A Dog Between Us: here

Jeff Vande Zande is an English professor at Delta College in Michigan. His latest collection, The Neighborhood Division: Stories, is now out through Whistling Shade Press and available: here.

Handling Exposition: Let the Reader Intuit Rather than You Exposit

It’s a phrase one often hears as a part of standard fiction writing advice: Show Don’t Tell.

Usually, the phrase revolves around how one is handling exposition in their story. Exposition in and of itself is not bad. It’s a neutral term. For fiction writing, it just refers to what the reader is learning that she needs to know. There is subtly handled exposition (usually the most satisfying or least clunky) and then there is heavy-handed exposition… or expository sentences.

Typically, a heavy-handed expository sentence in fiction is telling us something that we could likely learn in a more organic way.

For instance, here is a heavy-handed expository sentence:

Dan was a police officer.

That sentence exists only to tell us information that we could learn in some more organic way. Expository sentences, by their very nature, usually slow the story down. They don’t exist to move the story forward and, thereby, they serve to take the reader out of the suspended disbelief that is required while reading fiction.

They serve to make the reader aware of a writer… and that shatters the veneer that the words on the page are really just words masquerading as a world.

Imagine watching a movie. We see a man getting up from bed. Then, the director steps into the shot, breaks the Fourth Wall, and says, “This is Dan. He is a police officer.”

Or, if not that obtrusive, imagine a voiceover telling us that this is Dan and he’s a cop.

You’d probably think, “Shut up and just let the movie play! I’m sure we’ll figure out he’s a cop.”

Same goes for fiction writing.

Check this scene.

Dan opened the doors and started toward the hallway on his left.

“Clarkson,” the desk sergeant said without looking up from the form he was filling out. “Captain wants to see you. ‘The moment his scuffed up shoes come through that door’ I believe were his words.”

Dan looked down over his uniform and straightened whatever could be straightened. His shoes looked like the driver’s door of the keyed car he’d filed a report on the day before. He took a deep breath and sighed it out.

None of the sentences in that scene are overly expository. You might ask, “What about: ‘He took a deep breath and sighed it out.’?”

Isn’t that expository? Yes, it is. Remember, exposition in and of itself isn’t bad. You have information that the reader needs to know. It all comes down to how they learn it.

In the case of the deep breath/sigh sentence. True, we are being told what he’s doing. We are being told information, but there’s probably no more organic way to say it. What would you write otherwise?

Dan’s ribcage expanded. Then it contracted again and air passed through his trachea and out his mouth breathily.

Kinda gets downright clunky trying to find a more subtle way to say it.

It’s okay to have your sentences act like a camera/microphone to tell us what we would be seeing/hearing in a scene.

But, Dan was a police officer… that’s not a camera/microphone sentence. That’s a heavy-handed sentence, and we could learn the info in a more organic way. Even from the scene above, the reader intuits that Dan is a cop, just by the setting and the exchange with the desk sergeant. We learn his last name in a natural way. We also learn (organically) that he’s a beat cop or uniformed officer because he’s wearing a uniform and not the shirt and tie of a detective. Plus, the fact that he was responding to someone who had their car keyed also lets the reader intuit that he is not high-ranking.

Let me give another example that might not be as heavy-handed (or obvious) as: Dan was a police officer.

Example:

Sheila went to lunch with Theresa. Theresa had been her best friend in college. They’d stayed best friends over the years. Theresa could always make Sheila laugh, no matter what mood she’d been in previously. The only thing that bothered Shelia about Theresa is that she was always trying to set her up with guys. Then, she would complain that Sheila was too picky. Sheila was too picky and just wanted to find the right guy. Sheila punched back in after her lunch break.

Really, the only sentence of that entire paragraph that isn’t heavy-handed exposition is the last one. The rest of that information we could learn or intuit organically.

The big question I have for this writer? Why didn’t you just write about them at lunch? We could learn almost all of this stuff just by eavesdropping on them.

For instance:

The hostess walked Sheila to a table near the back of the restaurant. Theresa was sitting with a margarita in front of her.

Sheila pulled out her chair. “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning.”

Theresa lifted her glass. “And I’ll drink to that too.”

Sheila shook her head, laughing. “We aren’t in college anymore, T.”

Theresa scratched above her ear. “No wonder I haven’t been sleeping with any professors lately.” She pointed a finger. “Speaking of which… how’d Saturday night go with Dexter? I hope well. I’m running out of victims.”

“Good,” Sheila said, “I mean, good that you’re running out. That Dexter guy said he sometimes voted third party… ‘just to make a point,’ he says. What point? That you like to waste your vote?”

“I sometimes vote third party.”

Sheila said that was fine. “I’m not looking at you for long-term dating prospects.”

Theresa picked up her glass and toasted her. “Then you can consider this lunch Dutch treat, you tease.”

Sheila laughed again.

Notice that we still learned everything we needed to learn that was originally in the heavily expository paragraph… but we learned it organically or we intuited it from the exchange. This scene felt more like a scene from a movie.

Watch your own fiction for heavily expository sentences/sections. Is there a different way you could be “showing” the reader what you are currently “telling” them?

If so, make the change, and you’ll give your reader a better fiction experience.

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."

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

Book Trailer: here