September 11, 2007 | Honey Trap
I’m doing a Q&A over on eHarlequin about tightening your first page, and there have been some questions about how to deal with backstory. I thought I’d post this as an example of how backstory can be implied rather than stated or told to the reader, through ramping up conflict between your characters.
This is from Honey Trap, my wip (which will be out next April), and although it’s not on the first page, it’s the first meeting between the heroine and the hero for five years.
He was tall, even taller up on the stage, and he didn’t bother to take his guitar strap off his shoulder when he stormed down from the stage and across the club to where Sophie was standing, her heart pounding, her stomach sinking, barely able to breathe.
Dominick Steele was tall, quick-moving, dark-haired, gorgeous, and he was absolutely the last person in the entire world whom she wanted to see.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded and his voice was just as she remembered it, dark and rich, singing and speaking.
“I’m—” she began, and her own voice was breathy and thin. Sophie swallowed, hating this sign of weakness, and began again.
“I was going to watch your sound check, but now I’m not.” She turned to walk away, but Dominick’s hand grasped her wrist and stopped her.
A big hand, warm and calloused on the finger pads. Sophie’s heart thumped painfully and she had to swallow again at his touch.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said, drawing herself even straighter, looking him in his velvet brown eyes and ignoring the fact that her knees were trembling. “You remember what happened the last time you touched me.”
That did it. He dropped her wrist as if it were a hot potato and Sophie could breathe again. She still felt as if the room had been sucked of most of its oxygen, but at least her throat was unblocked, her lungs were working.
“Why are you here?” he asked her again. “Did Leonie hire you? Why would she do that?”
“I haven’t seen your wife since I gave her the evidence she needed to divorce you,” Sophie said. She was pleased to notice that her voice held a great deal of scorn.
“What is it then? The bank?”
Although he’d stopped touching her, he was still close to her, close enough so that his guitar nearly brushed against the front of her jeans. His hair was shorter and she could see the beginnings of lines around his eyes. He’d aged a little bit in the past five years. He’d also become much more paranoid, although she didn’t detect any alcohol on his breath.
“Sounds like you’ve got a whole list of enemies,” she said. “Keep going, I’m enjoying hearing about them.”
“Hey, Dom, looks like you’ve met my aromatherapist.”
Sophie, who always knew whenever anyone entered a room, started at the unexpected sound of Max’s voice. He was standing on the stage next to his guitarist, Pete, and a fully-grown man who for some reason called himself Mad Dog, and who played the drums.
Dominick Steele, the famous, the sexy, the hopping mad, looked slowly from Sophie to Max and back to Sophie. “The aromatherapist?”
“The smelly woman,” Mad Dog said helpfully. “That’s who I was talking about just now. You two know each other?”
“Don’t tell me I’ve hired one of your ex-girlfriends,” Max said. “What are the chances of that, huh?” He seemed to consider. “Well, actually, I guess they’re pretty good.”
“No,” Dominick said, and his voice was dripping with disgust. “This one is definitely not my type.”
“That’s not what it looked like last time we met.” Sophie smiled at him sweetly and saw anger leap in his eyes. Something answering leapt within her.
Leonie Smith says:
Just wondering where you got Dominick’s wife’s name from? It’s always a pleasure to see my name used in fiction
liz says:
The back story doesn’t intrude which is great. I like the way the story keeps moving forward yet we learn about the past:-)
Biddy says:
Dominick… *swoon*
Anna Louise Lucia says:
Argh! Stop making me hate you for writing perfect stories!!!
This is fab, Julie, tense, tight and hilarious.
Although I have to wonder… I wouldn’t classify any of that as backstory if it were mine, because it leaves me with more questions than answers. To me, those are hints at backstory, not the actual backstory itself… maybe that’s where I go wrong!
Julie says:
Ahhh, Leonie, I was reading a story with a character called Leonie in it and I just stole it blatantly. I love the name.
Thanks Liz. I am very impressed you are checking in from Dubai.
Dominick…*sigh*
Thanks Anna. You can hate me all you want, if that’s the reason. It’s not backstory as such, you’re right–I deal with the actual backstory in a flashback, because in this book it’s necessary (I think, anyway). But it’s an example of how you can create tension between two characters with a past without outlining their entire past, if that makes sense.
vanessa jaye says:
This is exactly how backstory is done right and tight! Great stuff, Jules.
Jan Jones says:
April??? We have to wait until April to read the rest of this?
Julie says:
Hmm…yes, you totally do because now that I’ve posted it, of course, I can see a dozen ways I want to edit it. Yikes!
Laura Vivanco says:
Leonie and Dominick makes me think of Heyer’s The Devil’s Cub, though in that novel Leonie (heroine of These Old Shades is Dominic’s mother, and I think his name is spelled without the “k”.