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I've a little background-tale that introduces a Saga: How to handle it?

Sandor

Dreamer
Hi folks!!! :)

I've been lurkin' around by a year or so...Last year I presented an idea for a little saga...Then I got stuck and had to re-build things up. :)
Anyway, now I'm in the process of actually "first-drafting"...In the process, I found that I had to tell a part of history that...is set about 30 years BEFORE the actual "main story."

Before continuing, you should know that I'm writing in third-person limited, with a lots of povs (even incidental-ones). I wanna save the right amount of space for each event, even if little. I don't care about being "slow".

That "background-story" can be told in a limited amount of pages and serves as a guideline for two purposes:
- gives some insight of the world, its mechanisms, some basic characters that will come back later and so on...
- what happens here is the base of what will happen later, even if the subsequent events are a lot more complicated.

Now, talkin' with some friends of mine just for an opinion, I've come up with two different ideas:
- write down a book of "short tells" about the past of my world", transforming it in the "book ZERO" of the saga;
- just save some "boos-space" in book one, divide it in PARTS by default and use the first part to tell that background story, followed by a "part II" with a "30-years later" kinda title to move on.


I've tried to be as clear as I could avoiding spoilers about the plot. If you wanna some details about structure, story or other stuff to have a more in-depth idea, just let me know.

Thanks A LOT!!!
 

MFreako

Troubadour
Personally, I dislike what you call background stories. 30 years seems like a huge, unnecessary leap to me. You can just reveal the background information throughout your story.

I have a good example for this from GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire series: Robert's Rebellion. It's a war that was fought about 15 years prior to the main story-line. And while it's a vital part of the world's history, we never get to experience it firsthand. Instead, information about the rebellion is revealed through character dialogue and reminiscence.

The choice of how to handle this is, of course, yours. That's just my two cents.
 

Sandor

Dreamer
Hi!!

Your two cents are really important to me!!! I really like GRRM (that's my model and the one and only that brought me in fantasy literature after 24 years of fantasy-hate :) ).

You're totally right, that's definitely the most concrete choice and that's the way I started with.
I'm just tryin' to figure out if a "short-novel" or "part I-thing" can be nice.


Thanks a lot for your time!!!
Sandor (aka Marco)


Personally, I dislike what you call background stories. 30 years seems like a huge, unnecessary leap to me. You can just reveal the background information throughout your story.

I have a good example for this from GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire series: Robert's Rebellion. It's a war that was fought about 15 years prior to the main story-line. And while it's a vital part of the world's history, we never get to experience it firsthand. Instead, information about the rebellion is revealed through character dialogue and reminiscence.

The choice of how to handle this is, of course, yours. That's just my two cents.
 

Nameback

Troubadour
I agree with MF. Erik Stevenson does what you're talking about a lot in his Malazan books and it's awful. It's the main problem I have with them, really. He starts multiple books by leaving behind every character you know and care about and spending 300 pages on something that happened in the past to a cast you don't have any interest in.

And that's the main problem--you end up with readers who get to know and like your characters, only to have them removed. If everyone likes your 30-years-ago characters, then they'll be pissed when the story jumps forward. And you can't get around that no matter how good your writing is.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
An approach to consider:

Break your 'background novel' into a lot of tiny pieces - no more than four or five short sentences. Attribute each piece to a past character: ...attributed to General Zan before being killed in the battle of Nis, for example.

Use these tiny snippits to headline each chapter.

Done correctly, this can have immense effect: the snippits are short enough not to detract from the story, yet tell a tale in themselves. Sanderson did this quite well in his 'Way of Kings', as have others.
 

Sandor

Dreamer
Thanks everyone, at first!!! You're very kind. :)

I see your points.

For a more transparent and clear understanding (it can change the analysis) I'd like to explain the "background-tale-thing" to let you better understand the point of my confusion.
It's not an event.
It covers a year or so, in which you can find at least three different major plots (let's say them in a simple way: a new emperor takes place, an ethereal threat becomes real, someone activates a long-time plan using the happenings as a cover). The point is that no-one is a hero, no-one is a bad-guy and the result is that every side of the story involves mistakes and flaws...

The ones who try to hit the empire aren't able to fully control their "cover"...the emperor is smart, but involved in the war against the threat and outside political schemes...the threat is someway "independent" from human will...

The interaction of these three different plots gives life to an entire active and living environment that can easily cover 300 pages (if not more, it's an empirical estimation).

Now, here's the catch: everything that happens in this book (main characters, some side-ones and major plots endings) will come back. Unexpected consequences will be seen after 30 years or so. :) The tricky part is that I wanted to make this LEAP a part of the "building up" process in the saga.

Now, the doubt was: is it worth to use it as the Book I of the Saga?

An approach to consider:

Break your 'background novel' into a lot of tiny pieces - no more than four or five short sentences. Attribute each piece to a past character: ...attributed to General Zan before being killed in the battle of Nis, for example.

Use these tiny snippits to headline each chapter.

Done correctly, this can have immense effect: the snippits are short enough not to detract from the story, yet tell a tale in themselves. Sanderson did this quite well in his 'Way of Kings', as have others.

Sorry if I misunderstood, but: the idea is to create really short sentences (3/4 lines) and distribute 'em throughout the books?

Thanks again.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Sorry if I misunderstood, but: the idea is to create really short sentences (3/4 lines) and distribute 'em throughout the books?

Yes. Each section would preface a different chapter, and each section would be somehow relevant to the events in that chapter.

For example, say chapter 3 has your MC visiting a ruined fortress. Your preface here would be three to four sentences describing how the fortress became ruined in your background tale, and how so-and-so was killed. Say:

'The northmen attacked Carag Keep in the 23rd year of King Vel, destroying it with fire. Only a few escaped, led by the son of Baron Zane. - From the Chronicles of NNNN'

Then go with your chapter.
 

SineNomine

Minstrel
Yes. Each section would preface a different chapter, and each section would be somehow relevant to the events in that chapter.

For example, say chapter 3 has your MC visiting a ruined fortress. Your preface here would be three to four sentences describing how the fortress became ruined in your background tale, and how so-and-so was killed. Say:

'The northmen attacked Carag Keep in the 23rd year of King Vel, destroying it with fire. Only a few escaped, led by the son of Baron Zane. - From the Chronicles of NNNN'

Then go with your chapter.

I can second this. Brandon Sanderson certainly used that very concept in Mistborn to good effect, telling the story of something that happened a thousand years ago in parts in front of every chapter and having it reveal important story information.

In general, Authors can get too caught up in what they think is very important world building and readers just don't care very much about. Anything can be done if you write it good enough, just realize it is a danger area to want to tell this tale of the past as a setup for the actual cool stuff.

The think that the best solution is just don't be explicit and if there is any information that is needed to be known to make current events make sense, have the characters find out when they need to and not before. There is something to be said about...well, leaving things unsaid. It creates a feeling that the world is deeper than just this one story by having people learn parts of it but not spelling out the entire thing.
 
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