This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 622 episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

And now I hope you enjoy this week's episode, Backstory As Story versus Alternating timelines. Backstory techniques part two of three. Backstory

techniques are crucial to the success of any type of story. Whether you share all of your characters

pertinent backstories or none, backstory still informs the entire story. What,

when, and how to share backstory are important decisions for any writer.

Making the right choices well determined not just whether or not your backstory works,

but possibly even whether your entire story works.

Today's post is the second in what is now a three-part series discussing five

important techniques for sharing backstory.

Last week we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of using flashbacks and

prologues to dramatize segments of your character's histories.

This week we're going to talk about two possible

approaches to your story's timeline and how to identify which might be best for

your story based on the depth and importance of its backstory.

As I mentioned last week, these posts were inspired by Amazon's limited series, The English,

a neo-Western about a recently bereaved English woman who partners with a decommissioned

pawnee scout while on a mission of vengeance against the father of her child, whom she blames for her son's death. Although the show has a lot going for it,

its greatest weakness was its delivery of certain crucial backstory reveals.

Who was the child's father? Why does the woman, Cornelia Lock, blame him for her son's death? Why aren't they together?

Aside from sloppy misdirection that leads audiences to believe the father is another character entirely,

the main problem is the choice to insert a lengthy flashback in the middle of the story.

The flashback in which the two main characters are barely present takes up an entire

...