Where to Begin…

[madelinemasoch]

Do you write long stories that set up the first meeting of your characters, slow burns, and/or detailed backstories/exposition? Where do your characters meet? Have you ever written a story from first meeting to later relationship?

I know there’s some variety here on AH and already know some of you aren’t into characterization and backstory. I just want to know, for the rest of you, how much you like to get into in terms of your characters’ history with each other.

I’m posting this partially because I have no idea where people in small towns meet each other for the first time outside of school

Edit: also, as a reader, is there an amount of backstory required for you to get into a story?

 

[alohadave]

People in small towns tend to know of each other, if they don't already know each other.

It's pretty hard to be anonymous in a small town.

 

[madelinemasoch]

People in small towns tend to know of each other, if they don't already know each other.

It's pretty hard to be anonymous in a small town.

It isn’t like that anymore in my small hometown.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Do you write long stories that set up the first meeting of your characters, slow burns, and/or detailed backstories/exposition? Where do your characters meet? Have you ever written a story from first meeting to later relationship?

I know there’s some variety here on AH and already know some of you aren’t into characterization and backstory. I just want to know, for the rest of you, how much you like to get into in terms of your characters’ history with each other.

I’m posting this partially because I have no idea where people in small towns meet each other for the first time outside of school

Edit: also, as a reader, is there an amount of backstory required for you to get into a story?

Coffee shops? Laundromats? While waiting for their oil change to be completed at the nearest valvoline? The library? What type of people are they? What sort of "romance" or "relationship" do you want them to have? I'm from a not very small town but the new friends I *have* formed have come via mutual friends or the parents of my children's friends for the most part, though we met a few in a gaming shop because I'm nosey and can't help but chime in if someone is curious about a game I know is amazing (or awful).

And yea....looking at my recent set of forum posts, I think the fact that I talk too much is a surprise to no one...

 

[NuclearFairy]

I’m posting this partially because I have no idea where people in small towns meet each other for the first time outside of school

Church is the number two spot for people to meet in a small town. Outside of that, waiting in an aisle for the chatty Cathy's at either end to clear out so you can get on with your shopping.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Do you write long stories that set up the first meeting of your characters, slow burns, and/or detailed backstories/exposition? Where do your characters meet? Have you ever written a story from first meeting to later relationship?

I realized I never actually answered your original message. With only one How To essay under my belt (and a short story that I have no idea how much folks will like), I'm not sure I'm the best advice giver, but I do know that I love backstories in general. When I'm on here, though, I kind of want the burn in there somewhere as well. I'm personally a huge fan of in medias res as a starting point, just to get the juices flowing, but I've been told I'm somewhat alone on that.

Edit: also, as a reader, is there an amount of backstory required for you to get into a story?

And this depends entirely on what I'm looking for that day and how "into" the story I'm trying to get. I'm more likely to read a full series if there was backstory to get me into the characters' heads in the first place to be sure, but sometimes I'm looking for something quick and simple and the backstory just gets skimmed, tbh. I've never stopped reading because a story had a back story, though, so long as I could skim it and get to what I was looking for in that moment (and if I liked that, I have gone back to re-read the story when I'm in more of a back story type of mood).

I hope that helps! Just be sure to take it more from the perspective of a reader who has only just started writing rather than a seasoned writer! There are far better advice givers than me on here.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Edit: also, as a reader, is there an amount of backstory required for you to get into a story?

Unless it's a purely stroke story, there should be some backstory to deepen the characters and the connection between them. It makes them more relatable, too.
But how much of a backstory there needs to be, and how you should go about it, depends on the type and the size of the story.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Unless it's a purely stroke story, there should be some backstory to deepen the characters and the connection between them. It makes them more relatable, too.
But how much of a backstory there needs to be, and how you should go about it, depends on the type and the size of the story.

Is there a tag that authors use to indicate that something is a stroke story? That would actually be useful to know going in as a reader.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Is there a tag that authors use to indicate that something is a stroke story? That would actually be useful to know going in as a reader.

Very rarely, from what I've seen. They sometimes announce it in the foreword, though.
The one thing Lit should copy from SOL is the mandatory tag that reveals the amount of sexual content in a story. But it's never going to happen.

 

[iwatchus]

I still find its true that every long term resident in small towns knows everyone. And new residents stand out like sore thumbs for a decade or two.

How small are you talking. There are towns not far from here with a few dozen people. My best friend grew up in a town of just over 200. Many people in my area would not consider an isolated 4,000 person town as small. I grew up in big cities and at one time considered anything under 50K small. The different scales change the interactions a lot. A think the sub 1K towns are hard for most people to wrap their heads around.

In my neck of the woods, church going is far from ubiquitous like it is elsewhere, in the south particularly. Especially few younger people go, so unless you want a Mature story, it wouldn't feel right up here.

But grocery stores are good. Season one of the series Fargo has the two MC's meet in the waiting room of the ER. Laundromats. Diners. Is either character at all outgoing? Almost all my characters are introverts which makes it harder. I did a small town romance recently when one of the two characters is relatively new in town, starting an accounting business. The other needs an accountant. There are community events, like farmer's markets or town band concerts.

If they are not outgoing and otherwise just ordinary people, I would probably go for the literal bumping into each other at the grocery store.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Do you write long stories that set up the first meeting of your characters, slow burns, and/or detailed backstories/exposition? Where do your characters meet? Have you ever written a story from first meeting to later relationship?

I know there’s some variety here on AH and already know some of you aren’t into characterization and backstory. I just want to know, for the rest of you, how much you like to get into in terms of your characters’ history with each other.

I’m posting this partially because I have no idea where people in small towns meet each other for the first time outside of school

Edit: also, as a reader, is there an amount of backstory required for you to get into a story?

Of my two longest stories, one begins with two people who end up sexually involved within a couple of hours. The other has two who first meet when one of them is hired to tutor the other (16 years old at that point) and who drop in and out of one another's lives for the next seven years before things turn sexual. Part of why I had the long lead-up in that story is that I wanted to show how the relationship evolved as they aged - 23 is much older than a shy 16, but by the end they're a lot closer to being equals.

For the longer stories I will usually have some backstory in mind, because it's important to characterisation, though I'm more likely to drip-feed it than dump it all in the introduction.

Meeting places:
- in the workplace
- school teacher and class visitor
- high school student + tutor
- office Christmas party (at the boss's place, with his adult daughter who's staying there at the time)
- two students at college

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Small towns? In the pub. Or the shop. Or any local meeting - could be a local political issue, or getting volunteers together. Or they could be walking dogs or collecting children.

Several of my stories have A meeting B and getting it together. Sometimes they know each other already. I wrote one story where Emily's kinda boyfriend walks in as she's being fucked by another guy, and he simply joins in. (I Say Ass, You Say Arse - Again). I had a vague idea how they'd got together, but when I started writing it, they wanted to go into lots more emotional detail - it became three stories of 15-20k words each (Conference Collaboration, Anal Sex: A Scientific Approach, Messing About on the River), covering an initial two-night fling, then becoming regular friends with benefits, then realising they have a long-distance relationship.

Actually, my recent C&P story has two characters meet, get together, then move in, and live together for over 20 years, all in 10k words. It's more about changes in society, so their own life changes are secondary to that - Pride and the Police.

 

[TheRedChamber]

A lot of RomComs will have some space at the start to establish the two leads characters and situations before engineering the 'meet cute' about, what?, fifteen minutes in. You can do that if you like, but my feeling is that you can go straight to the moment the two characters meet, just because its a lot easier in prose to drop hints at a characters backstory.

Typically, I'd start at story 'at the moment it gets interesting' That can be the moment the two characters meet. If they've know each other years, it can be the moment when their relationship is redefined in some way. For example...

- MC1 sees MC2 have an explosive and relationship ending argument with their significant other. MC1 has long liked MC2, wants to make a move, bit is torn between moving insensitively early and knowing they won't be on the market long (because they are hot...)
- MC1 startd to see MC2 in a new and sexual light. It could be as simple as them turning up with a new haircut and wardrobe one day. Or it could be the old chestnut about them walking in them showing and seeing they have a 14 inch cock. In any case, there is a 'call to action'

 

[Kelliezgirl]

How small is your "small town"? I grew up in a small town, one of my good friends from college is also from a small town. My "small town" had 80 times the population of his small town.
A "small town" can mean 10,000 or 15,000 people. They most assuredly don't all know each other. Small town is a bit like "Middle class" in America. There might be a hard number to reference, but in reality the meaning largely depends on the perspective of the speaker.

As to where people meet... and assuming you are talking about sub-10k towns.
Grocery store (and it's common in small towns like that for people from the even smaller outlying communities to "got to town" for groceries and such.)
In lots of small towns the Volunteer Fire Department is a HUGE part of the "social scene" and they hold fundraisers and things.
Regardless of what some people will tell you, the small towns in my area often have a thriving library, you could meet looking for a book in the stacks.
County fairs, high school football games, the rodeo when it comes to town (assuming you are out west somewhere). There are still bars in small towns, usually only one or two but they exist.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Sweetwater Texas, population 10,000.
Home of the world's largest Rattle Snake Roundup.

Maybe your FMC has memories of competing in the Miss Snake Charmer pageant when she was younger?
http://www.rattlesnakeroundup.net/

You could build a great story around some of the unusual events small towns pride themselves on.

 

[NuclearFairy]

There are still bars in small towns, usually only one or two but they exist.

Around here it's a patchwork of wet and dry counties, so one small town can have like five bars because the two counties that border it are dry, and everyone in those small towns are flooding out at night to get their drink on. Makes driving at night a very risky endeavor.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Around here it's a patchwork of wet and dry counties, so one small town can have like five bars because the two counties that border it are dry, and everyone in those small towns are flooding out at night to get their drink on. Makes driving at night a very risky endeavor.

The ones where there is a bar in the middle of damn nowhere, and you realize it's because it's literally 10 feet across the county line.

 

[NuclearFairy]

The ones where there is a bar in the middle of damn nowhere, and you realize it's because it's literally 10 feet across the county line.

Yeah, you can tell when you're about to enter or leave a dry county by keeping an eye out for those bars.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Yeah, you can tell when you're about to enter or leave a dry county by keeping an eye out for those bars.

Or the BYOB places that sell "set ups"? My brother used to joke if he won the lottery he and a buddy were going to drive around the country and make a youtube channel about all the crazy liquor laws there are.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Do you write long stories that set up the first meeting of your characters, slow burns, and/or detailed backstories/exposition? Where do your characters meet? Have you ever written a story from first meeting to later relationship?

I know there’s some variety here on AH and already know some of you aren’t into characterization and backstory. I just want to know, for the rest of you, how much you like to get into in terms of your characters’ history with each other.

I’m posting this partially because I have no idea where people in small towns meet each other for the first time outside of school

Edit: also, as a reader, is there an amount of backstory required for you to get into a story?

I love slow burns with backstory and developing relationships. I've had MCs meet on the golf course, at the pound adopting a dog, even a random thing where a hairdresser slid her card and a ponytail tie to a guy that needed a haircut or the cable guy being cute. I've had a biker adopt a random stranger in a roadhouse, and a guy on a bike get stuck in a snowstorm and pull up behind a farmer asking if he can stay in his barn.

You imagination is the only limit. As others have said, in small towns, church works, but there's also the waitress at the diner(every small town has one of those), or some incident at the grocery store.

 

[dirk2024]

I’m posting this partially because I have no idea where people in small towns meet each other for the first time outside of school

Perhaps one of them is a newly transferred citizen?

He's a deputy, come from a big city looking for a quieter life. She's speeding one day. He pulls her over, she is a smart mouth, he cuffs her and her latent submissive personality takes over and she kneels at his feet...

Ummm...nevermind.

 

[NotWise]

Do you write long stories that set up the first meeting of your characters, slow burns, and/or detailed backstories/exposition? Where do your characters meet? Have you ever written a story from first meeting to later relationship?

My stories aren't super long, but there's usually some development.

First meetings are highly variable. A fair portion of my stories are in I/T, so they don't start with a first meeting. Aside from those, I can think of: the main characters meet on opposite ends of a loaded rifle, the main characters meet at a party, the FMC knocks on the MMC's door looking for a job, they meet late when she's working late and he's the janitor, they meet in an elevator, they meet while window shopping for Christmas, they meet at a bus stop, they meet at a gas station.

The first meeting can be about anything. Meeting at a party is probably my most-used. I write a lot of parties.

I know there’s some variety here on AH and already know some of you aren’t into characterization and backstory. I just want to know, for the rest of you, how much you like to get into in terms of your characters’ history with each other.

The shared backstory is usually important in I/T stories, and in any cases where the characters knew each other before the story. Otherwise, they don't usually have a history with each other.

I’m posting this partially because I have no idea where people in small towns meet each other for the first time outside of school

Edit: also, as a reader, is there an amount of backstory required for you to get into a story?

I have one story in a small-town setting, and in that case the main characters knew each other since childhood. If the characters didn't grow up in the small town where they meet, I might have them meet at church, at work, at the market, or at the home of a mutual friend. There are plenty of other options.

As a reader, I don't always need a backstory. Same as a writer. The characters in one of my most popular stories have very little backstory. The way the backstory is told is important. I don't want the flow of the story interrupted to give backstory, I want backstory to be part of the story.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

To answer the rest of the question... I like to start with the characters just before they meet, with just enough backstory to explain why they are where they are.

Blake's a newly hired hand at the Lit Bar E ranch 30 miles outside of town, today is his day off and he's heading into town to buy groceries and get a hair cut.
Lara is fresh out of the University of North Texas with a degree in Education and just got hired to teach third grate at East Ridge Elementary in Sweetwater.
On a whim she goes into Dandy Western Wear.
Blake is trying on a new hat, sees the pretty girl walk in and and asks her what she thinks....

The characters are going to get to know each other going forward, so any backstory before that moment is either going to be redundant or not important.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I have a policy: the first scene, or the first chapter, is the backstory. Anything that goes further back than that is only relevant when needed.

In other words, I usually don't write backstories, but when I do, they usually are one line long. An entire paragraph at most.

 

[Comshaw]

Most of my stories have a backstory for the prominent characters. Sometimes it's brief to explain something that is or will happen, sometimes it's in depth because that's required to make the story make sense.

As for growing up in a small town, I grew up between two towns, one had 21,000 population and the other 1,500. The former was a logging/mill/fishing town and the latter a farming town. The next closest town was 40 miles away and about halfway between those two in population. Everyone who lived or worked or did business in the smaller town knew everyone else. I don't see how any married person could cheat on their spouse in such a place.

The larger town was also that way but not as closely knit as the smaller one. I went to school (junior high and high school) in the larger of the two and I knew every kid in my (3 year) high school so every kid within 3 years of my age.

There is always places for people to meet. We had one place in the bigger town we called "The meat market" because it was where everyone of drinking age went looking for a hookup. And everyone abided by the rule: "what happens here, what you see here, what you hear here and who you see here STAYS HERE!"

I had to edit to add this: We had one cop in town when I was growing up who was notorious for hitting on married women when he pulled them over. One night he was working the night shift and parked his brand new Chevrolet El Camino in his regular parking spot behind the police station. Around midnight as he was sitting at the front desk nodding off a huge explosion went off outside. When he ran out someone had dropped 3 sticks of 60% nitro dynamite in the back of his El Camino and blew it all to hell.

The investigation went on for weeks but they never did nor ever have found out who did it. The speculation was that a jealous husband whose wife was solicited by this cop was responsible. The thing is a year and a half later, the same cop came out of the station one morning and found three more sticks in the back of his pickup. The fuse had been lit but for some reason it went out before it caused an explosion. The investigation for that one ended in the same result as the first. To this day no one has claimed credit for those bombings. Now it would be easy to track down who had such explosives, but back than every logging company around (we had a couple of dozen) kept stuff like that on hand.
Comshaw