Beyond The Twins: Back Story

I'm going to be honest; most of the back story for this novel was discovered by pure "what if" questions. It was not part of this elaborate plot line I had thought up, completely fleshed out, at midnight on some idle Tuesday. It is the "what if" moments, though, that can either take your story to new heights or sidetrack it straight to paperweight status.

For a novel like this, the biggest piece of back story was world history itself. When I realized that a huge piece of this takes place around World War II, I got a little scared. How in the world was I going to take such an influencing event and accurately portray it in about six chapters or less? Better yet, what aspect should I focus on? If you have really solid characters, they will answer this question for you. William and Thomas couldn't care less about Germany invading random countries, and while they find the Holocaust extremely upsetting and horrific, they are not trying to save all the ethnic groups in a daring rescue mission (which, oddly enough, they still get caught up in). They have two reasons for getting involved, and both reasons start out as being a bit self-serving.

The characters' backgrounds are another source of back story. In the last month or so, I have started asking myself a lot of questions about Elizabeth and how she fits into everything. Little things that I wrote about her that seemed insignificant then are now becoming glaring and mysterious questions. My advice to you is that if you see this happening, don't get upset or think you screwed up. Your characters are trying to tell you something, and you would be wise to listen.

The lack of character back story can be a story in itself as well. I haven't really developed any major biographical points for the two NightWolf Handlers, and for awhile that bothered me. I thought that maybe I hadn't fleshed them out enough, or maybe they weren't even needed. Then I looked at everything from their points of view and discovered something; this adventure with the twins is the most excitement Georg and Gustav have had ever. The NightWolves themselves think little of their lives beforehand because they were simply going through the motions. Basically, the G's were in the middle of a midlife crisis when the twins stumbled into the picture. That is never directly stated in the novel, but their sheer fascination with the twins indicates that this is a welcomed detour in their lives.

I say all of that to say: don't fear the back stories, the subplots, and the writing left turns (or even U-Turns). I got over my fear and plunged straight into my fourth draft of this novel, and so far I have loved every second of it.