Rebeca Schiller

I write a lot of back story, and some critters–the naysayers–inform me that agents and editors don’t like back story. If that’s the case, why is it that I come across novels that have a lot of flashbacks? (and let’s not mention prologues and epilogues).

The back story to Julius has its purpose. First, it delves into the narrator’s psyche. You can’t understand her actions, beliefs, doubts, dreams without the story behind the story. Secondly, as I’ve written before, I believe that you need to know history before you fully understand what’s happening in the present. And a lot of Julius is based on history.

I tend to intersperse flashbacks within the primary action and what I’ve discovered is that sometimes it works and other times it can get clunky. The question then is to ditch it or not? I discussed this before with Ritz (my accountability partner) and she likes the

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