Writers like reinventing the wheel. In fact, we’re encouraged to do it. “The same but different” is a phrase you’ll hear from executives. Or, rather a phrase you’ll hear executes want to hear. Well, so I hear but that may be hearsay.
In this short series I shall reinvent the wheel of writers’ terms and give them new names. The next up is… I don’t know, let’s call it “Don’t tell me things after the fact”, which shall now be forever known as “Backfilling”.
If you do know of a term for this, feel free to let me know what it is.
By The Way
We all know time can only run forward, it’s physics. Real physics, not the film kind. So, a scene only ever runs forwards (flashbacks are different scenes smart arse!). Backfilling then is when the writer adds a new detail that has been happening during the scene but only informs the reader after the fact:
- Halfway through a scene we’re told there’s been a noise that’s been driving a character mad and now they snap.
- A character’s been talking for the last minute and then it’s dropped on us it’s an alien.
- The street we’ve been running down, dodging this and that is made of chocolate.
When reading a scene a mental picture is created in the reader’s mind. Messing with that picture and forcing them to have to replay everything now with a new piece of information is annoying and destructive to the read. I’d like to point out that this is different to a twist that is intended to be hidden and force people to re-evaluate everything that’s gone before. Here, I mean only things that would be seen on the screen. An eyepatch doesn’t just appear on someone halfway through a scene (unless it’s Naked Gun?).
Remember then, that the mental image you create needs to reflect the final scene on film. You’re only going to put people off by making them do more work with the read.
And by the way, I was writing this naked!