Is background hogging too much of your writing?

I’d been out in the woods raising a son and as the scoutmaster at our church but I’d never shot anything. I also knew small town mountain folk raised a lot of their necessities for living, like corn and other vegetables. A few mountain folk keep a few cows for milking and when the oldest of the herds age out of their prime they are put aside for slaughter and provide meat for the table for a season. Hogs too, raised for their bacon and loins, breakfast sausage and chopped bar-b-que. I never killed a hog though. So when the situation arose in a story I was writing and I wanted to insert some local mountain lore for background, I did some research. 

The background provided context for the story and emphasized the dynamic between sons and a father. At the time I thought it did all that quite well.

It took a day or so, scanning articles and books on Blue Ridge mountain history. I enjoy research. While in college I would face the challenge of a difficult topic for a term paper and would love the nightly sojourn to the university library to gather facts and background. When a book I wrote got to the finish line at 150,000 words I was actually proud, until an editor said they’d never publish anything over 100,000 words, unless my last name was Hailey. 

Advice on the amount of background to write into a story is varied. When is it not enough and when is too much? Generally editors say if the prose is not propelling the story forward then don’t use it. Has it ever happened to you, cutting a portion of a book that is well written? I keep a file and when I cut something I love but realize it just doesn’t count in the story. I hope in some future book I might use the pages. I haven’t published enough to know if that will happen but I can’t stand the thought of the words dying in cyber space so I file them in the “other writing” file for future use. My website: www.rubendgonzales.com has a few other examples of background that I wove into a book. Some of the mountain lore research I've done in the past made its way into my current book out from Fire Star Press, "Murder on Black Mountain".

When the manuscript I was writing at the time suddenly took a turn in a direction I hadn’t expected I found myself with what I thought were very well written words without a home. Words I’d slaved over in early morning hours of research and writing. They are in the “other writing” file now, biding their time, waiting for the right moment to make an appearance. Maybe they were waiting for this blog. Take a look and tell me what you think.

 

Here’s an excerpt from the “other writing file:

 

Folk in the mountains take to guns and hunting just naturally. It’s the odd fellow who doesn’t see guns as a right and I struggled with the calling, struggled with the killing. Oh, Pa tried to beat some toughness into me taking a switch to us on a regular basis.  But by the time we got to high school our beatings tapered off.  Early must have been 200 pounds by his junior year and just as mean as any Tate and I carried only a few pounds less.  One Saturday I went out for a walk, hauling the rifle with me, on the chance I’d get lucky and run into something to try to shoot but let the time get away from me and came back late. 

            “Better wipe down that gun, Little Tate,” Early called to me as he jogged across the barn yard late that morning, heading to the hog pen.  He had a mess of rope and a bag full of tackle.  “Pa catch you putting it up soiled like that you’d never hear the last.”

            “I will, give me a chance.” I said coming through the gate from the morning walk.

            “How many shots you waste today?” he asked pausing in his journey.

            “Just one, I winged a little doe but I couldn’t track her across the Johnson place.”

            “Pa’s going to bop you one for that.”

            “I winged her good.  I had blood all along the trail through the gorge.”

            “You mean you left her to die?”

            “Naw, she was moving alright,” I said with my eyes downcast.  “I doubt I caused her much damage.  Fact is she was making pretty good time through the hollow there and across the little valley.”

            “Well, better come on then.  Pa’s ready to stick the hog.  I think he was waiting on you!”

            “Boy, how’d you make out?”  Pa asked as we came round the barn. 

“I thought I winged a doe this morning,” I explained, “but I tracked her up to Johnson’s field then lost her trail in the corn stubble there.  It didn’t seem like she had slowed any so I guess I didn’t hit her after all.”

            “Any blood?”  He asked trying to put his foot up on an old nail barrel.  He smelled like he had fallen into his still and put his foot up several times before he found the range.

            “Well, you know the leaves are thick in there so I can’t be sure.”

            “You get the shakes again?”

            “I guess.”

            “You guess!  Boy,” he said as his foot slipped off the barrel, “You think that lead grows on trees?”

            “No, sir!”

            “Damn right it doesn’t.  How many times I tell you boys to not waste my shot.”

            “Sorry Pa,” I said in defense.

            “Damn if you aren’t a case, boy.  That must be the third or fourth doe you missed this fall.  Hell, any more like that and we’ll be picking lead out of our spring crops.”

            We moved around to the south side of the barn where Pa kept the hogs.  He had put one  of the big sows up in the side pen the week before and for the past couple of days we stopped feeding her.  We gave her plenty of water but she took to squealing for food regularly and we all tried our best to ignore her.  Pa said it made for a messy slaughter if a hog eats too much before you gut them.

            Early started a fire under the water vat and put on the lard pot.  He spread the knives and axe across the old table.  He threw a line over the low limb of the fat white oak that shaded this side of the barn during the summer and started to rig the tackle so we could hoist the hog up to clean.

            “You got any more shells for that thing?” Pa asked me.

            “Yes, Sir!”

            “Well, what say you put one there between her eyes.  And not too high up, I want to have some fresh brains with my eggs tonight so don’t go splattering them all over the damn barn yard.”

            “Ah, Pa,” I said, looking at the big sow look up at me with big eyes behind thick fat cheeks. “I ain’t never shot a hog before.”

            “Hell, boy, you ani’t hardly shot anything your whole life.  Let’s see if you can kill something that can’t run off.”

“Really Pa,” I told him.  “I’ll probably make a mess of it.”

             “You got to learn boy, there is more to killing than chasing some doe through the
woods on a pretty fall morning.  Sometimes you just got to meet death face to face.  Now put that barrel up against that girl’s head and let’s get on with it.”

            “That’s okay Pa,” Early said coming to my side.  “Let me do it.  I’ve done it before.”

            “Boy, your brother’s got to learn one day.”

            “Ah, he’s had a morning of it already. He’ll get his chance.  Let me do this one.  Maybe he’ll get next year’s.”

            “Little Tate, you’ll get this one or you’ll go and get me a switch.  I’ve been waiting around all morning for you and I ain’t got no more time to waste.  I got to get down to the still and get a fresh batch of mash going.”

            “Honest Pa,” Early tried to defend stepping between Pa and me, edging him back.  “I can do the hog myself.  You know Little Tate gets the shakes and besides it’s no bother.”  We were both bigger than Pa, even then with Early just starting high school and me a year behind, but Pa was stood mean tough like an old fence post planted against the wind.

            “Now, Early, I don’t want you making excuses for your brother,” Pa said trying to point at me though I remained hidden behind Early’s wide body. “He’s got to learn to kill with a steady hand one day and this is it.

            “Little Tate,” he repeated in a high squeal, “I’m not going to tell you again.  You don’t do that sow then go and get me a switch and let me get it done so I can get on with this before it gets dark.”

            “I don’t think so Pa.”

            “You don’t think so …?” he asked absently as he lowered his behind on the barrel to settle his shaky legs.

            “I ain’t going for no switch, Pa.” I told him as I looked over at Early.  “I’m too old to switch like a little boy.”

            “Well, son, for someone so old you better mind your elders better.”

            “I know Pa but I don’t need no switch to remind me.  Besides, Early already said he’d do it.”

            “Yeah Pa,” Early agreed, “I got this one.  Little Tate will get the next.”

            “You too, huh, well maybe I’ll take a switch to both of you!”

            “Now, Pa,” Early cautioned, smiling at me, “You haven’t switched me in a long time now and it ain’t going to happen today so you best be settling down.”

            “Boy!” he cut him off getting wobbly to his feet and in a clearer voice he shouted, “Don’t be telling me what I am and am not going to do.  You gon’na get that switch?”

            “Pa,” I said again, “I’m not getting no switch.  And I don’t think I’d stand for it even if you already had one.”

“No, Pa,” Early agreed, “We’re too old for switching.  Why I’m sixteen and Tater’s near fifteen.  No, Pa, I gotta agree with Little Tate on this, we are both too old for the switch.”

            “Well, what about I knock you both about the head a bit.”

            “Now, Pa,” Early said, bring himself to his full height, “you can try but truth be told, I don’t think I could stand for that much either.”

            “Hell, Mr. Football,” Pa said standing up to his full height as well, “You going to stop me?”

            “Well Pa,” Early said in a steady voice, winking at me from the side, “If it came to that, I guess I would.”

            For the first time in my life I saw my father falter in his resolve.  I don’t really know what would have happened.  Oh, I probably would have run off before he could get hold of me.  But Early thought differently.  He thought in long term where I thought only in short term.  To Early I think this was a point in his life that he always knew would get here and though he was happy to face it, it still surprised him that it had arrived so soon, right there in the shadow of the barn on a cold fall day.