When to reveal everything about my character's backstory?

My protagonist, Warren, has a backstory where he accidentally shot and killed his mother when he was only 16 years old, in a panic and thinking she was an enemy for the moment he pulled the trigger. In the scene I'm working on, the audience already knows that she died by being shot, there were enemies in the house, and that Warren saw it happen and left the house that same night. I'm just not sure if this is when I should reveal that he was the one who shot her or keep it a secret a bit longer.

I'm not going to keep it a secret to the audience for too long, but I'm not sure when is too early or late to reveal this sort of thing. Any advice?

When it feels right, when something happens that could realistically lead to the reveal. Doing it to early can look shoehorned in the case of the writer or wangsty if it comes out randomly on the character's part without prompting.

Don't stage a reveal for the sake of a reveal, make it go somewhere in response to something in the story.

Well, he just had a flashback episode due to seeing his aunt, who looks just like his mother, which triggered it. I just didn't reveal enough to explain that he was the one who shot her. You're right about the wangst thing, which I'm seriously trying to avoid, and I'm definitely not trying to shoehorn it.

Even in the scene I just wrote, I'm just a bit scared about it coming too out of nowhere, but I foreshadowed it in the same chapter and I made sure to mention that these things happen kind of frequently for him. I just hope that was enough not to make it come out of nowhere.

edited 28th Nov '14 4:31:32 PM by Sibuna

You know, now that I think about it, a better question would be how much he should be having flashbacks about this at all. On one hand, he was only sixteen, shot her himself, and is keeping it a secret from everyone. Most of the time he maintains a professional and serious attitude even when with those he's close to, and only his closest friend knows he even has flashbacks. But on the other hand, it was years ago, he's the leader of a rebellion where people inevitably die (though he's horrified whenever it happens and has adopted a personal Though Shall Not Kill policy)... should he be having frequent flashbacks at all? And then of course, if he doesn't, I'll need some other way to reveal to the audience that he did it. I suppose I could replace it with chronic nightmares...

Chronic nightmares years after and flashbacks are clear symptoms of PTSD, so if you're going for stark realism and don't want the accompanying screws loose, a flashback might not be the best way to do it. Up to you though, I'm just an extreme stickler for realism.

Oddly enough I just wrote a reveal very similar to the one you are writing, as long as you foreshadow it, it should work out fine. Well I would like to think it'd be fine but due to the similarity and lack of feedback I might not be the most unbiased source for that.

Yeah, I want to go for realism. Well, as much as realism as I can do, being sixteen and never having experienced these things for myself before.

Oh well, I'm doing my best. Thanks for the advice anyways.

Never. Stage it out over the story in bundles; it keeps the character interesting that way. You don't have to make that process last the whole story of course, but it shouldn't all happen at once unless there's some scene that makes it particularly likely he'd just confess the matter.

I just edited the scene to instead feature a nightmare of the night she died, without going into too much detail, mostly just focusing on the actual moment she was dying in front of him and their goodbye. Do you think that scene would be too much at once, if I don't go too deep about it for a while afterwards besides a few references here and there and then reveal more when I find a good moment?