: Re: My premise suggests a LOT more history than I want in my book I'm writing a fantasy story in which there is a contemporary earth (our earth) and a secondary world. Due to certain reasons

@Hamm6328258

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Are you sure you have to justify to the reader why you've chosen to write about certain people in a certain century?

Sure, there is the question, why does the story start here? But it could be as simple as your protagonist has come of age and are starting to see his abilities manifest, or some antagonist has finally found a proof that the magic ones exists and now he's going to tell EVIL GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY, or some other reason that isn't the beginning of the whole world. (Think The Lord of the Rings vs Silmarillion, Tolkien started writing LOTR with tons and tons of backstory he mostly skipped--although specifically Tolkien is a bit backstory heavy sometimes).

You are allowed to simply chose one reason to start the story and then, via dialog, flashback and similar tell the rest of your backstory as it is needed.

I think it's important to start the story in the middle of some kind of event that naturally generates action and movement of the characters, so I'm not overly fond of prologs, but that might be a way to go.

However, on the problem of telling the rest of the backstory convincingly:

Give a character an urgent reason to figure out what happened in the past? Say for instance, this information is needed to solve the story problem.

Or, put these past events into the backstory of a character and make them vital to that character's personality or backstory. For instance, what if one of your characters actually was one of these older people, that via magic had survived to these days?

Also don't be afraid to not use all the backstory information. Sometimes it adds extra dimension and dynamic to a story that doesn't explain everything.

I've heard you could possibly use about 1% of all the backstory of characters and the world you develop without making your story too backstory heavy.

After all, the reader wants things that happens now, not to hear anecdotes of past adventures that they are not allowed to be a part of... (Imagine two of your best friends talking in lengthy detail about something they did yesterday when you weren't there--you get the idea!)

Finally, don't be afraid to kill all the darlings that prevents you from writing a good story!

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