: Re: How do I handle a backstory big enough to be a story of its own? I have an idea I'm working on, where there's a huge backstory that I'm not sure how to deal with. In my particular case,

@Angie602

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If I understood your question correctly, there is a fourth option:

Tell the main story, with small sections referring back to parts of the backstory as needed, peppered wherever it makes sense in your main story.

As preparation for doing this, you would make a careful outline of the backstory for your own use, but you would not flesh it out with lots of verbiage.

You might want to go back and make a separate book about the backstory later... but you don't have to make a decision set in stone at this time.

As you tell your main story, keep things moving, without getting too involved in tangents about the backstory. If you wish, you may even confine yourself to making hints about the backstory without fleshing things out very much.

I can't choose for you among the options. But as a reader, I can say that it can be fun to read about a character who is not a completely open book.

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