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Q&A How do I handle a backstory big enough to be a story of its own?

I'd be fine with your backstory as a standalone novella which functions as a prequel to your main story. Harry Connolly did this with his Twenty Palaces series. There's a main trilogy, and then a ...

posted 8y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:42Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26075
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:56:15Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26075
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T05:56:15Z (almost 5 years ago)
I'd be fine with your backstory as a standalone novella which functions as a prequel to your main story.

Harry Connolly did this with his [Twenty Palaces](http://www.harryjconnolly.com/) series. There's a main trilogy, and then a prequel novel about how the main character came to be where he was at the start of the trilogy. The prequel is helpful but not necessary to understand the trilogy.

If you read the Chronicles of Narnia in internal chronological order rather than publication order, _The Magician's Nephew_ is the first book and deals with the creation of Narnia. It's set before _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ (and the other five books).

The _Rama_ series by Arthur C. Clarke is similar but not precisely identical. The first book, [_Rendezvous with Rama_](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0553287893), sets up the arrival of the spaceship _Rama_ at Earth. The next three in the series center on the adventures of one family who are (I think — it's been a while) mentioned in the first book, and they are set several decades later.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-01-15T13:42:49Z (almost 8 years ago)
Original score: 3