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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26080
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The questions you need to answer are:

1. What story do I want to tell? 
2. What elements do I need to have available to tell it?

If you want to tell your backstory, _and it stands alone_, then you have the first book of a series, with the second book picking up some time later. This is a common approach.

But the fact that you described it as your backstory, and not as (say) the first story you want to tell, makes me suspect you're falling into the trap of believing that you need to tell your whole backstory so your readers can understand your main story. That's not the case at all. You can tell your main story and drop in _references_ to the backstory without fully telling it. Your character can have memories (which he might be trying to suppress, creating internal conflict), or he could encounter other reminders -- other people who know or were there, artifacts, corrupted retellings of the events (think "game of telephone" times two millennia), etc. If writing your backstory isn't your primary goal, or if you don't think it will hold readers' attention as a first book, then try this approach instead.

Another approach is to just tell your main story, and if you later want to tell the backstory you can write a _prequel_. Especially if your main story is the one most likely to attract new readers, this approach can help you lead strong and then fill in more for readers who've already decided they're interested.

You can also combine approaches. I recently read a series with an unusual sequencing that worked. The [Silo series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series)) by Hugh Howey began as a single novella set in a dystopian future. How we got there is not addressed. The story is a stand-alone work. The author, who didn't initially plan to write a whole series, then wrote several more novellas that progressed from that point, and those stories contained ample hints about the history with a big reveal that would, on its own, be satisfying had the series ended there. Then he wrote the prequels. And, finally, he wrote one story set after the events of all the previous ones that tied it all together.

You don't have to recount your events in the order in which they happened. Tell the stories you want to tell, and give your readers the information they need in order to follow and care about the story you're telling.

Original score: 12