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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34314
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34314
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

This is another version of this question: [Intentionally leaving out a part of the story, for a more interesting reveal?](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/34303/intentionally-leaving-out-a-part-of-the-story-for-a-more-interesting-reveal)

In other words, it is a how do I tell something given that I have chosen a narrative point of view that is not suitable to telling it.

The answer is, you don't.

In the default narrative mode of western literature, which is third person omniscient (in other words, the author says, I am the narrator, telling you this story), there is no limit on what the author can tell the reader or how they can tell them and the only responsibility the writers has it to make the telling interesting.

As soon as you choose any other narrative mode, you are placing limits on what you can say without doing something obviously false. That is fine as long as you accept those limits. But if you can't live within those limits, then the only non-false way to escape them is to switch to a narrative mode in which those limits do not apply.

The most limited narrative mode of all is first person stream of consciousness. (In other words, the narrator is pretending that they are not narrating a story at all, but merely reporting their experiences as they occur.) The only reason to adopt this narrative mode is because your story is served by staying within the limits it imposes. If you have chosen this mode, you can't fill in backstory by any mechanism that will not obviously feel false, will not obviously involve behavior or a chain of thought that the narrator would not naturally engage in at that point of the story.

So if you have to get that information in to make the story make sense, choose a different narrative mode.

Original score: 3