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Originally Posted by Wyndham
You may want to think about that. If everything happens before the story begins, maybe you are starting your story in the wrong place. Did you ever think about starting in the middle, or a quarter of the way through, then going back a little and forward a little?
I haven't read what you are writing, and certainly there are as many different approaches to a story as there are good writers, but generally if the entire story is essentially backstory, it's hard for the reader to get involved.
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This is pretty good advice I think the rest of us were avoiding.
Also, though, try reading a bit of Katherine Kerr's Daggerspell books (her 1st series). These books use flashbacks very effectively plotwise, and incorporate them into the book effectively. She uses dates to divide the book into parts. i.e. part one is This Date, part two is This Date minus 150 years.
Is your book effectively two stories running on different timelines? It's easy to tell two stories at once, and a lot of people do it. Again, using dates can be a useful tool for the reader and writer.
