fiction - 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, the backstory and main story are these:

The backstory begins as stereotypical “Hero” plotline, whereas a boy starts from nothing, gains companions, and goes to save the world. However, his seven companions betray him at the climax of the story where they defeat the clichéd villain that is the source of all evil in the world, who turns out to be a construct designed by his seven “companions” to gain the rest of humanities trust, requiring someone blinded by justice to act as their mask.

The "main" story begins two thousand years later, with this protagonist somehow being resurrected. His history has turned him cold, and he directly avoids the path of a hero – attempting to avoid those similar to his previous seven companions and eventually to him being the one to betray his companions themselves.

I’m currently conflicted between three different ideas:

1. 
   

   Creating an entire book or half of a book, playing out the backstory, the hero’s constructed ‘fake’ journey, as a sort of ‘Volume 0’

   
   


2. 
   

   Summarizing the backstory in a prologue (Yes, I know. ‘ugh’), where I feel I can quickly juxtapose the "heroism" of the story with the pain and shock the protagonist feels at his betrayal.

   
   


3. 
   

   Skipping the backstory, beginning the story with the protagonist having no memories, and building the world and his memories fresh.

   
   

The primary advantage of the first idea is that I don’t believe it’s been done before, and it's a dramatic, effective story. However, since the primary story I want to tell is a very different thing - it revolves more around creating a nation and the intrinsic business, economic, and technological sides of it, which is all very different from the betrayal arc – I’m unsure if it would throw the readers off too much, or bore the readers with a semi clichéd story at the start.

This issue is slightly patched in the second idea, as it’s far shorter; however I don’t know if the readers would be emotionally attached enough to the companions to feel the weight of a betrayal, where the readers wouldn’t relate fully to the main character.

In the third option however, while it would seem the most relatable and allow me to jump to the bulk of the nation building, I fear that simply jumping into the story may seem again clichéd and also confuse the reader not making them emotionally attached enough.

Of course, one option I could potentially create is simply writing option 1 for my own reference, using option 2 alongside option 3 to deepen the story, and perhaps release option 1 for further backstory.

In general, I’m wondering if there is any other cases similar to this, or at least similar to option 1.

Answer

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 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.