Backstory Blues

I'm trying to avoid backstory issues. However, there is a lot of backstory in the book I am writing. I've done some truly crazy things to get the backstory details out without getting "explainy" or having flashbacks. If I did this entirely in flashback form, it could get really confusing so I'm hoping to either write no flashbacks or minimize their number to something in the single digits. Once I embraced the craziness, I found I could get more background information into the story in a coherent fashion but it's still not enough.

As a temporary measure and for my own peace of mind, I wrote up all of the backstory into a prologue. Luckily the backstory I'm talking about here is all rooted in some past event so the prologue is mostly the telling of this past event. The related details come out in the telling without getting into too much explication. However, I'd still love to get rid of about 75% of this prologue because it still feels like an info dump. So, as I'm writing the story I find opportunities to slip in some of the backstory through various means. Then I edit that information out of my prologue. This method seems to work well for me.

The process of writing the initial info-packed prologue actually helped me flesh-out details. Having written it all out at one time has helped me to get a better view of the story. Keeping it crammed in my head or written in scattered notes made it feel like I was drowning in information.