Keep your story flowing by relegating asides, unrelated but interesting facts, and side-stories to the end notes.

It is one thing to describe a place, an object, a situation, or an event in the scope of your storyline, but do not digress from the subject at hand, by going off on a long, unrelated tangent. It may be interesting to you, but is it really just an aside that would be better moved out of the main storyline?

Is the fact that Jill’s former husband became a decorated officer or famous person after their divorce relevant to Jill’s life story? Unless there was an interesting twist to Jill’s story that brought Jill and her former husband back into (relevant) contact after their parting of ways, her former husband’s subsequent life has nothing to do with Jill’s story after their divorce.

If it’s not relevant, can the account of the former husband’s subsequent life be removed from the story altogether? Or could it at least be moved to the endnotes to avoid a broken storyline that digresses and then must return to the main story at hand?

In my books about the pilots of a World War II RAF squadron, pilots’ lives and deaths after being posted away from the unit were always moved to the endnotes. Interesting to some? Yes, certainly. Necessary to the main storyline? No.

Think about your storyline and ask yourself if a digression is relevant.