Writing.Com General Discussion

Backstory is important for you to know, but you should ask yourself whether the reader needs to know, or is it just some interesting thing that might titillate their curiosity? To answer that riddle, ask yourself some very simple questions: is knowing this information necessary to the story? Does the story make sense without this information? If the answer to either (or both) is 'no', then it shouldn't be in the story.

To qualify as necessary, the information must be important to the plot in some way, or be necessary to a character arc, the story arc (not the same as the plot), the cause and effect trajectory etc. If removing this information breaks the story, it is necessary. Let's give an example:

Your MC has joined the army. The story begins on the day he arrives at boot-camp. His former life may be of interest to the reader because it gives an insight into his character that is necessary for the reader to know. It might become more relevant to the plot if he has an ulterior motive for joining the army (like avenging the death of his brother by the enemy), or he gets ribbed and ridiculed a lot by his platoon because he was formerly a banana tree wrangler ('cos them things are famous for migrating when nobody is looking). He doesn't help things by correcting his colleagues by pointing out that bananas are berries and not fruit. The isolation this creates is almost certainly relevant to the underlying story (and the plot should be adjusted to take this into account).

On the other hand, the reason his family moved to the Bahamas is trite: mum and dad had their honeymoon there and liked the beaches and warm seas. The fact they live there is far more important than the reason, which has no relevance to the plot or the underlying story.