Revisions on The Tale of the Drakanox have begun! The main comment that’s sticking with me from my husband’s reading (besides that it made him cry) was “too much explaining.” When I followed up on that, he read me the opening of what he thought was a better way to start a novel. Immediately I noticed that it contained zero backstory. So I think what he noticed was me trying to weave in the backstory for characters from previous novellas.
At least he didn’t say it was an info dump!
This is always a question for authors writing a series. My husband’s book is part of a series and he has read every previous one. He didn’t need the back story. But, is that true for every reader? If I took out all/most backstory, will the story make sense for readers who might pick this book up first? I do have expectations for my readers. Should I just expect them to keep up without the details?
This is where I open the floor. How should an author handle backstory later in a series? I look forward to hearing from you!
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Wyrmflight 
Personally, I don’t remember ever minding backstory, even when I’m quite familiar with the previous work(s). That’s true of book series, television series (“Previously on *Young Sheldon*”), movie series, etc.
For one thing, it’s entirely possible I forgot something and can use a reminder. For another, if I do remember, it’s often a fond reminder (“Oh, yeah, that part was cool! And now it looks like I’ll find out what happens next!”)
So yeah, I’m a backstory man.
I struggle with the same thing. Particularly with The Hat, because I intend for them to be stand-alone stories. There are deeper descriptions of Lizzie, for example, but I haven’t been putting them in every story. My SF trilogy is posing the same problem because all of them are not humans. I think I have to add a bit more to those volumes, but then they should be read in order.
I think the ideal approach is to do your best to treat the current book as though it were the first book in the series. Does the backstory actually matter for the current story? How would you handle the same “history” if this were the first book? In the first book, you may “know” a lot of history about your characters, but you don’t want to infodump that on your readers. Would you reveal it all or would you just reveal the stuff that matters for the current situation? I’m like Alden in that I like some backstory in my stories, but if an editor or a reader flags it as too much, then I like to step back and ask, do I need to reveal all this or can I streamline it a little?
“I think the ideal approach is to do your best to treat the current book as though it were the first book in the series.”
Yes!