I'm at a point in my story where I feel like I need to go back to the backstory, I mean back to before the story began, Back maybe hundreds of years to reveal lost/stolen information /amulets etc. that will be crucial to the story's plot. I was thinking that one of my characters could go to the local library and poke around and ask questions, and end up finding a "special" librarian who could lead them to finding what is lost. The librarian would then become an integral part of the rest of the story........ I have two characters who just discovered that the are Fae and can travel freely back and forth between the human realm and Faery. It's when they travel back to Faery that they discover what's missing....... Considering I haven't had an inkling about where to go with this for months now.......I'm just happy that my muse just gave me this small nudge What do you think? All feedback is greatly appreciated !
I would absolutely write backstory. Write short stories about it, fill up a microsoft word page just for fun. Then, unless you really, really feel like you need it, leave it out of the book. A lot of backstory is written just so the author can move forward. You'll be surprised by how little the readers actually need to know (or care to know, hah). I've heard it said that 90% of backstory is for the author. Which makes sense since your world has a history before and after your book takes place. You need to know what it is to write a practical, cohesive narrative, for your world to feel real and make sense. The reader, often times, needs less of it for the world to make sense. They accept more and, because it's not their own, are more keen to say 'Oh thats just the way this world works'. Also, (opinion incoming) from a more practical sense, backstory stops the forward momentum of your story and causes it to grind to a halt--unless it's done really, really well. So write the heck out of whatever you need to for the world to make sense to you. But leave it out if it's stopping the speeding bullet train of your story! Hope that helps in some way!