As for backstory, I really enjoy incorporating it into the story as a mystery of sorts for the characters to uncover. I love books that are set against some sort of gripping character histories that become integral to the “present day” plot of the novel. Think Lily and James Potter and Voldemort’s stories in “Harry Potter” — J.K. Rowling told decades worth of backstory in her seven books, all while narrating a present day adventure with its own amazing characters, settings, and mysteries. I think her books are a stunning example of how to weave in backstory.

I’m not ashamed to emulate this style when I can! Also, on top of inserting obvious backstory dialogue/”family letters”/mysteries, I like to narrate a snippet of backstory (a memory of the character I am following, perhaps), and link it with some type of emotional beat or thought to the character’s present. This way, it doesn’t feel as if the backstory is serving the sole purpose of giving information; it actually applies to the character’s current emotional state/situation. This can obviously become overkill if done too often, but it helps make it less jarring.

If it can be snipped down, I prefer prolouge to show rather than tell. If it would be too long, I tell and get it over with and cross my fingers that the reader will still find it interesting and fun enough to follow it to the beginning of the main story.
Most important, I think (and hope) is to get ON with the main story and let the plot lead it down the road.

Alan, thank you for all you do. You are inspirational always, but you really got me involved with this topic …

The main “technique” to keep in mind is how people communicate. Look at your own experience. There is only one you, but you gather information from many sources, to paint your internal picture of the world. How do you discover the backstory of life in general?

That is how your characters or narrator discover the story too. Part of your job as God — er, the writer — is to arrange for them to blab everything they know, at convenient times.

Overheard conversations. Gossip. Chance encounters. Stories other people tell, either gratuitously or on request. Wrong numbers. Old newspaper clippings. Letters left behind. Photos in scrapbooks. All can be used as jogs for various characters’ (usually partial) revelations of the big picture.

Any character who knows something important about the plot can fill it in.

Even if you are a third person totally omniscient narrator, you can still let the characters tell each other the backstories, and objects such as photos or clippings are “props” you can use to jog a character’s memory, or “cause” one character’s communication of old news to another.

To make it seamless requires mainly that the CHARACTERS tell the story as much as possible. Their reasons for yakking their heads off are your excuses for letting them do it.

No backstory needs to come out all at once. In fact, it’s more dramatic to dribble and drab it. This is a huge technique good writers use to sneak backstory into a work of fiction: GETTING the backstory is often part of the plot!

All you need is a pretext or motive for any character to reveal some part of the backstory. A yakkety old busybody will do.

I once wrote a story that needed so much backstory, I realized I was writing a different book.

Finally, KNOW the backstory. So what if you spend all day writing a 50 page backstory that doesn’t fit? At least you don’t have writer’s block, right? You can spend a lot of craftmanship time later, working it all in … IF YOU WROTE IT.

Nobody writes a book from start to finish. Get over it. Write the scenes, the dialogue snippets, those little bits you’re itching to stick into a book. Out of order, if necessary. Don’t worry where they go, just get them on paper first. The book will materialize, believe me.

- There was a time in my life when I was a lot more righteous and would never have apologized for a mistake that wasn’t mine. … BACKSTORY… I never forgot the lesson of that day.

- The only house that came close to being so terrible was the gang-riddled apartment complex we lived in when I was in second grade. BACKSTORY… Thirty years later not much has changed. Mom still moves every year, I still don’t cry, and Randi still protects me.

- Aunt Sally, was a kind, smart, wonderful woman. The story I was told as a young girl was… BACKSTORY… She was strange and wonderful and I miss her so much.
David and Randi chime in as we begin to tell stories of the Mopsie we remember. We recall…BACSTORY… Mom’s friend interrupts our frenzy of memories

I struggled to come back to the future in each chapter. Some came naturally, and others still need work. Weaving the past into my dialogue was the most difficult and only really worked once for me.

Thank you so much for your post. It will help me rework some of my transitions.
-Buffi
http://www.imbuffi.com/

One technique I’ve tried involved the main character discovering letters written by her mother and stashed in odd places throughout the MC’s childhood home. The MC, also power of attorney for her mother, finds these letters while cleaning out her mother’s estate and preparing to sell it so she can afford the medical care her mother needs. During the story, the reader sort of looks over the shoulder of the MC and reads those letters, thereby receiving backstory in small chunks that build up to the final reveal.

Footnotes work great as way to insert humerous backstory. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett made good use of that in Good Omens.