How important is backstory for  your novel?

I think backstory is very important because it helped to shape your character into who that person is today. He/she will unconsciously be responding to childhood and other traumas even when not aware they are doing so just as real people do. It's not always needed for the author to tell all the backstory and when the author does add it in , it should be done sparingly so as not to overwhelm or stop the basic story line. Some of it may be implied rather than explained or it can be told in dialogue sometimes.

In my book The Smelly Man, the character had a head injury in childhood and a poor work history as a result. He wants to have a job in order to feel normal and like everyone else. When that job is in jeopardy, he takes it a l ot harder than another person would because he can't get a job just anywhere and to lose this one mean failure in his mind. There are other things involved that make this situation much more stressful to this character than it might be to another person.

All backstory doesn't have to be told but it's helpful if the author knows about it and creates it at the beginning. It helps to make the character real.