Many great novels have excellent opening paragraphs that arouse the readers curiosity and make them want to read on.
To grip the readers attention immediateIy, I dived straight into the action with some menacing dialogue from the sworn enemy of my protagonist. I did not introduce any back-story until page 43.
I started the first chapter of my novel with very little backstory and basically only two characters. In the second chapter, other characters appear, and I tried to introduce them by short summaries. I received feedback that it is better 'to show rather than tell' so I went back and changed these to flashbacks and backstories with dialogue where the reader is left to draw conclusions about the character's relationships.
Do tell me if you were able to keep off backstories for the first 100 pages. However, it does depend on the genre of your story. For a thriller that might work. Perhaps not, for a family drama
I was thinking of Anna Karenina, where there is a lot of backstory in the first chapter which opens with him having a scene with his wife.
Adrian, thanks for the article on a device about opening chapters. I don't believe it is possible to keep backstories off for 100 pages in many novels. If you want a fast pacy start to the novel, you can launch in the middle of action and bring in the characters without too much introduction. But there needs to be an explanation for their actions, the interaction between the characters and it will be based on the past.