How should a big universe be introduced without being boring?











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If I have a big universe that I need to set up, with lots of characters, lots of locations, magic rules, technology, government rules, is it okay to introduce and explain all of this at the beginning? How much of can be introduced at the beginning without making it boring? How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and lots of things need to be explained?










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    You may be interested in world building.stackexchange.
    – Ian MacDonald
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    You might want to check out my question At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump?
    – a CVn
    Nov 19 at 9:24






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    If you need any help working on your world or trouble shooting aspects of it then yes Worldbuilding may be very useful to you but just remember the same rules about plot apply here and there; plot is your job not ours.
    – Ash
    Nov 19 at 9:29






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    Sidenote: some things can be explained by being taught in schools (like potions in Harry Potter)
    – stendarr
    Nov 19 at 16:14















up vote
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If I have a big universe that I need to set up, with lots of characters, lots of locations, magic rules, technology, government rules, is it okay to introduce and explain all of this at the beginning? How much of can be introduced at the beginning without making it boring? How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and lots of things need to be explained?










share|improve this question









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SomeBeginner is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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    You may be interested in world building.stackexchange.
    – Ian MacDonald
    Nov 19 at 4:58






  • 4




    You might want to check out my question At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump?
    – a CVn
    Nov 19 at 9:24






  • 1




    If you need any help working on your world or trouble shooting aspects of it then yes Worldbuilding may be very useful to you but just remember the same rules about plot apply here and there; plot is your job not ours.
    – Ash
    Nov 19 at 9:29






  • 1




    Sidenote: some things can be explained by being taught in schools (like potions in Harry Potter)
    – stendarr
    Nov 19 at 16:14













up vote
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up vote
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If I have a big universe that I need to set up, with lots of characters, lots of locations, magic rules, technology, government rules, is it okay to introduce and explain all of this at the beginning? How much of can be introduced at the beginning without making it boring? How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and lots of things need to be explained?










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If I have a big universe that I need to set up, with lots of characters, lots of locations, magic rules, technology, government rules, is it okay to introduce and explain all of this at the beginning? How much of can be introduced at the beginning without making it boring? How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and lots of things need to be explained?







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edited Nov 19 at 15:26









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  • 5




    You may be interested in world building.stackexchange.
    – Ian MacDonald
    Nov 19 at 4:58






  • 4




    You might want to check out my question At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump?
    – a CVn
    Nov 19 at 9:24






  • 1




    If you need any help working on your world or trouble shooting aspects of it then yes Worldbuilding may be very useful to you but just remember the same rules about plot apply here and there; plot is your job not ours.
    – Ash
    Nov 19 at 9:29






  • 1




    Sidenote: some things can be explained by being taught in schools (like potions in Harry Potter)
    – stendarr
    Nov 19 at 16:14














  • 5




    You may be interested in world building.stackexchange.
    – Ian MacDonald
    Nov 19 at 4:58






  • 4




    You might want to check out my question At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump?
    – a CVn
    Nov 19 at 9:24






  • 1




    If you need any help working on your world or trouble shooting aspects of it then yes Worldbuilding may be very useful to you but just remember the same rules about plot apply here and there; plot is your job not ours.
    – Ash
    Nov 19 at 9:29






  • 1




    Sidenote: some things can be explained by being taught in schools (like potions in Harry Potter)
    – stendarr
    Nov 19 at 16:14








5




5




You may be interested in world building.stackexchange.
– Ian MacDonald
Nov 19 at 4:58




You may be interested in world building.stackexchange.
– Ian MacDonald
Nov 19 at 4:58




4




4




You might want to check out my question At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump?
– a CVn
Nov 19 at 9:24




You might want to check out my question At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump?
– a CVn
Nov 19 at 9:24




1




1




If you need any help working on your world or trouble shooting aspects of it then yes Worldbuilding may be very useful to you but just remember the same rules about plot apply here and there; plot is your job not ours.
– Ash
Nov 19 at 9:29




If you need any help working on your world or trouble shooting aspects of it then yes Worldbuilding may be very useful to you but just remember the same rules about plot apply here and there; plot is your job not ours.
– Ash
Nov 19 at 9:29




1




1




Sidenote: some things can be explained by being taught in schools (like potions in Harry Potter)
– stendarr
Nov 19 at 16:14




Sidenote: some things can be explained by being taught in schools (like potions in Harry Potter)
– stendarr
Nov 19 at 16:14










8 Answers
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Explain what needs to be explained as it becomes relevant rather than trying to present all the information in one go. This has certain advantages:




  • it avoids dumping all the information on the audience in one indigestible lump.


  • it actually makes the world feel bigger.



Info-dumps tend to bore readers to tears so avoid them: instead tell your readers the rules of magic that have bearing on a casting in progress, or describe a particular world only when the protagonist reviews the data files on it. Explaining your world one piece at a time tells the audience without actually saying it that the universe is too big and too complex for any one person to know all about it, or indeed all about any part of it. The example that came to mind when I saw this question was the Night's Dawn Trilogy, in almost every section of the story we're presented with information about the universe, but very few if any sections of the narrative are pure exposition.






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    It's about relevance. A piece of information presented in isolation is simply data. It could literally be anything and it wouldn't matter.
    – Nelson
    Nov 19 at 5:54






  • 2




    @Nelson There are occasions where presenting single unconnected facts is called for but usually only when you need to use them later and you want it to stand out when you first mention them but usually yes context is what makes data part of a narrative rather than just noise.
    – Ash
    Nov 19 at 9:25












  • While I agree with this answer I wouldn't necessarily hold up the Night's Dawn Trilogy as a shining example. I very nearly gave up on it at the beginning because it was trying to set up too much stuff at once. The first few chapters all jump around between different scenes that set up the universe and the plot but after the fourth or fifth time this happened I just wanted them to stick with one narrative for a while so I could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it but I think it is guilty of trying to set up too much stuff at the beginning rather than easing the reader into it more gently.
    – Chris
    Nov 19 at 17:22






  • 1




    @Chris Yeah I have that general issue, of wanting a single unified story line or progress of a particular story line to the exclusion of others, with all ensemble narratives at some stage. I didn't find the opening too bad but I did give up halfway through The Neutronium Alchemist because I got fed up with chasing too many protagonists.
    – Ash
    Nov 19 at 17:29










  • Yup. The night's dawn is an good example in terms of "Showing the Universe" and not just "Telling about the Universe" (ie you find out about the universe through action and experiencing it and not through lists of facts or direct explanations). It just has other issues relating to being an ensemble piece with dozens of concurrent plotlines and keeping the reader engaged at the beginning.
    – Chris
    Nov 19 at 17:41


















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You want to spend as little time as possible on "setup". Even one page of nothing but setup is too much.



The reason for that is that the reader is not yet invested in your story. You'd be forcing a reader to read something akin to a fantasy-encyclopedia about something he has no reason to care for. That's boring, readers aren't going to do that.



Instead, you can introduce elements of worldbuilding organically, as the story demands them. Introduce a character (not necessarily the protagonist, but someone for the reader to follow) straight away, and through him introduce the world bit by bit.



One example, and the reason I mentioned the character we follow in the first chapter doesn't need to be the protagonist, is Harry Potter:




Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much, They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, chapter 1 - The Boy Who Lived)




Following Mr. Dursley through his day, we are introduced to various strange occurrences. By the end of the first chapter, we know there's "our world", there's magic, which is hidden from the "normal people", and that's pretty much it. Much later, throughout seven novels, we continue to discover the structure of the magical education system, legal system, what magic can and can't do, etc. It isn't dumped on us all at once, before we even learn there's a boy named Harry. Instead, once we have a character we enjoy following, we experience the wonder of the magic world through the character.



Another example, The Hobbit:




In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party)




Tolkien needs to introduce a worldbuilding element straight away - what are hobbits, what kind of place does the story start in. So he does that, in a way that's engaging, and creates a vivid image in the reader's mind. But that's pretty much the only element Tolkien introduces straight away. We are not treated to the whole History of Middle Earth before the start of the story. Indeed, even Gandalf is introduced as "a wizard" - we do not learn of his role in the world until much much later.



In The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin needs to introduce that's even stranger to us than Middle-earth.




It starts on the 44th diurnal of Year 1491, which on the planet Winter in the nation Karhide was Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of spring in the Year One. It is always the Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now. So it was spring of the Year One in Erhenrang, capital city of Karhide, and I was in peril of my life, and did not know it. (Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, chapter 1 - A Parade in Erhenrang)




What Le Guin told us here is "we're in a different world, take nothing for granted". Actual worldbuilding elements come later, when they become relevant to what's going on right now. And already early on, she placed a hook - "I was in peril of my life, and did not know it." Now there's already a character, we're already invested (we want to find out what's endangering the character's life), in any exposition that comes next we'd be looking for clues. Even the whole kemmer element, so crucial to the novel, is not introduced until later.



tl;dr: Don't infodump. Get your reader invested in a character quickly, and always introduce only the worldbuilding elements that are needed to understand what's going on here and now. If the information doesn't become relevant until later, introduce it later. Introduce elements in a way that's engaging - never make the reader feel they're reading an encyclopedia.






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    Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is another good example of the technique, starting from the small, quaint, and humble, and evolving over three decades (real time) into one of the richer and more detailed universes in the modern corpus.
    – hacksalot
    Nov 18 at 20:12






  • 4




    +1 for both the idea and the choice of examples.
    – Ethan Bolker
    Nov 18 at 21:48






  • 3




    +1 for the excellent choice of examples, each demonstrating the point in different way. It's easy when seeing a single example to think "but my setting is different", and the collection presented here clearly illustrates that many different settings can still do it.
    – Matthieu M.
    Nov 19 at 16:43










  • Everything I know about Terminators was explained to me during a car chase and a psych eval.
    – Mazura
    2 days ago


















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If Tolkien had started The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings with the Silmarillion, no-one would ever have got to the story. Most people can't stomach the Silmarillion even after they've read the novels.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion



Similarly with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series.



Robert Jordan is particularly good at dropping hints about what is to come or be revealed. Mysterious objects or people may be encountered from an earlier age that isn't explained until later. This creates a sense of mystery and suspense. Knowledgeable characters may converse about things as yet unknown by listening naive characters. These references are intriguing to them and to the reader.






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    Other answers are correct that you should skip over exposition of all kinds. They're consistent with answers to other questions on this site. Furthermore, they're consistent with a lot of my own experience as a reader.



    But any good writing teacher would promise you that once you understand the rules you're free to break them!

    I see three other approaches you could take:




    • You could blaze ahead with a whole chapter of 3rd-person-omniscient exposition before your story actually begins. This probably isn't the best idea, but if you clearly label it as a prologue it might work. (or a chorus if you break up the infodump into a few segments throughout the book.)

    • You can include an appendix. These can be good fun, and there's lots of ways you can organize them. Several warnings from my own experience:


      • Not everyone will read them, so the story needs to make sense without them (or give clear indications about when the reader should look something up; a footnote would work).

      • On the other hand people who do read them may be annoyed to reread the same information within the story after spending the time to read the appendix.

      • My instinct is always to read a codex straight from front to back. Am I going to want to read your appendix after I finish your story? Is that when you want me to read it?

      • You'll probably want to include a table of contents at the beginning; otherwise I won't know to look for an appendix at the end.




    • Fabricate one or more epigraphs. These could be just a few lines, in keeping with the modern style, or these could be lengthy Victorian Gothic letters quoted in full. Careful design can help cue readers when they're safe to skip ahead to the action.






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      Good answer. An example of the last bullet point is in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and it does help worldbuild.
      – heather
      Nov 19 at 17:13












    • Please note that the order of questions can change, both in time, and depending on user settings, so "the above answers" I'm seeing are likely not the ones you are seeing.
      – Paŭlo Ebermann
      Nov 20 at 1:39






    • 1




      A type of epigraph that might be particularly useful for infodumping a fantasy world would be a myth, especially a creation myth. For instance "The story of how humans stole the secret of magic from the gods" would probably exist to provide a Why for the How of magic and in so doing will provide the How to the reader. The Why could be completely wrong and you would still give the reader an idea of the How.
      – smithkm
      Nov 20 at 4:24


















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    "How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and ...?"



    YAAAWN. I'm already bored. Zero pages.



    Never explain anything. The reader will learn as your characters experience it. If the characters don't experience it, it doesn't need to be told anyway. Here's an infodump that works:




    She pushed away from the screenwall to catch her wayward pouch of
    coffee. "It says here that the war is going badly."



    Mike didn't even look up at her. "That's what my son said last time I
    heard from him."




    Now you know a lot, and critically, you want to know more. Who are these people? Where are they? When is it? What sort of story is this? What is their relationship? Who is at war? Why is it going badly? Where is Mike's son?



    What is the next line you would write in this example?






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      You can use the info-dump successfully in at least one situation: if your book is comedy and your setup is hysterically funny. Read the introduction to The Princess Bride. When my friend read it to us on the T as we were heading to the movie when it premiered back in the 1980's, I almost died laughing, and the backstory had almost zero relevance to the story. It merely set the tone. If you are that funny, you can put anything you want in that first chapter.






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      • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and several books by Terry Pratchett also provide examples of how exposition can double as comedy.
        – Ray
        2 days ago


















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      It is generally not very effective to try an introduce big chunks of exposition, especially near the beginning of a story as it tends to be fairly dry information and gives the reader little incentive to continue reading. The first few chapters are what sets the tone of story and you generally want to start with something which is going to make peopel keep reading and intriguing unanswered questions are much better in this respect than a dense block of information.



      As a writer you should be aiming to give the world you create colour and texture and often the best way to do this is from the perspective of interesting characters.



      Bear in mind also that if you have an original and complex universe you could write a pretty long book and only scratch the surface. Consider a novel set in the real world, how much actual information about the world do you think it might contain ? Probably not that much.



      Equally thorough and detailed world building is good but you don't necessarily need to put it all on paper directly. It can be useful in informing the story without having to be spelled out in detail.



      Think about what is relevant to and driving the story and what is relevant and interesting to the characters. It is often better to assume that readers are as familiar with your world as they are the real world.



      You also want to be wary of creating needless analogues of familiar things just for the sake of being 'original'. I personally don't want to read half a page of description of f'khargi space brew which turns out to be for all practical purposes tea and is then never mentioned again.



      I think a useful test on whether something is an infodump is to put yourself in the position of a character and think about how you would explain something in spoken conversation.






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        There are a lot of good answers already, but here's another point: a great way to reveal details is conflict. Apart from giving characters a good excuse to remind each other of something they all know, it automatically drives the plot and fleshes out the characters. Let's look at a few examples of this in action, all taken from Disney's Hercules. It's a film that had to explain a lot of Greek myth (albeit their modification of it) to the audience in a short time.




        • The film begins with the Muses telling a narrator they'll take over from him because he's too austere. This allows them to introduce their more fun and song-based style of narration.

        • There is also conflict between individual Muses - nothing too harsh or verbose, but enough you get a feel for their individual personalities, and how it'll factor into both spoken and sung narration.

        • In song they blitz through the Titanomachy to the Olympian era, both revealing a conflict between two groups of gods and setting us up for the film's entire plot.

        • As we get accustomed to the unique biological rules on Mount Olympus, Hades comes in and you can feel the tension in the air. He doesn't glow like his fellow immortal gods, which makes his villainy more obvious. But his dialogue with the others quickly slips in his resentment over being forced to reside in the underworld, and how he wishes Zeus could somehow die.

        • Next Hades goes to the underworld and we quickly see him rub up against dead souls, his staff and the Fates. Each instance tells you something else about the world. They don't need to pause everything and say, "these are the Fates, who know all and direct all". Instead we get the hilarious "I KNOW you know, I got it, I got the concept" scene, while Hades frustatedly tries to have a normal conversation about - you guessed it - his conflict with Zeus.

        • I'll skip a minute or so of plot to where Hades orders Pain and Panic to abduct the infant Hercules, turn him mortal and kill him. Pain and Panic don't have identical views, and the conflict between them tells you a little about their relationship with each other and Hades. And the when/if Hades finds out exchange sets us up for the dénouement, with the matter of when/if Hades gets out of the Styx.

        • A minute or so later, we skip to an adolescent Hercules, who is clearly very distrusted in his community, and it doesn't take long to find out why. "Jerkules" accidentally breaks everything, eventually leading the townspeople to turn on him and his human adoptive father Amphitryon. At this point we've already heard from the Muses about Herc's great strength, but now we see what that means in his life. It also drives Amphitryon and his wife Alcmene to reveal his connection to the Olympians, and that sets the next part of the plot in motion.

        • Herc has to convince Philoctetes to train him. Phil's having none of it. He's been disappointed before by Achilles, Jason and "a lot of -euses". It takes Zeus striking him with lightning before he's convinced to help.

        • Megara's introduction shows her in conflict with several characters in quick succession: the river guardian, Herc, Pain, Panic and Hades. Each exchange reveals different information about him, and sets up dramatic irony (i.e. we know she's working with the villains, but Herc doesn't). It also involves conflict between Hades and his other minions, when he discovers Herc's alive and they've kept it from him until almost the deadline for killing him.

        • Herc wants hero work, but the people of Thebes are as disinterested as Phil had been. You quickly learn they've endured many trials, and amateur heroes have mishandled them so often they won't give a newbie a chance. It takes a prolonged and difficult defeat of a Hydra for them to change their minds. The conflict here is not between Herc and the Hydra; it's between him and the townspeople.


        Other conflicts occur throughout the film, but I won't mention them because by this point the worldbuilding is complete (save for occasional touches, e.g. when the Titans approach Olympus and Hephaestus arms Zeus, or Hades gloats over Meg's imminent death, and Perseus doesn't reach her before Atropos cuts Meg's thread of life). I want to stress the above is all from memory, not rewatching the film to write this. The reason I can manage all that is because of how well conflict, worldbuilding, plot, characterisation etc. are intertwined throughout.






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          8 Answers
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          up vote
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          accepted










          Explain what needs to be explained as it becomes relevant rather than trying to present all the information in one go. This has certain advantages:




          • it avoids dumping all the information on the audience in one indigestible lump.


          • it actually makes the world feel bigger.



          Info-dumps tend to bore readers to tears so avoid them: instead tell your readers the rules of magic that have bearing on a casting in progress, or describe a particular world only when the protagonist reviews the data files on it. Explaining your world one piece at a time tells the audience without actually saying it that the universe is too big and too complex for any one person to know all about it, or indeed all about any part of it. The example that came to mind when I saw this question was the Night's Dawn Trilogy, in almost every section of the story we're presented with information about the universe, but very few if any sections of the narrative are pure exposition.






          share|improve this answer

















          • 1




            It's about relevance. A piece of information presented in isolation is simply data. It could literally be anything and it wouldn't matter.
            – Nelson
            Nov 19 at 5:54






          • 2




            @Nelson There are occasions where presenting single unconnected facts is called for but usually only when you need to use them later and you want it to stand out when you first mention them but usually yes context is what makes data part of a narrative rather than just noise.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 9:25












          • While I agree with this answer I wouldn't necessarily hold up the Night's Dawn Trilogy as a shining example. I very nearly gave up on it at the beginning because it was trying to set up too much stuff at once. The first few chapters all jump around between different scenes that set up the universe and the plot but after the fourth or fifth time this happened I just wanted them to stick with one narrative for a while so I could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it but I think it is guilty of trying to set up too much stuff at the beginning rather than easing the reader into it more gently.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:22






          • 1




            @Chris Yeah I have that general issue, of wanting a single unified story line or progress of a particular story line to the exclusion of others, with all ensemble narratives at some stage. I didn't find the opening too bad but I did give up halfway through The Neutronium Alchemist because I got fed up with chasing too many protagonists.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 17:29










          • Yup. The night's dawn is an good example in terms of "Showing the Universe" and not just "Telling about the Universe" (ie you find out about the universe through action and experiencing it and not through lists of facts or direct explanations). It just has other issues relating to being an ensemble piece with dozens of concurrent plotlines and keeping the reader engaged at the beginning.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:41















          up vote
          48
          down vote



          accepted










          Explain what needs to be explained as it becomes relevant rather than trying to present all the information in one go. This has certain advantages:




          • it avoids dumping all the information on the audience in one indigestible lump.


          • it actually makes the world feel bigger.



          Info-dumps tend to bore readers to tears so avoid them: instead tell your readers the rules of magic that have bearing on a casting in progress, or describe a particular world only when the protagonist reviews the data files on it. Explaining your world one piece at a time tells the audience without actually saying it that the universe is too big and too complex for any one person to know all about it, or indeed all about any part of it. The example that came to mind when I saw this question was the Night's Dawn Trilogy, in almost every section of the story we're presented with information about the universe, but very few if any sections of the narrative are pure exposition.






          share|improve this answer

















          • 1




            It's about relevance. A piece of information presented in isolation is simply data. It could literally be anything and it wouldn't matter.
            – Nelson
            Nov 19 at 5:54






          • 2




            @Nelson There are occasions where presenting single unconnected facts is called for but usually only when you need to use them later and you want it to stand out when you first mention them but usually yes context is what makes data part of a narrative rather than just noise.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 9:25












          • While I agree with this answer I wouldn't necessarily hold up the Night's Dawn Trilogy as a shining example. I very nearly gave up on it at the beginning because it was trying to set up too much stuff at once. The first few chapters all jump around between different scenes that set up the universe and the plot but after the fourth or fifth time this happened I just wanted them to stick with one narrative for a while so I could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it but I think it is guilty of trying to set up too much stuff at the beginning rather than easing the reader into it more gently.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:22






          • 1




            @Chris Yeah I have that general issue, of wanting a single unified story line or progress of a particular story line to the exclusion of others, with all ensemble narratives at some stage. I didn't find the opening too bad but I did give up halfway through The Neutronium Alchemist because I got fed up with chasing too many protagonists.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 17:29










          • Yup. The night's dawn is an good example in terms of "Showing the Universe" and not just "Telling about the Universe" (ie you find out about the universe through action and experiencing it and not through lists of facts or direct explanations). It just has other issues relating to being an ensemble piece with dozens of concurrent plotlines and keeping the reader engaged at the beginning.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:41













          up vote
          48
          down vote



          accepted







          up vote
          48
          down vote



          accepted






          Explain what needs to be explained as it becomes relevant rather than trying to present all the information in one go. This has certain advantages:




          • it avoids dumping all the information on the audience in one indigestible lump.


          • it actually makes the world feel bigger.



          Info-dumps tend to bore readers to tears so avoid them: instead tell your readers the rules of magic that have bearing on a casting in progress, or describe a particular world only when the protagonist reviews the data files on it. Explaining your world one piece at a time tells the audience without actually saying it that the universe is too big and too complex for any one person to know all about it, or indeed all about any part of it. The example that came to mind when I saw this question was the Night's Dawn Trilogy, in almost every section of the story we're presented with information about the universe, but very few if any sections of the narrative are pure exposition.






          share|improve this answer












          Explain what needs to be explained as it becomes relevant rather than trying to present all the information in one go. This has certain advantages:




          • it avoids dumping all the information on the audience in one indigestible lump.


          • it actually makes the world feel bigger.



          Info-dumps tend to bore readers to tears so avoid them: instead tell your readers the rules of magic that have bearing on a casting in progress, or describe a particular world only when the protagonist reviews the data files on it. Explaining your world one piece at a time tells the audience without actually saying it that the universe is too big and too complex for any one person to know all about it, or indeed all about any part of it. The example that came to mind when I saw this question was the Night's Dawn Trilogy, in almost every section of the story we're presented with information about the universe, but very few if any sections of the narrative are pure exposition.







          share|improve this answer












          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer










          answered Nov 18 at 16:45









          Ash

          6,076836




          6,076836








          • 1




            It's about relevance. A piece of information presented in isolation is simply data. It could literally be anything and it wouldn't matter.
            – Nelson
            Nov 19 at 5:54






          • 2




            @Nelson There are occasions where presenting single unconnected facts is called for but usually only when you need to use them later and you want it to stand out when you first mention them but usually yes context is what makes data part of a narrative rather than just noise.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 9:25












          • While I agree with this answer I wouldn't necessarily hold up the Night's Dawn Trilogy as a shining example. I very nearly gave up on it at the beginning because it was trying to set up too much stuff at once. The first few chapters all jump around between different scenes that set up the universe and the plot but after the fourth or fifth time this happened I just wanted them to stick with one narrative for a while so I could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it but I think it is guilty of trying to set up too much stuff at the beginning rather than easing the reader into it more gently.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:22






          • 1




            @Chris Yeah I have that general issue, of wanting a single unified story line or progress of a particular story line to the exclusion of others, with all ensemble narratives at some stage. I didn't find the opening too bad but I did give up halfway through The Neutronium Alchemist because I got fed up with chasing too many protagonists.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 17:29










          • Yup. The night's dawn is an good example in terms of "Showing the Universe" and not just "Telling about the Universe" (ie you find out about the universe through action and experiencing it and not through lists of facts or direct explanations). It just has other issues relating to being an ensemble piece with dozens of concurrent plotlines and keeping the reader engaged at the beginning.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:41














          • 1




            It's about relevance. A piece of information presented in isolation is simply data. It could literally be anything and it wouldn't matter.
            – Nelson
            Nov 19 at 5:54






          • 2




            @Nelson There are occasions where presenting single unconnected facts is called for but usually only when you need to use them later and you want it to stand out when you first mention them but usually yes context is what makes data part of a narrative rather than just noise.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 9:25












          • While I agree with this answer I wouldn't necessarily hold up the Night's Dawn Trilogy as a shining example. I very nearly gave up on it at the beginning because it was trying to set up too much stuff at once. The first few chapters all jump around between different scenes that set up the universe and the plot but after the fourth or fifth time this happened I just wanted them to stick with one narrative for a while so I could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it but I think it is guilty of trying to set up too much stuff at the beginning rather than easing the reader into it more gently.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:22






          • 1




            @Chris Yeah I have that general issue, of wanting a single unified story line or progress of a particular story line to the exclusion of others, with all ensemble narratives at some stage. I didn't find the opening too bad but I did give up halfway through The Neutronium Alchemist because I got fed up with chasing too many protagonists.
            – Ash
            Nov 19 at 17:29










          • Yup. The night's dawn is an good example in terms of "Showing the Universe" and not just "Telling about the Universe" (ie you find out about the universe through action and experiencing it and not through lists of facts or direct explanations). It just has other issues relating to being an ensemble piece with dozens of concurrent plotlines and keeping the reader engaged at the beginning.
            – Chris
            Nov 19 at 17:41








          1




          1




          It's about relevance. A piece of information presented in isolation is simply data. It could literally be anything and it wouldn't matter.
          – Nelson
          Nov 19 at 5:54




          It's about relevance. A piece of information presented in isolation is simply data. It could literally be anything and it wouldn't matter.
          – Nelson
          Nov 19 at 5:54




          2




          2




          @Nelson There are occasions where presenting single unconnected facts is called for but usually only when you need to use them later and you want it to stand out when you first mention them but usually yes context is what makes data part of a narrative rather than just noise.
          – Ash
          Nov 19 at 9:25






          @Nelson There are occasions where presenting single unconnected facts is called for but usually only when you need to use them later and you want it to stand out when you first mention them but usually yes context is what makes data part of a narrative rather than just noise.
          – Ash
          Nov 19 at 9:25














          While I agree with this answer I wouldn't necessarily hold up the Night's Dawn Trilogy as a shining example. I very nearly gave up on it at the beginning because it was trying to set up too much stuff at once. The first few chapters all jump around between different scenes that set up the universe and the plot but after the fourth or fifth time this happened I just wanted them to stick with one narrative for a while so I could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it but I think it is guilty of trying to set up too much stuff at the beginning rather than easing the reader into it more gently.
          – Chris
          Nov 19 at 17:22




          While I agree with this answer I wouldn't necessarily hold up the Night's Dawn Trilogy as a shining example. I very nearly gave up on it at the beginning because it was trying to set up too much stuff at once. The first few chapters all jump around between different scenes that set up the universe and the plot but after the fourth or fifth time this happened I just wanted them to stick with one narrative for a while so I could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it but I think it is guilty of trying to set up too much stuff at the beginning rather than easing the reader into it more gently.
          – Chris
          Nov 19 at 17:22




          1




          1




          @Chris Yeah I have that general issue, of wanting a single unified story line or progress of a particular story line to the exclusion of others, with all ensemble narratives at some stage. I didn't find the opening too bad but I did give up halfway through The Neutronium Alchemist because I got fed up with chasing too many protagonists.
          – Ash
          Nov 19 at 17:29




          @Chris Yeah I have that general issue, of wanting a single unified story line or progress of a particular story line to the exclusion of others, with all ensemble narratives at some stage. I didn't find the opening too bad but I did give up halfway through The Neutronium Alchemist because I got fed up with chasing too many protagonists.
          – Ash
          Nov 19 at 17:29












          Yup. The night's dawn is an good example in terms of "Showing the Universe" and not just "Telling about the Universe" (ie you find out about the universe through action and experiencing it and not through lists of facts or direct explanations). It just has other issues relating to being an ensemble piece with dozens of concurrent plotlines and keeping the reader engaged at the beginning.
          – Chris
          Nov 19 at 17:41




          Yup. The night's dawn is an good example in terms of "Showing the Universe" and not just "Telling about the Universe" (ie you find out about the universe through action and experiencing it and not through lists of facts or direct explanations). It just has other issues relating to being an ensemble piece with dozens of concurrent plotlines and keeping the reader engaged at the beginning.
          – Chris
          Nov 19 at 17:41










          up vote
          37
          down vote













          You want to spend as little time as possible on "setup". Even one page of nothing but setup is too much.



          The reason for that is that the reader is not yet invested in your story. You'd be forcing a reader to read something akin to a fantasy-encyclopedia about something he has no reason to care for. That's boring, readers aren't going to do that.



          Instead, you can introduce elements of worldbuilding organically, as the story demands them. Introduce a character (not necessarily the protagonist, but someone for the reader to follow) straight away, and through him introduce the world bit by bit.



          One example, and the reason I mentioned the character we follow in the first chapter doesn't need to be the protagonist, is Harry Potter:




          Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much, They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, chapter 1 - The Boy Who Lived)




          Following Mr. Dursley through his day, we are introduced to various strange occurrences. By the end of the first chapter, we know there's "our world", there's magic, which is hidden from the "normal people", and that's pretty much it. Much later, throughout seven novels, we continue to discover the structure of the magical education system, legal system, what magic can and can't do, etc. It isn't dumped on us all at once, before we even learn there's a boy named Harry. Instead, once we have a character we enjoy following, we experience the wonder of the magic world through the character.



          Another example, The Hobbit:




          In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

          It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party)




          Tolkien needs to introduce a worldbuilding element straight away - what are hobbits, what kind of place does the story start in. So he does that, in a way that's engaging, and creates a vivid image in the reader's mind. But that's pretty much the only element Tolkien introduces straight away. We are not treated to the whole History of Middle Earth before the start of the story. Indeed, even Gandalf is introduced as "a wizard" - we do not learn of his role in the world until much much later.



          In The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin needs to introduce that's even stranger to us than Middle-earth.




          It starts on the 44th diurnal of Year 1491, which on the planet Winter in the nation Karhide was Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of spring in the Year One. It is always the Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now. So it was spring of the Year One in Erhenrang, capital city of Karhide, and I was in peril of my life, and did not know it. (Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, chapter 1 - A Parade in Erhenrang)




          What Le Guin told us here is "we're in a different world, take nothing for granted". Actual worldbuilding elements come later, when they become relevant to what's going on right now. And already early on, she placed a hook - "I was in peril of my life, and did not know it." Now there's already a character, we're already invested (we want to find out what's endangering the character's life), in any exposition that comes next we'd be looking for clues. Even the whole kemmer element, so crucial to the novel, is not introduced until later.



          tl;dr: Don't infodump. Get your reader invested in a character quickly, and always introduce only the worldbuilding elements that are needed to understand what's going on here and now. If the information doesn't become relevant until later, introduce it later. Introduce elements in a way that's engaging - never make the reader feel they're reading an encyclopedia.






          share|improve this answer

















          • 5




            Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is another good example of the technique, starting from the small, quaint, and humble, and evolving over three decades (real time) into one of the richer and more detailed universes in the modern corpus.
            – hacksalot
            Nov 18 at 20:12






          • 4




            +1 for both the idea and the choice of examples.
            – Ethan Bolker
            Nov 18 at 21:48






          • 3




            +1 for the excellent choice of examples, each demonstrating the point in different way. It's easy when seeing a single example to think "but my setting is different", and the collection presented here clearly illustrates that many different settings can still do it.
            – Matthieu M.
            Nov 19 at 16:43










          • Everything I know about Terminators was explained to me during a car chase and a psych eval.
            – Mazura
            2 days ago















          up vote
          37
          down vote













          You want to spend as little time as possible on "setup". Even one page of nothing but setup is too much.



          The reason for that is that the reader is not yet invested in your story. You'd be forcing a reader to read something akin to a fantasy-encyclopedia about something he has no reason to care for. That's boring, readers aren't going to do that.



          Instead, you can introduce elements of worldbuilding organically, as the story demands them. Introduce a character (not necessarily the protagonist, but someone for the reader to follow) straight away, and through him introduce the world bit by bit.



          One example, and the reason I mentioned the character we follow in the first chapter doesn't need to be the protagonist, is Harry Potter:




          Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much, They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, chapter 1 - The Boy Who Lived)




          Following Mr. Dursley through his day, we are introduced to various strange occurrences. By the end of the first chapter, we know there's "our world", there's magic, which is hidden from the "normal people", and that's pretty much it. Much later, throughout seven novels, we continue to discover the structure of the magical education system, legal system, what magic can and can't do, etc. It isn't dumped on us all at once, before we even learn there's a boy named Harry. Instead, once we have a character we enjoy following, we experience the wonder of the magic world through the character.



          Another example, The Hobbit:




          In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

          It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party)




          Tolkien needs to introduce a worldbuilding element straight away - what are hobbits, what kind of place does the story start in. So he does that, in a way that's engaging, and creates a vivid image in the reader's mind. But that's pretty much the only element Tolkien introduces straight away. We are not treated to the whole History of Middle Earth before the start of the story. Indeed, even Gandalf is introduced as "a wizard" - we do not learn of his role in the world until much much later.



          In The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin needs to introduce that's even stranger to us than Middle-earth.




          It starts on the 44th diurnal of Year 1491, which on the planet Winter in the nation Karhide was Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of spring in the Year One. It is always the Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now. So it was spring of the Year One in Erhenrang, capital city of Karhide, and I was in peril of my life, and did not know it. (Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, chapter 1 - A Parade in Erhenrang)




          What Le Guin told us here is "we're in a different world, take nothing for granted". Actual worldbuilding elements come later, when they become relevant to what's going on right now. And already early on, she placed a hook - "I was in peril of my life, and did not know it." Now there's already a character, we're already invested (we want to find out what's endangering the character's life), in any exposition that comes next we'd be looking for clues. Even the whole kemmer element, so crucial to the novel, is not introduced until later.



          tl;dr: Don't infodump. Get your reader invested in a character quickly, and always introduce only the worldbuilding elements that are needed to understand what's going on here and now. If the information doesn't become relevant until later, introduce it later. Introduce elements in a way that's engaging - never make the reader feel they're reading an encyclopedia.






          share|improve this answer

















          • 5




            Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is another good example of the technique, starting from the small, quaint, and humble, and evolving over three decades (real time) into one of the richer and more detailed universes in the modern corpus.
            – hacksalot
            Nov 18 at 20:12






          • 4




            +1 for both the idea and the choice of examples.
            – Ethan Bolker
            Nov 18 at 21:48






          • 3




            +1 for the excellent choice of examples, each demonstrating the point in different way. It's easy when seeing a single example to think "but my setting is different", and the collection presented here clearly illustrates that many different settings can still do it.
            – Matthieu M.
            Nov 19 at 16:43










          • Everything I know about Terminators was explained to me during a car chase and a psych eval.
            – Mazura
            2 days ago













          up vote
          37
          down vote










          up vote
          37
          down vote









          You want to spend as little time as possible on "setup". Even one page of nothing but setup is too much.



          The reason for that is that the reader is not yet invested in your story. You'd be forcing a reader to read something akin to a fantasy-encyclopedia about something he has no reason to care for. That's boring, readers aren't going to do that.



          Instead, you can introduce elements of worldbuilding organically, as the story demands them. Introduce a character (not necessarily the protagonist, but someone for the reader to follow) straight away, and through him introduce the world bit by bit.



          One example, and the reason I mentioned the character we follow in the first chapter doesn't need to be the protagonist, is Harry Potter:




          Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much, They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, chapter 1 - The Boy Who Lived)




          Following Mr. Dursley through his day, we are introduced to various strange occurrences. By the end of the first chapter, we know there's "our world", there's magic, which is hidden from the "normal people", and that's pretty much it. Much later, throughout seven novels, we continue to discover the structure of the magical education system, legal system, what magic can and can't do, etc. It isn't dumped on us all at once, before we even learn there's a boy named Harry. Instead, once we have a character we enjoy following, we experience the wonder of the magic world through the character.



          Another example, The Hobbit:




          In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

          It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party)




          Tolkien needs to introduce a worldbuilding element straight away - what are hobbits, what kind of place does the story start in. So he does that, in a way that's engaging, and creates a vivid image in the reader's mind. But that's pretty much the only element Tolkien introduces straight away. We are not treated to the whole History of Middle Earth before the start of the story. Indeed, even Gandalf is introduced as "a wizard" - we do not learn of his role in the world until much much later.



          In The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin needs to introduce that's even stranger to us than Middle-earth.




          It starts on the 44th diurnal of Year 1491, which on the planet Winter in the nation Karhide was Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of spring in the Year One. It is always the Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now. So it was spring of the Year One in Erhenrang, capital city of Karhide, and I was in peril of my life, and did not know it. (Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, chapter 1 - A Parade in Erhenrang)




          What Le Guin told us here is "we're in a different world, take nothing for granted". Actual worldbuilding elements come later, when they become relevant to what's going on right now. And already early on, she placed a hook - "I was in peril of my life, and did not know it." Now there's already a character, we're already invested (we want to find out what's endangering the character's life), in any exposition that comes next we'd be looking for clues. Even the whole kemmer element, so crucial to the novel, is not introduced until later.



          tl;dr: Don't infodump. Get your reader invested in a character quickly, and always introduce only the worldbuilding elements that are needed to understand what's going on here and now. If the information doesn't become relevant until later, introduce it later. Introduce elements in a way that's engaging - never make the reader feel they're reading an encyclopedia.






          share|improve this answer












          You want to spend as little time as possible on "setup". Even one page of nothing but setup is too much.



          The reason for that is that the reader is not yet invested in your story. You'd be forcing a reader to read something akin to a fantasy-encyclopedia about something he has no reason to care for. That's boring, readers aren't going to do that.



          Instead, you can introduce elements of worldbuilding organically, as the story demands them. Introduce a character (not necessarily the protagonist, but someone for the reader to follow) straight away, and through him introduce the world bit by bit.



          One example, and the reason I mentioned the character we follow in the first chapter doesn't need to be the protagonist, is Harry Potter:




          Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much, They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, chapter 1 - The Boy Who Lived)




          Following Mr. Dursley through his day, we are introduced to various strange occurrences. By the end of the first chapter, we know there's "our world", there's magic, which is hidden from the "normal people", and that's pretty much it. Much later, throughout seven novels, we continue to discover the structure of the magical education system, legal system, what magic can and can't do, etc. It isn't dumped on us all at once, before we even learn there's a boy named Harry. Instead, once we have a character we enjoy following, we experience the wonder of the magic world through the character.



          Another example, The Hobbit:




          In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

          It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party)




          Tolkien needs to introduce a worldbuilding element straight away - what are hobbits, what kind of place does the story start in. So he does that, in a way that's engaging, and creates a vivid image in the reader's mind. But that's pretty much the only element Tolkien introduces straight away. We are not treated to the whole History of Middle Earth before the start of the story. Indeed, even Gandalf is introduced as "a wizard" - we do not learn of his role in the world until much much later.



          In The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin needs to introduce that's even stranger to us than Middle-earth.




          It starts on the 44th diurnal of Year 1491, which on the planet Winter in the nation Karhide was Odharhahad Tuwa or the twenty-second day of the third month of spring in the Year One. It is always the Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now. So it was spring of the Year One in Erhenrang, capital city of Karhide, and I was in peril of my life, and did not know it. (Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, chapter 1 - A Parade in Erhenrang)




          What Le Guin told us here is "we're in a different world, take nothing for granted". Actual worldbuilding elements come later, when they become relevant to what's going on right now. And already early on, she placed a hook - "I was in peril of my life, and did not know it." Now there's already a character, we're already invested (we want to find out what's endangering the character's life), in any exposition that comes next we'd be looking for clues. Even the whole kemmer element, so crucial to the novel, is not introduced until later.



          tl;dr: Don't infodump. Get your reader invested in a character quickly, and always introduce only the worldbuilding elements that are needed to understand what's going on here and now. If the information doesn't become relevant until later, introduce it later. Introduce elements in a way that's engaging - never make the reader feel they're reading an encyclopedia.







          share|improve this answer












          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer










          answered Nov 18 at 17:08









          Galastel

          23k358125




          23k358125








          • 5




            Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is another good example of the technique, starting from the small, quaint, and humble, and evolving over three decades (real time) into one of the richer and more detailed universes in the modern corpus.
            – hacksalot
            Nov 18 at 20:12






          • 4




            +1 for both the idea and the choice of examples.
            – Ethan Bolker
            Nov 18 at 21:48






          • 3




            +1 for the excellent choice of examples, each demonstrating the point in different way. It's easy when seeing a single example to think "but my setting is different", and the collection presented here clearly illustrates that many different settings can still do it.
            – Matthieu M.
            Nov 19 at 16:43










          • Everything I know about Terminators was explained to me during a car chase and a psych eval.
            – Mazura
            2 days ago














          • 5




            Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is another good example of the technique, starting from the small, quaint, and humble, and evolving over three decades (real time) into one of the richer and more detailed universes in the modern corpus.
            – hacksalot
            Nov 18 at 20:12






          • 4




            +1 for both the idea and the choice of examples.
            – Ethan Bolker
            Nov 18 at 21:48






          • 3




            +1 for the excellent choice of examples, each demonstrating the point in different way. It's easy when seeing a single example to think "but my setting is different", and the collection presented here clearly illustrates that many different settings can still do it.
            – Matthieu M.
            Nov 19 at 16:43










          • Everything I know about Terminators was explained to me during a car chase and a psych eval.
            – Mazura
            2 days ago








          5




          5




          Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is another good example of the technique, starting from the small, quaint, and humble, and evolving over three decades (real time) into one of the richer and more detailed universes in the modern corpus.
          – hacksalot
          Nov 18 at 20:12




          Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is another good example of the technique, starting from the small, quaint, and humble, and evolving over three decades (real time) into one of the richer and more detailed universes in the modern corpus.
          – hacksalot
          Nov 18 at 20:12




          4




          4




          +1 for both the idea and the choice of examples.
          – Ethan Bolker
          Nov 18 at 21:48




          +1 for both the idea and the choice of examples.
          – Ethan Bolker
          Nov 18 at 21:48




          3




          3




          +1 for the excellent choice of examples, each demonstrating the point in different way. It's easy when seeing a single example to think "but my setting is different", and the collection presented here clearly illustrates that many different settings can still do it.
          – Matthieu M.
          Nov 19 at 16:43




          +1 for the excellent choice of examples, each demonstrating the point in different way. It's easy when seeing a single example to think "but my setting is different", and the collection presented here clearly illustrates that many different settings can still do it.
          – Matthieu M.
          Nov 19 at 16:43












          Everything I know about Terminators was explained to me during a car chase and a psych eval.
          – Mazura
          2 days ago




          Everything I know about Terminators was explained to me during a car chase and a psych eval.
          – Mazura
          2 days ago










          up vote
          8
          down vote













          If Tolkien had started The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings with the Silmarillion, no-one would ever have got to the story. Most people can't stomach the Silmarillion even after they've read the novels.



          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion



          Similarly with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series.



          Robert Jordan is particularly good at dropping hints about what is to come or be revealed. Mysterious objects or people may be encountered from an earlier age that isn't explained until later. This creates a sense of mystery and suspense. Knowledgeable characters may converse about things as yet unknown by listening naive characters. These references are intriguing to them and to the reader.






          share|improve this answer



























            up vote
            8
            down vote













            If Tolkien had started The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings with the Silmarillion, no-one would ever have got to the story. Most people can't stomach the Silmarillion even after they've read the novels.



            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion



            Similarly with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series.



            Robert Jordan is particularly good at dropping hints about what is to come or be revealed. Mysterious objects or people may be encountered from an earlier age that isn't explained until later. This creates a sense of mystery and suspense. Knowledgeable characters may converse about things as yet unknown by listening naive characters. These references are intriguing to them and to the reader.






            share|improve this answer

























              up vote
              8
              down vote










              up vote
              8
              down vote









              If Tolkien had started The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings with the Silmarillion, no-one would ever have got to the story. Most people can't stomach the Silmarillion even after they've read the novels.



              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion



              Similarly with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series.



              Robert Jordan is particularly good at dropping hints about what is to come or be revealed. Mysterious objects or people may be encountered from an earlier age that isn't explained until later. This creates a sense of mystery and suspense. Knowledgeable characters may converse about things as yet unknown by listening naive characters. These references are intriguing to them and to the reader.






              share|improve this answer














              If Tolkien had started The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings with the Silmarillion, no-one would ever have got to the story. Most people can't stomach the Silmarillion even after they've read the novels.



              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion



              Similarly with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series.



              Robert Jordan is particularly good at dropping hints about what is to come or be revealed. Mysterious objects or people may be encountered from an earlier age that isn't explained until later. This creates a sense of mystery and suspense. Knowledgeable characters may converse about things as yet unknown by listening naive characters. These references are intriguing to them and to the reader.







              share|improve this answer














              share|improve this answer



              share|improve this answer








              edited Nov 19 at 0:41

























              answered Nov 19 at 0:35









              chasly from UK

              26113




              26113






















                  up vote
                  5
                  down vote













                  Other answers are correct that you should skip over exposition of all kinds. They're consistent with answers to other questions on this site. Furthermore, they're consistent with a lot of my own experience as a reader.



                  But any good writing teacher would promise you that once you understand the rules you're free to break them!

                  I see three other approaches you could take:




                  • You could blaze ahead with a whole chapter of 3rd-person-omniscient exposition before your story actually begins. This probably isn't the best idea, but if you clearly label it as a prologue it might work. (or a chorus if you break up the infodump into a few segments throughout the book.)

                  • You can include an appendix. These can be good fun, and there's lots of ways you can organize them. Several warnings from my own experience:


                    • Not everyone will read them, so the story needs to make sense without them (or give clear indications about when the reader should look something up; a footnote would work).

                    • On the other hand people who do read them may be annoyed to reread the same information within the story after spending the time to read the appendix.

                    • My instinct is always to read a codex straight from front to back. Am I going to want to read your appendix after I finish your story? Is that when you want me to read it?

                    • You'll probably want to include a table of contents at the beginning; otherwise I won't know to look for an appendix at the end.




                  • Fabricate one or more epigraphs. These could be just a few lines, in keeping with the modern style, or these could be lengthy Victorian Gothic letters quoted in full. Careful design can help cue readers when they're safe to skip ahead to the action.






                  share|improve this answer










                  New contributor




                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.














                  • 1




                    Good answer. An example of the last bullet point is in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and it does help worldbuild.
                    – heather
                    Nov 19 at 17:13












                  • Please note that the order of questions can change, both in time, and depending on user settings, so "the above answers" I'm seeing are likely not the ones you are seeing.
                    – Paŭlo Ebermann
                    Nov 20 at 1:39






                  • 1




                    A type of epigraph that might be particularly useful for infodumping a fantasy world would be a myth, especially a creation myth. For instance "The story of how humans stole the secret of magic from the gods" would probably exist to provide a Why for the How of magic and in so doing will provide the How to the reader. The Why could be completely wrong and you would still give the reader an idea of the How.
                    – smithkm
                    Nov 20 at 4:24















                  up vote
                  5
                  down vote













                  Other answers are correct that you should skip over exposition of all kinds. They're consistent with answers to other questions on this site. Furthermore, they're consistent with a lot of my own experience as a reader.



                  But any good writing teacher would promise you that once you understand the rules you're free to break them!

                  I see three other approaches you could take:




                  • You could blaze ahead with a whole chapter of 3rd-person-omniscient exposition before your story actually begins. This probably isn't the best idea, but if you clearly label it as a prologue it might work. (or a chorus if you break up the infodump into a few segments throughout the book.)

                  • You can include an appendix. These can be good fun, and there's lots of ways you can organize them. Several warnings from my own experience:


                    • Not everyone will read them, so the story needs to make sense without them (or give clear indications about when the reader should look something up; a footnote would work).

                    • On the other hand people who do read them may be annoyed to reread the same information within the story after spending the time to read the appendix.

                    • My instinct is always to read a codex straight from front to back. Am I going to want to read your appendix after I finish your story? Is that when you want me to read it?

                    • You'll probably want to include a table of contents at the beginning; otherwise I won't know to look for an appendix at the end.




                  • Fabricate one or more epigraphs. These could be just a few lines, in keeping with the modern style, or these could be lengthy Victorian Gothic letters quoted in full. Careful design can help cue readers when they're safe to skip ahead to the action.






                  share|improve this answer










                  New contributor




                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.














                  • 1




                    Good answer. An example of the last bullet point is in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and it does help worldbuild.
                    – heather
                    Nov 19 at 17:13












                  • Please note that the order of questions can change, both in time, and depending on user settings, so "the above answers" I'm seeing are likely not the ones you are seeing.
                    – Paŭlo Ebermann
                    Nov 20 at 1:39






                  • 1




                    A type of epigraph that might be particularly useful for infodumping a fantasy world would be a myth, especially a creation myth. For instance "The story of how humans stole the secret of magic from the gods" would probably exist to provide a Why for the How of magic and in so doing will provide the How to the reader. The Why could be completely wrong and you would still give the reader an idea of the How.
                    – smithkm
                    Nov 20 at 4:24













                  up vote
                  5
                  down vote










                  up vote
                  5
                  down vote









                  Other answers are correct that you should skip over exposition of all kinds. They're consistent with answers to other questions on this site. Furthermore, they're consistent with a lot of my own experience as a reader.



                  But any good writing teacher would promise you that once you understand the rules you're free to break them!

                  I see three other approaches you could take:




                  • You could blaze ahead with a whole chapter of 3rd-person-omniscient exposition before your story actually begins. This probably isn't the best idea, but if you clearly label it as a prologue it might work. (or a chorus if you break up the infodump into a few segments throughout the book.)

                  • You can include an appendix. These can be good fun, and there's lots of ways you can organize them. Several warnings from my own experience:


                    • Not everyone will read them, so the story needs to make sense without them (or give clear indications about when the reader should look something up; a footnote would work).

                    • On the other hand people who do read them may be annoyed to reread the same information within the story after spending the time to read the appendix.

                    • My instinct is always to read a codex straight from front to back. Am I going to want to read your appendix after I finish your story? Is that when you want me to read it?

                    • You'll probably want to include a table of contents at the beginning; otherwise I won't know to look for an appendix at the end.




                  • Fabricate one or more epigraphs. These could be just a few lines, in keeping with the modern style, or these could be lengthy Victorian Gothic letters quoted in full. Careful design can help cue readers when they're safe to skip ahead to the action.






                  share|improve this answer










                  New contributor




                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.









                  Other answers are correct that you should skip over exposition of all kinds. They're consistent with answers to other questions on this site. Furthermore, they're consistent with a lot of my own experience as a reader.



                  But any good writing teacher would promise you that once you understand the rules you're free to break them!

                  I see three other approaches you could take:




                  • You could blaze ahead with a whole chapter of 3rd-person-omniscient exposition before your story actually begins. This probably isn't the best idea, but if you clearly label it as a prologue it might work. (or a chorus if you break up the infodump into a few segments throughout the book.)

                  • You can include an appendix. These can be good fun, and there's lots of ways you can organize them. Several warnings from my own experience:


                    • Not everyone will read them, so the story needs to make sense without them (or give clear indications about when the reader should look something up; a footnote would work).

                    • On the other hand people who do read them may be annoyed to reread the same information within the story after spending the time to read the appendix.

                    • My instinct is always to read a codex straight from front to back. Am I going to want to read your appendix after I finish your story? Is that when you want me to read it?

                    • You'll probably want to include a table of contents at the beginning; otherwise I won't know to look for an appendix at the end.




                  • Fabricate one or more epigraphs. These could be just a few lines, in keeping with the modern style, or these could be lengthy Victorian Gothic letters quoted in full. Careful design can help cue readers when they're safe to skip ahead to the action.







                  share|improve this answer










                  New contributor




                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.









                  share|improve this answer



                  share|improve this answer








                  edited Nov 20 at 2:32





















                  New contributor




                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.









                  answered Nov 19 at 2:53









                  ShapeOfMatter

                  513




                  513




                  New contributor




                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.





                  New contributor





                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.






                  ShapeOfMatter is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                  Check out our Code of Conduct.








                  • 1




                    Good answer. An example of the last bullet point is in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and it does help worldbuild.
                    – heather
                    Nov 19 at 17:13












                  • Please note that the order of questions can change, both in time, and depending on user settings, so "the above answers" I'm seeing are likely not the ones you are seeing.
                    – Paŭlo Ebermann
                    Nov 20 at 1:39






                  • 1




                    A type of epigraph that might be particularly useful for infodumping a fantasy world would be a myth, especially a creation myth. For instance "The story of how humans stole the secret of magic from the gods" would probably exist to provide a Why for the How of magic and in so doing will provide the How to the reader. The Why could be completely wrong and you would still give the reader an idea of the How.
                    – smithkm
                    Nov 20 at 4:24














                  • 1




                    Good answer. An example of the last bullet point is in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and it does help worldbuild.
                    – heather
                    Nov 19 at 17:13












                  • Please note that the order of questions can change, both in time, and depending on user settings, so "the above answers" I'm seeing are likely not the ones you are seeing.
                    – Paŭlo Ebermann
                    Nov 20 at 1:39






                  • 1




                    A type of epigraph that might be particularly useful for infodumping a fantasy world would be a myth, especially a creation myth. For instance "The story of how humans stole the secret of magic from the gods" would probably exist to provide a Why for the How of magic and in so doing will provide the How to the reader. The Why could be completely wrong and you would still give the reader an idea of the How.
                    – smithkm
                    Nov 20 at 4:24








                  1




                  1




                  Good answer. An example of the last bullet point is in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and it does help worldbuild.
                  – heather
                  Nov 19 at 17:13






                  Good answer. An example of the last bullet point is in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and it does help worldbuild.
                  – heather
                  Nov 19 at 17:13














                  Please note that the order of questions can change, both in time, and depending on user settings, so "the above answers" I'm seeing are likely not the ones you are seeing.
                  – Paŭlo Ebermann
                  Nov 20 at 1:39




                  Please note that the order of questions can change, both in time, and depending on user settings, so "the above answers" I'm seeing are likely not the ones you are seeing.
                  – Paŭlo Ebermann
                  Nov 20 at 1:39




                  1




                  1




                  A type of epigraph that might be particularly useful for infodumping a fantasy world would be a myth, especially a creation myth. For instance "The story of how humans stole the secret of magic from the gods" would probably exist to provide a Why for the How of magic and in so doing will provide the How to the reader. The Why could be completely wrong and you would still give the reader an idea of the How.
                  – smithkm
                  Nov 20 at 4:24




                  A type of epigraph that might be particularly useful for infodumping a fantasy world would be a myth, especially a creation myth. For instance "The story of how humans stole the secret of magic from the gods" would probably exist to provide a Why for the How of magic and in so doing will provide the How to the reader. The Why could be completely wrong and you would still give the reader an idea of the How.
                  – smithkm
                  Nov 20 at 4:24










                  up vote
                  5
                  down vote













                  "How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and ...?"



                  YAAAWN. I'm already bored. Zero pages.



                  Never explain anything. The reader will learn as your characters experience it. If the characters don't experience it, it doesn't need to be told anyway. Here's an infodump that works:




                  She pushed away from the screenwall to catch her wayward pouch of
                  coffee. "It says here that the war is going badly."



                  Mike didn't even look up at her. "That's what my son said last time I
                  heard from him."




                  Now you know a lot, and critically, you want to know more. Who are these people? Where are they? When is it? What sort of story is this? What is their relationship? Who is at war? Why is it going badly? Where is Mike's son?



                  What is the next line you would write in this example?






                  share|improve this answer

























                    up vote
                    5
                    down vote













                    "How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and ...?"



                    YAAAWN. I'm already bored. Zero pages.



                    Never explain anything. The reader will learn as your characters experience it. If the characters don't experience it, it doesn't need to be told anyway. Here's an infodump that works:




                    She pushed away from the screenwall to catch her wayward pouch of
                    coffee. "It says here that the war is going badly."



                    Mike didn't even look up at her. "That's what my son said last time I
                    heard from him."




                    Now you know a lot, and critically, you want to know more. Who are these people? Where are they? When is it? What sort of story is this? What is their relationship? Who is at war? Why is it going badly? Where is Mike's son?



                    What is the next line you would write in this example?






                    share|improve this answer























                      up vote
                      5
                      down vote










                      up vote
                      5
                      down vote









                      "How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and ...?"



                      YAAAWN. I'm already bored. Zero pages.



                      Never explain anything. The reader will learn as your characters experience it. If the characters don't experience it, it doesn't need to be told anyway. Here's an infodump that works:




                      She pushed away from the screenwall to catch her wayward pouch of
                      coffee. "It says here that the war is going badly."



                      Mike didn't even look up at her. "That's what my son said last time I
                      heard from him."




                      Now you know a lot, and critically, you want to know more. Who are these people? Where are they? When is it? What sort of story is this? What is their relationship? Who is at war? Why is it going badly? Where is Mike's son?



                      What is the next line you would write in this example?






                      share|improve this answer












                      "How many pages of setting up a universe is too much given the fact that it is pretty complex and ...?"



                      YAAAWN. I'm already bored. Zero pages.



                      Never explain anything. The reader will learn as your characters experience it. If the characters don't experience it, it doesn't need to be told anyway. Here's an infodump that works:




                      She pushed away from the screenwall to catch her wayward pouch of
                      coffee. "It says here that the war is going badly."



                      Mike didn't even look up at her. "That's what my son said last time I
                      heard from him."




                      Now you know a lot, and critically, you want to know more. Who are these people? Where are they? When is it? What sort of story is this? What is their relationship? Who is at war? Why is it going badly? Where is Mike's son?



                      What is the next line you would write in this example?







                      share|improve this answer












                      share|improve this answer



                      share|improve this answer










                      answered Nov 20 at 5:36









                      Haakon Dahl

                      1113




                      1113






















                          up vote
                          3
                          down vote













                          You can use the info-dump successfully in at least one situation: if your book is comedy and your setup is hysterically funny. Read the introduction to The Princess Bride. When my friend read it to us on the T as we were heading to the movie when it premiered back in the 1980's, I almost died laughing, and the backstory had almost zero relevance to the story. It merely set the tone. If you are that funny, you can put anything you want in that first chapter.






                          share|improve this answer





















                          • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and several books by Terry Pratchett also provide examples of how exposition can double as comedy.
                            – Ray
                            2 days ago















                          up vote
                          3
                          down vote













                          You can use the info-dump successfully in at least one situation: if your book is comedy and your setup is hysterically funny. Read the introduction to The Princess Bride. When my friend read it to us on the T as we were heading to the movie when it premiered back in the 1980's, I almost died laughing, and the backstory had almost zero relevance to the story. It merely set the tone. If you are that funny, you can put anything you want in that first chapter.






                          share|improve this answer





















                          • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and several books by Terry Pratchett also provide examples of how exposition can double as comedy.
                            – Ray
                            2 days ago













                          up vote
                          3
                          down vote










                          up vote
                          3
                          down vote









                          You can use the info-dump successfully in at least one situation: if your book is comedy and your setup is hysterically funny. Read the introduction to The Princess Bride. When my friend read it to us on the T as we were heading to the movie when it premiered back in the 1980's, I almost died laughing, and the backstory had almost zero relevance to the story. It merely set the tone. If you are that funny, you can put anything you want in that first chapter.






                          share|improve this answer












                          You can use the info-dump successfully in at least one situation: if your book is comedy and your setup is hysterically funny. Read the introduction to The Princess Bride. When my friend read it to us on the T as we were heading to the movie when it premiered back in the 1980's, I almost died laughing, and the backstory had almost zero relevance to the story. It merely set the tone. If you are that funny, you can put anything you want in that first chapter.







                          share|improve this answer












                          share|improve this answer



                          share|improve this answer










                          answered Nov 19 at 20:49









                          Paul Chernoch

                          25113




                          25113












                          • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and several books by Terry Pratchett also provide examples of how exposition can double as comedy.
                            – Ray
                            2 days ago


















                          • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and several books by Terry Pratchett also provide examples of how exposition can double as comedy.
                            – Ray
                            2 days ago
















                          The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and several books by Terry Pratchett also provide examples of how exposition can double as comedy.
                          – Ray
                          2 days ago




                          The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and several books by Terry Pratchett also provide examples of how exposition can double as comedy.
                          – Ray
                          2 days ago










                          up vote
                          1
                          down vote













                          It is generally not very effective to try an introduce big chunks of exposition, especially near the beginning of a story as it tends to be fairly dry information and gives the reader little incentive to continue reading. The first few chapters are what sets the tone of story and you generally want to start with something which is going to make peopel keep reading and intriguing unanswered questions are much better in this respect than a dense block of information.



                          As a writer you should be aiming to give the world you create colour and texture and often the best way to do this is from the perspective of interesting characters.



                          Bear in mind also that if you have an original and complex universe you could write a pretty long book and only scratch the surface. Consider a novel set in the real world, how much actual information about the world do you think it might contain ? Probably not that much.



                          Equally thorough and detailed world building is good but you don't necessarily need to put it all on paper directly. It can be useful in informing the story without having to be spelled out in detail.



                          Think about what is relevant to and driving the story and what is relevant and interesting to the characters. It is often better to assume that readers are as familiar with your world as they are the real world.



                          You also want to be wary of creating needless analogues of familiar things just for the sake of being 'original'. I personally don't want to read half a page of description of f'khargi space brew which turns out to be for all practical purposes tea and is then never mentioned again.



                          I think a useful test on whether something is an infodump is to put yourself in the position of a character and think about how you would explain something in spoken conversation.






                          share|improve this answer

























                            up vote
                            1
                            down vote













                            It is generally not very effective to try an introduce big chunks of exposition, especially near the beginning of a story as it tends to be fairly dry information and gives the reader little incentive to continue reading. The first few chapters are what sets the tone of story and you generally want to start with something which is going to make peopel keep reading and intriguing unanswered questions are much better in this respect than a dense block of information.



                            As a writer you should be aiming to give the world you create colour and texture and often the best way to do this is from the perspective of interesting characters.



                            Bear in mind also that if you have an original and complex universe you could write a pretty long book and only scratch the surface. Consider a novel set in the real world, how much actual information about the world do you think it might contain ? Probably not that much.



                            Equally thorough and detailed world building is good but you don't necessarily need to put it all on paper directly. It can be useful in informing the story without having to be spelled out in detail.



                            Think about what is relevant to and driving the story and what is relevant and interesting to the characters. It is often better to assume that readers are as familiar with your world as they are the real world.



                            You also want to be wary of creating needless analogues of familiar things just for the sake of being 'original'. I personally don't want to read half a page of description of f'khargi space brew which turns out to be for all practical purposes tea and is then never mentioned again.



                            I think a useful test on whether something is an infodump is to put yourself in the position of a character and think about how you would explain something in spoken conversation.






                            share|improve this answer























                              up vote
                              1
                              down vote










                              up vote
                              1
                              down vote









                              It is generally not very effective to try an introduce big chunks of exposition, especially near the beginning of a story as it tends to be fairly dry information and gives the reader little incentive to continue reading. The first few chapters are what sets the tone of story and you generally want to start with something which is going to make peopel keep reading and intriguing unanswered questions are much better in this respect than a dense block of information.



                              As a writer you should be aiming to give the world you create colour and texture and often the best way to do this is from the perspective of interesting characters.



                              Bear in mind also that if you have an original and complex universe you could write a pretty long book and only scratch the surface. Consider a novel set in the real world, how much actual information about the world do you think it might contain ? Probably not that much.



                              Equally thorough and detailed world building is good but you don't necessarily need to put it all on paper directly. It can be useful in informing the story without having to be spelled out in detail.



                              Think about what is relevant to and driving the story and what is relevant and interesting to the characters. It is often better to assume that readers are as familiar with your world as they are the real world.



                              You also want to be wary of creating needless analogues of familiar things just for the sake of being 'original'. I personally don't want to read half a page of description of f'khargi space brew which turns out to be for all practical purposes tea and is then never mentioned again.



                              I think a useful test on whether something is an infodump is to put yourself in the position of a character and think about how you would explain something in spoken conversation.






                              share|improve this answer












                              It is generally not very effective to try an introduce big chunks of exposition, especially near the beginning of a story as it tends to be fairly dry information and gives the reader little incentive to continue reading. The first few chapters are what sets the tone of story and you generally want to start with something which is going to make peopel keep reading and intriguing unanswered questions are much better in this respect than a dense block of information.



                              As a writer you should be aiming to give the world you create colour and texture and often the best way to do this is from the perspective of interesting characters.



                              Bear in mind also that if you have an original and complex universe you could write a pretty long book and only scratch the surface. Consider a novel set in the real world, how much actual information about the world do you think it might contain ? Probably not that much.



                              Equally thorough and detailed world building is good but you don't necessarily need to put it all on paper directly. It can be useful in informing the story without having to be spelled out in detail.



                              Think about what is relevant to and driving the story and what is relevant and interesting to the characters. It is often better to assume that readers are as familiar with your world as they are the real world.



                              You also want to be wary of creating needless analogues of familiar things just for the sake of being 'original'. I personally don't want to read half a page of description of f'khargi space brew which turns out to be for all practical purposes tea and is then never mentioned again.



                              I think a useful test on whether something is an infodump is to put yourself in the position of a character and think about how you would explain something in spoken conversation.







                              share|improve this answer












                              share|improve this answer



                              share|improve this answer










                              answered Nov 19 at 10:40









                              Chris Johns

                              66424




                              66424






















                                  up vote
                                  1
                                  down vote













                                  There are a lot of good answers already, but here's another point: a great way to reveal details is conflict. Apart from giving characters a good excuse to remind each other of something they all know, it automatically drives the plot and fleshes out the characters. Let's look at a few examples of this in action, all taken from Disney's Hercules. It's a film that had to explain a lot of Greek myth (albeit their modification of it) to the audience in a short time.




                                  • The film begins with the Muses telling a narrator they'll take over from him because he's too austere. This allows them to introduce their more fun and song-based style of narration.

                                  • There is also conflict between individual Muses - nothing too harsh or verbose, but enough you get a feel for their individual personalities, and how it'll factor into both spoken and sung narration.

                                  • In song they blitz through the Titanomachy to the Olympian era, both revealing a conflict between two groups of gods and setting us up for the film's entire plot.

                                  • As we get accustomed to the unique biological rules on Mount Olympus, Hades comes in and you can feel the tension in the air. He doesn't glow like his fellow immortal gods, which makes his villainy more obvious. But his dialogue with the others quickly slips in his resentment over being forced to reside in the underworld, and how he wishes Zeus could somehow die.

                                  • Next Hades goes to the underworld and we quickly see him rub up against dead souls, his staff and the Fates. Each instance tells you something else about the world. They don't need to pause everything and say, "these are the Fates, who know all and direct all". Instead we get the hilarious "I KNOW you know, I got it, I got the concept" scene, while Hades frustatedly tries to have a normal conversation about - you guessed it - his conflict with Zeus.

                                  • I'll skip a minute or so of plot to where Hades orders Pain and Panic to abduct the infant Hercules, turn him mortal and kill him. Pain and Panic don't have identical views, and the conflict between them tells you a little about their relationship with each other and Hades. And the when/if Hades finds out exchange sets us up for the dénouement, with the matter of when/if Hades gets out of the Styx.

                                  • A minute or so later, we skip to an adolescent Hercules, who is clearly very distrusted in his community, and it doesn't take long to find out why. "Jerkules" accidentally breaks everything, eventually leading the townspeople to turn on him and his human adoptive father Amphitryon. At this point we've already heard from the Muses about Herc's great strength, but now we see what that means in his life. It also drives Amphitryon and his wife Alcmene to reveal his connection to the Olympians, and that sets the next part of the plot in motion.

                                  • Herc has to convince Philoctetes to train him. Phil's having none of it. He's been disappointed before by Achilles, Jason and "a lot of -euses". It takes Zeus striking him with lightning before he's convinced to help.

                                  • Megara's introduction shows her in conflict with several characters in quick succession: the river guardian, Herc, Pain, Panic and Hades. Each exchange reveals different information about him, and sets up dramatic irony (i.e. we know she's working with the villains, but Herc doesn't). It also involves conflict between Hades and his other minions, when he discovers Herc's alive and they've kept it from him until almost the deadline for killing him.

                                  • Herc wants hero work, but the people of Thebes are as disinterested as Phil had been. You quickly learn they've endured many trials, and amateur heroes have mishandled them so often they won't give a newbie a chance. It takes a prolonged and difficult defeat of a Hydra for them to change their minds. The conflict here is not between Herc and the Hydra; it's between him and the townspeople.


                                  Other conflicts occur throughout the film, but I won't mention them because by this point the worldbuilding is complete (save for occasional touches, e.g. when the Titans approach Olympus and Hephaestus arms Zeus, or Hades gloats over Meg's imminent death, and Perseus doesn't reach her before Atropos cuts Meg's thread of life). I want to stress the above is all from memory, not rewatching the film to write this. The reason I can manage all that is because of how well conflict, worldbuilding, plot, characterisation etc. are intertwined throughout.






                                  share|improve this answer

























                                    up vote
                                    1
                                    down vote













                                    There are a lot of good answers already, but here's another point: a great way to reveal details is conflict. Apart from giving characters a good excuse to remind each other of something they all know, it automatically drives the plot and fleshes out the characters. Let's look at a few examples of this in action, all taken from Disney's Hercules. It's a film that had to explain a lot of Greek myth (albeit their modification of it) to the audience in a short time.




                                    • The film begins with the Muses telling a narrator they'll take over from him because he's too austere. This allows them to introduce their more fun and song-based style of narration.

                                    • There is also conflict between individual Muses - nothing too harsh or verbose, but enough you get a feel for their individual personalities, and how it'll factor into both spoken and sung narration.

                                    • In song they blitz through the Titanomachy to the Olympian era, both revealing a conflict between two groups of gods and setting us up for the film's entire plot.

                                    • As we get accustomed to the unique biological rules on Mount Olympus, Hades comes in and you can feel the tension in the air. He doesn't glow like his fellow immortal gods, which makes his villainy more obvious. But his dialogue with the others quickly slips in his resentment over being forced to reside in the underworld, and how he wishes Zeus could somehow die.

                                    • Next Hades goes to the underworld and we quickly see him rub up against dead souls, his staff and the Fates. Each instance tells you something else about the world. They don't need to pause everything and say, "these are the Fates, who know all and direct all". Instead we get the hilarious "I KNOW you know, I got it, I got the concept" scene, while Hades frustatedly tries to have a normal conversation about - you guessed it - his conflict with Zeus.

                                    • I'll skip a minute or so of plot to where Hades orders Pain and Panic to abduct the infant Hercules, turn him mortal and kill him. Pain and Panic don't have identical views, and the conflict between them tells you a little about their relationship with each other and Hades. And the when/if Hades finds out exchange sets us up for the dénouement, with the matter of when/if Hades gets out of the Styx.

                                    • A minute or so later, we skip to an adolescent Hercules, who is clearly very distrusted in his community, and it doesn't take long to find out why. "Jerkules" accidentally breaks everything, eventually leading the townspeople to turn on him and his human adoptive father Amphitryon. At this point we've already heard from the Muses about Herc's great strength, but now we see what that means in his life. It also drives Amphitryon and his wife Alcmene to reveal his connection to the Olympians, and that sets the next part of the plot in motion.

                                    • Herc has to convince Philoctetes to train him. Phil's having none of it. He's been disappointed before by Achilles, Jason and "a lot of -euses". It takes Zeus striking him with lightning before he's convinced to help.

                                    • Megara's introduction shows her in conflict with several characters in quick succession: the river guardian, Herc, Pain, Panic and Hades. Each exchange reveals different information about him, and sets up dramatic irony (i.e. we know she's working with the villains, but Herc doesn't). It also involves conflict between Hades and his other minions, when he discovers Herc's alive and they've kept it from him until almost the deadline for killing him.

                                    • Herc wants hero work, but the people of Thebes are as disinterested as Phil had been. You quickly learn they've endured many trials, and amateur heroes have mishandled them so often they won't give a newbie a chance. It takes a prolonged and difficult defeat of a Hydra for them to change their minds. The conflict here is not between Herc and the Hydra; it's between him and the townspeople.


                                    Other conflicts occur throughout the film, but I won't mention them because by this point the worldbuilding is complete (save for occasional touches, e.g. when the Titans approach Olympus and Hephaestus arms Zeus, or Hades gloats over Meg's imminent death, and Perseus doesn't reach her before Atropos cuts Meg's thread of life). I want to stress the above is all from memory, not rewatching the film to write this. The reason I can manage all that is because of how well conflict, worldbuilding, plot, characterisation etc. are intertwined throughout.






                                    share|improve this answer























                                      up vote
                                      1
                                      down vote










                                      up vote
                                      1
                                      down vote









                                      There are a lot of good answers already, but here's another point: a great way to reveal details is conflict. Apart from giving characters a good excuse to remind each other of something they all know, it automatically drives the plot and fleshes out the characters. Let's look at a few examples of this in action, all taken from Disney's Hercules. It's a film that had to explain a lot of Greek myth (albeit their modification of it) to the audience in a short time.




                                      • The film begins with the Muses telling a narrator they'll take over from him because he's too austere. This allows them to introduce their more fun and song-based style of narration.

                                      • There is also conflict between individual Muses - nothing too harsh or verbose, but enough you get a feel for their individual personalities, and how it'll factor into both spoken and sung narration.

                                      • In song they blitz through the Titanomachy to the Olympian era, both revealing a conflict between two groups of gods and setting us up for the film's entire plot.

                                      • As we get accustomed to the unique biological rules on Mount Olympus, Hades comes in and you can feel the tension in the air. He doesn't glow like his fellow immortal gods, which makes his villainy more obvious. But his dialogue with the others quickly slips in his resentment over being forced to reside in the underworld, and how he wishes Zeus could somehow die.

                                      • Next Hades goes to the underworld and we quickly see him rub up against dead souls, his staff and the Fates. Each instance tells you something else about the world. They don't need to pause everything and say, "these are the Fates, who know all and direct all". Instead we get the hilarious "I KNOW you know, I got it, I got the concept" scene, while Hades frustatedly tries to have a normal conversation about - you guessed it - his conflict with Zeus.

                                      • I'll skip a minute or so of plot to where Hades orders Pain and Panic to abduct the infant Hercules, turn him mortal and kill him. Pain and Panic don't have identical views, and the conflict between them tells you a little about their relationship with each other and Hades. And the when/if Hades finds out exchange sets us up for the dénouement, with the matter of when/if Hades gets out of the Styx.

                                      • A minute or so later, we skip to an adolescent Hercules, who is clearly very distrusted in his community, and it doesn't take long to find out why. "Jerkules" accidentally breaks everything, eventually leading the townspeople to turn on him and his human adoptive father Amphitryon. At this point we've already heard from the Muses about Herc's great strength, but now we see what that means in his life. It also drives Amphitryon and his wife Alcmene to reveal his connection to the Olympians, and that sets the next part of the plot in motion.

                                      • Herc has to convince Philoctetes to train him. Phil's having none of it. He's been disappointed before by Achilles, Jason and "a lot of -euses". It takes Zeus striking him with lightning before he's convinced to help.

                                      • Megara's introduction shows her in conflict with several characters in quick succession: the river guardian, Herc, Pain, Panic and Hades. Each exchange reveals different information about him, and sets up dramatic irony (i.e. we know she's working with the villains, but Herc doesn't). It also involves conflict between Hades and his other minions, when he discovers Herc's alive and they've kept it from him until almost the deadline for killing him.

                                      • Herc wants hero work, but the people of Thebes are as disinterested as Phil had been. You quickly learn they've endured many trials, and amateur heroes have mishandled them so often they won't give a newbie a chance. It takes a prolonged and difficult defeat of a Hydra for them to change their minds. The conflict here is not between Herc and the Hydra; it's between him and the townspeople.


                                      Other conflicts occur throughout the film, but I won't mention them because by this point the worldbuilding is complete (save for occasional touches, e.g. when the Titans approach Olympus and Hephaestus arms Zeus, or Hades gloats over Meg's imminent death, and Perseus doesn't reach her before Atropos cuts Meg's thread of life). I want to stress the above is all from memory, not rewatching the film to write this. The reason I can manage all that is because of how well conflict, worldbuilding, plot, characterisation etc. are intertwined throughout.






                                      share|improve this answer












                                      There are a lot of good answers already, but here's another point: a great way to reveal details is conflict. Apart from giving characters a good excuse to remind each other of something they all know, it automatically drives the plot and fleshes out the characters. Let's look at a few examples of this in action, all taken from Disney's Hercules. It's a film that had to explain a lot of Greek myth (albeit their modification of it) to the audience in a short time.




                                      • The film begins with the Muses telling a narrator they'll take over from him because he's too austere. This allows them to introduce their more fun and song-based style of narration.

                                      • There is also conflict between individual Muses - nothing too harsh or verbose, but enough you get a feel for their individual personalities, and how it'll factor into both spoken and sung narration.

                                      • In song they blitz through the Titanomachy to the Olympian era, both revealing a conflict between two groups of gods and setting us up for the film's entire plot.

                                      • As we get accustomed to the unique biological rules on Mount Olympus, Hades comes in and you can feel the tension in the air. He doesn't glow like his fellow immortal gods, which makes his villainy more obvious. But his dialogue with the others quickly slips in his resentment over being forced to reside in the underworld, and how he wishes Zeus could somehow die.

                                      • Next Hades goes to the underworld and we quickly see him rub up against dead souls, his staff and the Fates. Each instance tells you something else about the world. They don't need to pause everything and say, "these are the Fates, who know all and direct all". Instead we get the hilarious "I KNOW you know, I got it, I got the concept" scene, while Hades frustatedly tries to have a normal conversation about - you guessed it - his conflict with Zeus.

                                      • I'll skip a minute or so of plot to where Hades orders Pain and Panic to abduct the infant Hercules, turn him mortal and kill him. Pain and Panic don't have identical views, and the conflict between them tells you a little about their relationship with each other and Hades. And the when/if Hades finds out exchange sets us up for the dénouement, with the matter of when/if Hades gets out of the Styx.

                                      • A minute or so later, we skip to an adolescent Hercules, who is clearly very distrusted in his community, and it doesn't take long to find out why. "Jerkules" accidentally breaks everything, eventually leading the townspeople to turn on him and his human adoptive father Amphitryon. At this point we've already heard from the Muses about Herc's great strength, but now we see what that means in his life. It also drives Amphitryon and his wife Alcmene to reveal his connection to the Olympians, and that sets the next part of the plot in motion.

                                      • Herc has to convince Philoctetes to train him. Phil's having none of it. He's been disappointed before by Achilles, Jason and "a lot of -euses". It takes Zeus striking him with lightning before he's convinced to help.

                                      • Megara's introduction shows her in conflict with several characters in quick succession: the river guardian, Herc, Pain, Panic and Hades. Each exchange reveals different information about him, and sets up dramatic irony (i.e. we know she's working with the villains, but Herc doesn't). It also involves conflict between Hades and his other minions, when he discovers Herc's alive and they've kept it from him until almost the deadline for killing him.

                                      • Herc wants hero work, but the people of Thebes are as disinterested as Phil had been. You quickly learn they've endured many trials, and amateur heroes have mishandled them so often they won't give a newbie a chance. It takes a prolonged and difficult defeat of a Hydra for them to change their minds. The conflict here is not between Herc and the Hydra; it's between him and the townspeople.


                                      Other conflicts occur throughout the film, but I won't mention them because by this point the worldbuilding is complete (save for occasional touches, e.g. when the Titans approach Olympus and Hephaestus arms Zeus, or Hades gloats over Meg's imminent death, and Perseus doesn't reach her before Atropos cuts Meg's thread of life). I want to stress the above is all from memory, not rewatching the film to write this. The reason I can manage all that is because of how well conflict, worldbuilding, plot, characterisation etc. are intertwined throughout.







                                      share|improve this answer












                                      share|improve this answer



                                      share|improve this answer










                                      answered 2 days ago









                                      J.G.

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