Home Page › Forums › A QnA for aspiring authors › How do you give a lot of necessary world-building knowledge without info-dumps?
Tagged: info-dumps, world-building, writing
- This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 8 months ago by Matthew Brown.
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8th April 2020 at 11:28 pm #2401Bob BobsonParticipant
How do you give a lot of necessary world-building knowledge without info-dumps?
I’ve got a plot that really hangs on understanding the intricacies of the setting. Without knowing any of that, the story would not make much sense. I hate info-dumping but there is a lot of stuff the reader needs to know.
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8th April 2020 at 11:31 pm #2402Burty BurtmanParticipant
What is the absolute minimum a reader needs to know for chapter one?
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8th April 2020 at 11:34 pm #2403Bob BobsonParticipant
About two chapter’s worth of non-stop info dumps.
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8th April 2020 at 11:40 pm #2405Burty BurtmanParticipant
About two chapter’s worth of non-stop info dumps.
Well… Ouch.
I dunno what to say to that.
How much could you show or imply later so that a second reading is even better than the first?
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15th April 2020 at 11:39 pm #2413Matthew BrownKeymaster
If you need to introduce that much background information before the plot proper can get underway then you need a narrative that can act both as character introduction and development whilst also being a tour of your world.
From the sounds of what you are describing you first act (25%) is probably this easing in phase. Following an outside into the inside could act as an audience surrogate to pin your drip-fed information display to without it seeming like a dull old info-dump.
TL;DR: Find a character you can begin with for whom no background understanding is needed.
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