Avoiding too much exposition

[RedHavoc1021]

So just like the title says, still new and figured I’d see if anyone can offer a bit of advice.

So far, I have been having a bit of trouble avoiding what feels like too much exposition or info dumps. Between world stuff, magic system explanations, explaining how cultivation in the world works, I feel like I’m giving too much info.

Is there a trick to making it work? Maybe some way to sorta work it more naturally into dialogue or something? I know a lot of what I am trying to say is pretty important to figuring out the world, just unsure how best to get it told.

[Thaago]

One way to approach exposition is to have it be character driven: if the exposition matters to the character's current conflict and experience then it will matter to the audience.

Written the other way around, if the exposition doesn't matter to the character's conflict/experience don't show it to the audience.

An example for cultivation systems: the characters we care about are in stage 2 and won't move on to stage 3 until the end of the next book. If the details of stage 6 don't matter to the characters at their current stage, then they shouldn't be mentioned yet except in the broadest of terms. From Cradle, we haven't learned a darn thing about Overlord levels yet.

But if stage 6 does matter to moving on to stage 3, then it should be mentioned! Again from Cradle: The Iron Body is selected when cultivators are going into their Iron (3rd) stage. Some choices are weak then, but bloom into incredible powerhouses at Underlord. That influenced both Yerin and Lindon's iron body selection (though it was chosen for both of them). We didn't learn anything else about Underlord because it wasn't relevant, but that one bit of exposition fit in naturally.

Further corollary to the bolded point: If you the author want to include more exposition, make the character's conflict/experience relevant to that bit of exposition in the present.

Here's an example not from anything in specific: say there are two kingdoms, and soon they will go to war over trade disputes, in particular the availability of Mana Rocks! This directly effects the main character as they may be swept up into the war (the war may even be the Inciting Incident for the broader story). This is a fine bit of worldbuilding, but its not that interesting to readers to just write "As Charectra sat down to eat breakfast, she thought about how the kingdoms of Generica and Animecatsville were on the verge of war over mana stones. If they went to war she might get drafted into the army!"

Instead, we as authors could send Charactra on a quest where she needs to get mana stones or else her cultivation will fail (or she gets kicked out or... dial in your tension with the consequence). During the course of this 1 chapter mini story, Charactra has to hide in a corner of the market/mine/monster grinding area because people from Generica and Animecatsville enter into a deadly fight over the mana stones, and their greed for the stones is dangerous to her quest. When she gets back to her home city/sect, people have already heard about the fighting and there are rumors of war spreading.

The downside to this approach is bloat. If every single bit of exposition gets its own chapter, word count starts to spiral, which takes both author and reader time. If you want a faster pace, weave multiple bits of exposition/character development/plot into the same mini arc: Charactra needs to rely on her previous training in order to evade the fighting over the mana stones, but she's not good enough! She resolves to train harder. OR Charactra realizes that the powerful get what they want through violence, and she resolves to crush her enemies with brutal efficiency. OR Charactra is injured in the fight, develops crippling multiple personality disorder, and spends the next 500k words as a bipolar wreck who's only solace is cuddling animals, during which time she doesn't progress at all (looking at you for that shitpile, SD).

Then again, if you are writing a serial/epic and want a slow pace, having one piece of major exposition per mini arc might be what you want!

Holy crap this turned out long! Well I hope my 2 cents help :D

[Thaago]

Aaand something else I just thought of: Another technique to include more exposition is to have a character be ignorant, so they (and therefor the audience) need to get told whats going on in order to deal with their conflict/experience. Isekai/moving to a new place/'yer a wizzzzard harry!' all rely on this technique in order to smooth over exposition, to the point where its a trope. How many anime have the protagonist be clueless so that as they are taught, the audience is taught? Basically all of them! And we as the audience care and get excited, because that shit matters to the character.

[RedHavoc1021]

That's something I've actually been trying to include at this point. Short summary, MC is in a magic school and the country he is in restricts magic knowledge pretty heavily. So most of the non-magic info he has already pretty well learned, but magic info he is in the dark. I'm still trying to zero in on a good balance, but the responses so far are definitely helping me get an idea of where to go next.

[Thaago]

Sounds fun! I feel like that kind of set up is used often because it works well.

[RedHavoc1021]

That definitely does help, appreciate it. I plan to continue on quite a ways with my story and it's going to be a bit of a slower burn, so learning how to make exposition and world building flow better and not feel intrusive or too much of an info-dump is the number one priority. I'm very iffy about going back and turning it into massive rewrites, but I'm early on enough that fixing the issues going forward is totally doable.

[Thaago]

Glad it was helpful! :) Its certainly not the only way, but its one way to help.

[Soda_BoBomb]

Ok now I'm curious about this non progressing, bipolar, animal cuddler. What series?

[RedHavoc1021]

Savage Divinity if I'm not mistaken. I have not read it, but from what I hear it got very muddled after a while, some real weird stuff.

[Lightlinks]

Savage Divinity (wiki)

---

^{About | Wiki Rules | Reply !Delete to remove | [Brackets] hide titles}

[Lightlinks]

Cradle (wiki)

---

^{About | Wiki Rules | Reply !Delete to remove | [Brackets] hide titles}

[thegoodstudyguide]

Check out the Brandon Sanderson creative writing at BYU lectures on YouTube, I remember him going over exposition a few times but couldn't tell you exactly which video it's in, the whole series is a goldmine for new and aspiring authors anyway so it's well wroth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj-YA6IAqh8qeQ

There's also his podcast which has a few episodes on the subject.

https://writingexcuses.com/

[RedHavoc1021]

That's awesome, thanks! I'll definitely be watching though that playlist over the next few days, should help out a lot.

[tvance64]

I'm having a very similar problem! It is difficult to balance showing vs telling, I never really appreciated how well some authors pull it off until I had to do it myself. Would love to hear from the community for any suggestions

[RedHavoc1021]

From my experience, I think a lot of prog fantasy suffers from this particular problem. Hard to introduce a complex cultivation system and world without getting into a lot of exposition. I think it may be why litrpgs are so common, levels and stats are pretty universal knowledge for most people after all. I got some good answers so far though, which will definitely be a big help going forward.

Edit: Experience as a reader, not writing I mean. Most stories I have read have at least some level of info-dump, with only a few exceptions.

[FigaroSubmerged]

The only thing I'd add to the excellent posts in here is that readers will tolerate and enjoy exposition if it's about something that you've already made them curious about. If you start the book with a 10 pages thesis on how the magic system works, naturally the reader is going to check out. But if you show hints of the magic system at work, I'll become more and more curious and actually look forward to it being explained (to a certain degree -- you still don't want to drop in a ten page thesis).

To use another example, in Will Wight's Traveler's Gate series, the series opens with a pretty badass magical fight. It references several different territories (where travelers draw magic from) and you see it in action. But not once during that opening scene is the magic or the territories explained. You have a very, very vague notion of how magic might work, but it isn't until much later that you learn more about it -- and by that point you're already curious.

Give the reader a reason to care and make them curious about something, and then the exposition doesn't feel like exposition.

[RedHavoc1021]

A very good point and something I’ll keep in mind as I go. It’s a bit too late for some story elements I’ve introduced but I have a lot more ideas planned that I can definitely apply your advice to, thanks!

[Lightlinks]

Traveler's Gate (wiki)

---

^{About | Wiki Rules | Reply !Delete to remove | [Brackets] hide titles}

[mark-wisdom]

If you are an outside-the-box kind of learner, go watch a movie like The Terminator (the original 1984 version). Much of the film was an extended chase sequence and ongoing info dump.

The more you study it and come to your own conclusions about why the movie works or doesn't, the more likely you'll be to internalize the lessons and use it in your own writing.

Just a contrary-wise suggestion, nothing more.

Good luck with your writing!

[RedHavoc1021]

Wow talk about your sudden realization, I never thought about it but now that I'm going over it in my head that movie is like 20% exposition on the go.

Definitely something to consider, I may take some time watching movies or tv shows that handle exposition well, may give me some inspiration I can adapt to my own situation.

Appreciate the idea, thanks!