This Horse ain't Dead! Info-dumping, Exposition, Appendices, etc...

[-K2-]

I'm sure of it, I saw it twitch, so I'm going to beat this horse till I'm sure... Anywho, this is going to be a long post. So you may not want to waste your time.

After perusing through numerous threads on the subject, more importantly having been duly chastised in the critiques section, I'm cornered into revisiting this subject. Unfortunately, the novel(s) I'm writing have some unique conditions that I must deal with (I bet everyone says that ). Nevertheless, I'd like to present some of those conditions, then a few options and get everyone's opinion.

First of all, I have a significant amount of 'world-building' and 'history' that needs to be presented to the reader. Total environmental collapse, all of North America's population and others crammed into a tiny area, that tiny area now made brutally oppressive and sectioned up, the government totally changing, 99% of population being brainwashed, and it goes on. Sorry, no butterflies, rainbows or lollypops.

The story begins in 2028. All of the above begins now (2018) and is wrapped up or in place by 2022. None of the characters are privy to the how's and why's of most of the above until the third novel. The little that the few can remember, is vague and mostly wrong... None of what I have stated thus far will be changed.

So, the reader is thrust into a very near future that is radically different in all ways than what they can relate to. Furthermore, life is intentionally extremely difficult and brutal for 63% of the population (250+ million) where the first two novels, and most of the third and forth take place-- Point being, without some background it ends up seeming senseless and brutal for no reason.

The second novel (2029) is already written (though can be edited regarding this info-dumping). A 'prequel' novel (2028) is being written currently wherein some of the massive info-dumping may be bled off into it. In fact if I don't, then it will again simply seem senselessly brutal.

Each novel will have various 'appendices' which are unavoidable. However, it is explained to the reader up-front, that they have the option of utilizing those ONLY if they wish to have the knowledge of the protagonist or an omniscient viewpoint. The deuteragonist viewpoint should avoid them. They however are NOT spoilers.

I require a progressively growing glossary for the government (some aspects cannot be shared until the second novel), each novel will contain a vocabulary for a new language which will also grow each revision, and each novel will have its own appendix for entire phrase translations. There are other appendices... However they add nothing to this discussion past they are there.

That brings me finally to the 'info-dumping/world-building' chapters currently in 2029, of which there are 5 of 40 chapters.

Just as with the appendices, the reader is told up front that if they wish an omniscient viewpoint, they are welcome to read these five chapters at any time. They are not spoilers. If they choose to read them as they come up, each explains just enough so the world gradually unfolds before them just after or before they encounter it. Where surprise is required, after. In other cases (like when nothing is happening with the characters (ex. travelling)) and when the reader should need a breather from the action, before.

Again, to not have that info makes the whole read seem chaotic, confusing and senselessly brutal. With them it makes what the reader encounters make sense.

Each of those five chapters are written like a story within the story. They each contain characters that are long gone by the time we begin in 2028. Though there are little facts and figures scattered throughout them and the stories are told in a 'third-person' point of view (with little dialogue between characters), they speak more to events and conditions that cause the world to become how it is. They each often relate back briefly to our protagonist (though honestly not to any consequential degree except in one).

Naturally... I read it and say; "this is incredible! Man I'm good!" Others may not so much...

Lastly, I have come to the conclusion that most of it (which a considerable amount of it is required) cannot be relayed by the protagonist, or told by new characters simply to recall these various aspects of history without derailing the flow of the protagonist and other characters... Then again, as said, those first-person characters are already there, viewed via a third-person viewpoint and it is told as a story.

So... That's what I got The question is, what to do with it?

I'm seeing these possible options:
1. Leave it alone, spreading out those chapters over the two initial novels as I currently apply them.
2. Bump them all to the appendices. The trouble there is, if someone simply begins reading, we're right back to that 'senseless brutality' result until they get to the end. Plus, it would make for an unreasonable number of appendices. Personally, "I" would find it (the story without them) enough of a turn-off that I'd stop reading.
3. Use item No.2, yet add in cues/markers where the chapters currently reside (IOW: See Appendix B).
4. (this makes me cringe suggesting it) Have a world guide (not sure what you'd call it) wherein some appendices and these chapters get shoved into. That guide would grow and be reissued with each novel. IT IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. I only say it to consider everything.

Anyone have any thoughts, opinions, suggestions? Is anyone still reading? Hello... hello, is this thing on, why is there suddenly an echo?

Thanks for any help you care to render!

K2

 

[Brian G Turner]

Honestly? Save your work as a new file, then delete all chapters that exist as exposition. Readers only need to know the story. Thinking the reader needs explanations shows lack of faith in the story itself and a hope that explanations will support it - when IMO the writer needs to focus on making the story the best they can to the inclusion of all else.

I think every writer faces this at some point and has to learn to move past it.

 

[Onyx]

Readers don't "need" to know anything. If you want to tell a secondary story, write it as a story and insert it as chapters alternating the main tale.

I'm often a cheerleader for exposition because I've seen it work well, but the authors that do it well aren't holding forth on fictional history but fascinating real things, like the development history of the submarine or the feud over who invented calculus. What you're proposing is lecturing the reader about something that isn't actually interesting - the fake future history of the world.

The ultimate problem is that any story that requires considerable indoctrination of the reader to be interesting is not a good story. Either tell the story without all the extras, or explain what needs to be understood as it comes up, or write the history as story. I really don't understand why an optional to read appendix could be considered necessary.

I don't think many people want to read anything that requires a guide.


Can you give a concrete example of a factoid that your narrative can't live without and can't be presented as part of the story?

 

[Nozzle Velocity]

Don't forget Frank Herbert's trick in Dune with each chapter headed by short excerpts from Princess Irulan. They were somewhat omniscient, historically retrospective and pulled the reader onward with the promise of a broader understanding as the novel progressed. I mention this because I'm re-reading Dune for the first time in 43 years and am struck by the many deft ways Herbert used "data" introduction despite his idiosyncratic prose.

There's also John Bunner's method (via Dos Passos) in Stand On Zanzibar using "found materials" to inform the reader without any of the character's involvement. Would some combination of these methods replace the five chapters? Could it leaven the doom & gloom without heavy rewrites?

 

[The Judge]

As you know from your Critiques thread, I'm of the dump-it-in-your-website persuasion.

Your worry is that without the guidance supplied by knowing c10 years of global history, the story will just seem senselessly brutal. Perhaps. But why is that a problem?

If you've written a good story with compelling characters who have great dialogue and propel the plot forward with action, what's it matter that the reader knows only the little that the characters know about how they got to that brutal pass? And if the story isn't good, with no action at all, and the characters are cardboard and the dialogue tin-eared, how are chapters of exposition concerning the history going to improve things?

Your world building is obviously prodigious -- I've skimmed your posts on your new alphabet and language and I'm in awe of the depth of detail. However, it does lead me to wonder if you're too much in love with the world building itself and you've forgotten the point of it all. Think of your novels as a play. The world building is your backdrop and stage setting. Great staging can be a real enhancement to the experience of seeing a play, but it isn't the play. Shakespeare had minimal props and backdrops -- his cockpit didn't begin to hold the vasty fields of France. Granted it's harder nowadays as we've all become used to film and TV and become more reliant on visuals, but it's still possible to watch great drama on a bare stage and be mesmerised by the action, the characters, the words. And so it is with a novel.

Yes, world-building is important, and yes, we have to show some of it in the novel so we present a real world in which our characters live and breathe. But we don't need to show all the nuts and bolts of that world.

Anyhow, the fact is you're convinced you need to show everything, or at least a great amount, in order for readers to understand -- and presumably, enjoy -- the story. To my mind, it's more likely that what you want to show is far in excess of what you actually need and you're risking the readability of the whole by incorporating so much backstory. Ultimately, the only way to discover which of us is right is for you to get unvarnished feedback on the issue from several beta readers.

I'd suggest that you put up in Critiques the first 800 words or so of the first chapter of the already written book 2/2029 (which, if I'm reading it right, is the most problematic one) and then after some days another 800 or so of the beginning of one of the exposition chapters. See what feedback you get, act on it, then appeal for beta readers for the whole of that 2029 book. (I'd suggest doing it that way round so people can see your writing and judge whether it's something they want to read more of before committing themselves to the whole novel.)

Incidentally, what are your plans for the novels? Are you proposing to try to find an agent and/or an established publisher, or are you not going to bother with that route and simply go for the self-publishing option? SPing does allow you complete freedom to write your books the way you want to write them, without having the pressure of having to conform to some perceived norm of readability. I gather, too, that for SF it can be easier to achieve a break through for books which are a bit different.

Anyway, good luck with it.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

First of all, I have a significant amount of 'world-building' and 'history' that needs to be presented to the reader.

I only had to read this sentence to understand your problem.

No it doesn't need to be presented to the reader. It certainly doesn't need to be presented all at once. Depending on the narrative POV you use they only need to understand the world from the point of view of the character.

My first was written first person present tense from a fairly ignorant (although genius) prince. He didn't understand much of the world beyond his bedroom and school so the reader didn't need to either. The reader discovered the world as he did. He doesn't know how the magic in the world works so the reader doesn't need to etc

 

[Cathbad]

I've said many times, only the author needs to know why things are as they are. A character may have a point of view on it, but another may have a different one. If it enhances the story, let them tell their pov in conversation - but the story is taking place in your world as it is. As long as the reader can "see" how the world is, is it really necessary for them to know why?

 

[niccol]

Don't forget Frank Herbert's trick in Dune with each chapter headed by short excerpts from Princess Irulan. They were somewhat omniscient, historically retrospective and pulled the reader onward with the promise of a broader understanding as the novel progressed. I mention this because I'm re-reading Dune for the first time in 43 years and am struck by the many deft ways Herbert used "data" introduction despite his idiosyncratic prose.

There's also John Bunner's method (via Dos Passos) in Stand On Zanzibar using "found materials" to inform the reader without any of the character's involvement. Would some combination of these methods replace the five chapters? Could it leaven the doom & gloom without heavy rewrites?

Nice point and well made.

It made me re-evaluate the accepted wisdom that 'exposition is bad'. There are lots of ways of telling stories. It is possible that you need to be a more adept writer than me to handle exposition skillfully, though. In general, if there are facts that might enrich the reader's experience then I have tended to put them in dialogue. But you are right, there are lots of ways of doing this.

 

[-K2-]

To @Brian G Turner ; @Onyx ; @Nozzle Velocity ; @The Judge ; @AnyaKimlin ; @Cathbad ; @niccol ;

I sincerely thank you all for your input, suggestions and taking the time to share your experience and wisdom in detail. I'd like to take some time and let everything that you each have said digest a little, try a few things out that were suggested and consider some options before responding.

Please do not take my lack of direct response as disregard. It is exactly the opposite as I consider all points fully, granting weight to each as you have graciously taken the time to advise me.

Thank you again, I'll respond back once I have worked with your suggestions a bit!

K2

 

[tinkerdan]

I have to agree with several of the opinions above.

The fact that you believe that someone would throw the book down without these explanations, though compelling in some ways is also weak or at least demonstrating a weakness in the writing.

Write the story and make it compelling enough to drive the reader forward--make them wonder how things got this way and even every so often let the characters spout their myths(possibly with enough internal contradictions to help the reader understand that their beliefs don't necessarily reflect truth in history). After you achieve that then possibly look into ways to insert some history(where it becomes critical to understanding, and where you can do so without pushing the reader out of the story). Don't try to give a history lesson all at once. As a reader if I want history I'll probably be reading a history book or perhaps one based on historic events.

History and historical fiction need some historical accuracy.

Fiction doesn't (it needs internal accuracy) and Maps; history lesson; appendices and special dictionaries are all just props that might belong somewhere else and should take a considerable amount of contemplation before being applied to the whole.

This is just one readers POV on this subject. And these days my two cents might just be enough to buy the grain of salt you need.

Note: Having given some thought; I have to confess to using some measure of exposition in my first novel (Exposition that is basic history).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079P7TS4Z/?tag=id2100-20
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079P7TS4Z/?tag=brite-21
In most cases I try to insert that into narrative and dialogue and there is at least one occasion where I let a character get out of hand with dialogue which at least one reader pointed at as getting just a bit egregious.
They are probably correct.
Most of the history is only necessary in my mind and tends to just reinforce a feeling that there is a back story to all this story and many times the characters allude to the notion that their concept of history might not be 100% accurate.

The point being that the history shouldn't be driving the story, it should help support by explaining motives, reasons within characterization and fit the scene as best is possible.

 

[zmunkz]

The ultimate problem is that any story that requires considerable indoctrination of the reader to be interesting is not a good story.

This is so so true. It is the hardest thing as a fantasy/sff author because what we tend to love and miss, when we leave some else’s world, is the immersiveness of that world and its details and reality. This compels us, in building our own stories, to be just as rich and detailed.

The problem is those weren’t the things that actually made us fall in love with the world in the first place. It was the characters in the story, and the other stuff took hold during the ride.

Unless you are targeting a very niche audience or doing something almost experimental without any concern for marketability, I promise you don’t need most of this backstory.

 

[Toby Frost]

No offence intended, but backstory is often much more important/interesting to the writer than it is to the reader. A novel isn’t made by its backstory, and even the best concept can be ruined by bad writing or a lack of interesting things happening.

The way this has been phrased, it feels as if one of the main purposes of the novel is to give a potted history of the setting. Other responses have suggested not putting the chunks of backstory in and I agree with them all. There is a risk that, if big lumps of backstory are interspersed with the present-day narrative, people will just skip the history-book bits to get on with the modern parts. I felt this temptation when reading the backstory chapters of Scott Lynch’s Locke Lamora books, and that was backstory which actually involved the present-day characters.

I also think there is a risk that the backstory chapters will read not like a novel, but like the mock-history “flavour text” used in the manuals of roleplaying games and wargames. While this is fine in those kind of books, it looks extremely flat from a novel point of view.

So, I would go along with the others and say that the book has to stand without the history lessons. If you feel that they really, really can’t go, then I would ask whether the point of the book is to tell the story set now, or to narrate the backstory. If it’s the latter, then I would consider ditching the “now” story and setting the entire story in the past.

 

[sknox]

First, what makes you think it's too much? Is the novel complete? Have readers (beta or editor) read it? We can debate endlessly how readers *might* react, but until the thing is done, you're solving problems that do not yet exist.

Second, how much is too much? Do you have a measuring stick for this? Is it okay to have a single sentence of historical or geographical background? Is a paragraph too much? A single chapter?

My suggestion is always the same suggestion: write the story. Tell it the best way you know how. If this is your first novel, it will suck. If it's your second, it very likely will suck (there are exceptions, but such people have the gift of the gods are a likely already published). You will learn from these, and one of two things will happen. You will change your opinion about what is "needed" in an epic story, or you will so hone your narrative skill that people will come to love those passages of exposition. Neither will happen until the stories are written all the way to done (=published).

 

[Brian G Turner]

Don't forget Frank Herbert's trick in Dune with each chapter headed by short excerpts from Princess Irulan.

Good comments - and welcome to the chronicles forums @Nozzle Velocity .

Save your work as a new file, then delete all chapters that exist as exposition.

Sorry, I forgot to add: then read your story and see if it doesn't read as leaner and tighter.

Chopping back can be quite a psychological barrier to cross - but often very satisfying when done so.

 

[-K2-]

Thank you @tinkerdan ; @zmunkz ; @Toby Frost ; @sknox and @Brian G Turner once again;

I'll add everything that you all suggested into what I'm considering. I sincerely appreciate your help.

One thing I will dispute however (coming from many, though countered by some), is that for "me" to delete out those chapters and then reread it to see how it works would be an absolute waste of time. "I" will naturally, consciously/subconsciously insert in those facts into what I'm reading. So for that it would take a 'beta-reader' as a few have suggested above.

Unfortunately, that then taints that beta-reader from reading it with those chapters in place.

In either case, I have a lot to consider before I get to that point.

Thanks again one and all!

K2

 

[Joshua Jones]

I completely get the desire to present your worldbuilding, and the fear that without that, nothing makes sense. I spent 8 years building my world, complete with linguistics, cultural values, trade relationships and core trade goods, complete economies, detailed explanations of the range of possibilities of domestic and social relationships, preferences in the arts (music, theater, visual arts, etc.) and 500 years of backstory (broken down year by fraking year on an absurdly large spreadsheet) for 16 factions. Believe me, I get it. I genuinely get terrified at times that people won't get what is going on.

But, then I take a deep breath, set all that aside, and write my story in this universe. I know that no one will ever see, for example, why there came to be a "intellectual, emotional, and moral suitability" clause for the ascention to the throne in the constitution of Aurelia, but that clause will cause some massive conflict in the storyline. Is it better to have an info dump describe the treachery of Nero Aurelius in ascending the throne before being deposed, or is it preferable to have two brothers leading alternate claims and battling over the throne? The latter sounds much more interesting to me...

So, based on my limited knowledge of your work, I would go with one of there approaches. You could either go the Dune route and trickle in just enough teasers at the chapter introduction to make sense of the chapter (I do this in my WiP as well), allow readers to discover all the backstory as your characters do (presumably in books 3-4, I believe you said), or write a second, parallel time line in your story to describe the fall of present civilization from the perspective of someone who endured it (maybe the protagonist in the past, maybe another character who is a side person, maybe even an antagonist, but this person should show up in some sense).

But, again, I know how you feel about it. It is just that there are, in my opinion, better ways of conveying the information than 13% of your story be info dumps (assuming there are none in the other 35 chapters), plus appendicies and the like. Resist the info dumps! Resist!

 

[Onyx]

One thing I will dispute however (coming from many, though countered by some), is that for "me" to delete out those chapters and then reread it to see how it works would be an absolute waste of time. "I" will naturally, consciously/subconsciously insert in those facts into what I'm reading.

Give yourself some credit - you're not so indoctrinated that you can't read with a fresh eye.

 

[tinkerdan]

This is something you definitely have to work out for yourself::

One thing I will dispute however (coming from many, though countered by some), is that for "me" to delete out those chapters and then reread it to see how it works would be an absolute waste of time. "I" will naturally, consciously/subconsciously insert in those facts into what I'm reading. So for that it would take a 'beta-reader' as a few have suggested above.

I've got a huge amount of back-story and history to my series. I have to know all of it and I have to edit through what I use of it to determine what needs to be there and what doesn't. It's a struggle and I don't always get it right.

I'm not sure that in all of your beta's and other readers that any of them can help much with that unless they have some professional background in publishing. They can only tell you if it pulls them out of the story or not. Pushing it all to the back of the novel would have less of that and could lead to some readers not even looking at the stuff in back; however you have already indicated that that won't work for the reader when you insist that it needs to be there or the story becomes too confusing.

Possibly reading other author works might help you determine what works for you as a reader and what doesn't and then you have to go back and make that work in your writing. You won't please everyone, so you really need to make it right for you and yet as concise as possible.

It's a process and sometimes it takes getting away from it and coming back with new eyes and then cutting it to make it better.

 

[Onyx]

@-K2- , I think part of the problem here is that you clearly have some alternate ideas about how fiction should read, and you are sort of struggling to sell us on something that you haven't really described. We know what normal narrative looks like, but I don't know if you are writing normal narrative. The one writing sample you put up isn't narrative, it is a lecture about a narrative:
An Introduction...

Reading your other threads, it appears that you are adapting a Judge Dredd fan piece into something that isn't Judge Dredd, but it sounds as if you feel a responsibility to preserve the back story you created to sell readers on why a Judge Dredd type world makes any sense at all.
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/571573/

And maybe that's the key problem - comic books tend to have absurd back stories to set up the absurd narrative that includes a masked man grimacing while trying and executing people on street corners, or wearing a bat costume, or using their power ring. But comic book narratives begin with an aesthetic and fit story to that aesthetic. Which is why the back stories are so complex - because the author is trying to make it sound reasonable that a billionaire has developed cybernetic underwear to fight Communism.

So I don't know if you are suffering under this sort of super hero origin burden to the point that you feel only reams of explanation will make the subsequent action realistic or not. But if you do, consider making it a comic book and abandon non-visual fiction.


There's another member on Chrons, @ImperiumSega138, whose posts are very similar to yours - a need to collect a massive amount of supporting structure to a story that doesn't yet exist - because he is making a comic/game something. You really should consider posting some narrative in the critique section before you ask any more non-narrative questions. At the very least, it will ground all these discussions about the need for complex science, exposition and titling formulas in a context. You might be entirely right about what your story needs to work for the reader, but I think you have maxed out the hypothetical.

 

[The Big Peat]

The ideal time to explain something in a story is after readers are going "ooh, this is cool, why is it like that?"

Which means you need to present your world first and explain it second.

I don't think this should be an issue. Readers are flexible, intelligent, forgiving types - if you present a dystopian near-future story, their reactions will be governed first and foremost by the story and second by the dystopian near-future thing.

One thing I've tried doing is giving myself three "Setting" facts about the world, the characters, etc.etc. that I'm hoping to have the readers remember by the end. I might chuck in a few more details, but only if it comes up. The idea is three facts will allow me not to overwhelm them and have a nicely paced reveal. I have to be honest, so far I've been told I'm too exposition light, but that's me trying to take a very light touch on it and failing.

Well, that or readers failing to catch onto what I've written. One of the reasons I set out to not overwhelm readers is because they don't have perfect memories and can be very easily confused. If you're trying to show everything all at once, there's a good chance they're going to forget it.

So, to approach it from a different angle, you can't have a story that relies on having a lot of early exposition, because it's probably not going to work even if people read it. You've got to find the non-exposition heavy way of telling it regardless.

Or at least non-exposition heavy at the beginning. I've noticed books that have a lot of exposition at the end tend to be very popular. There's often a lot of complaining about it too, but I'm not sure the complaints outweigh the popularity.