The setting is on a second earth, so to speak and there are two dominant human societies. The owrld is one that allows for science fantasy and the natural development of technology is changed to adjust to the presence of new elements. One of which in an atmospheric gas state prevents radio communication from the surface to space, and so space flight and satellite usage is not used. (This was to my convenience)

There are very important events which set the stage for the story twenty-years before the story actually "begins" and that is where Is tart the story. It's almost prologue-ish but far longer, unfortunately I do not introduce my main protagonist initially because of this. But I cannot see a way to introduce the plot without narrating this 50 page section.

Whether or not I dropped this, which I won't, wouldn't effect the fact that I will need to introduce my setting. the question is how to do it thoroughly without interfering with the pace, since I don't want to bore the reader.

I re-read some of my writing and find myself to be unnecessarily explanatory, which is causing me to re-write. However I am not perfectly sure as to how to proceed.

I guess my point is that I did not care that I didn't know. The story was good, and it actually kept my curiosity since I wanted to know. Now if the story would not have been good then it wouldn't have held me, but a good story that grabs the readers attention can have some mysteries.

Now if you are doing 3rd person limited, then you have the ability to realisticly not tell the reader as much while dropping in background allong the way. I'm sure it could be done in others, but I've been sticking to that POV since I can do more with it.

I understand part of your problem since I have a short story I am working on that has a bit of background I have to get across. I have 2 paragraphs which are all just telling the background which have to be removed and I have to figure out another way of getting it across.

But my thought is that if you take the main character and determine what they are going to be doing at the begining. If your first chapter has something exciting going on, something to get the readers attention and make them want more, then you can add allot of background along the way. If the character is going to work for example, and you can take a sentence or two and throw in that is somehow connected to his work, or the process of getting there, then the story doesn't slow and the reader isn't bored.

Prologs happen, and some books need them, but if it isn't as good as the story then the reader will most likely skip it. At least I do.

Not sure if this will help you. But hope you figure it out.

My suggestion is write the story as if the reader already understands everything in those 50 pages. Once done, go back and weave pertinent information into the story, and don't necessarily expect to get it all in.

I tend to think a writer doesn't use his entire repertoire of world-building and backstory anymore than he uses all he knows about his characters. That "hidden cache" is often what makes the whole thing ring truer than if he had spilled his guts, so to speak, because he writes from a position of greater knowledge.

I half agreed with Kolona when she(he?) said

quote:

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My suggestion is write the story as if the reader already understands everything in those 50 pages. Once done, go back and weave pertinent information into the story, and don't necessarily expect to get it all in.

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I think you should weave the background in as you tell the story, not going back and putting it in later. The reason is this. Well done background is inserted with the flow of the story. Flow is something that is difficult to piece together on a second run through.

Here's what I do to add in background. Things are happening. Action action getting reader interested letting them get to know character...Trust the reader a little bit. We can stick with you through some stuff before we're told everything about a world.

Then, you've got the reader interested. They care. Now start to set things up. Don't stop the pace of the story too much, but drop in things. Make them flow. The background should only come into play when the point of view character would reasonably be pondering these things. Watch the information dumps, particularly in dialogue. You know what I mean, "As you know, John, we've been working together on this project for twenty years but I'm going to tell you all about it as if you don't know for the sake of our audience."

Yes, Christine, it's better to insert background into the story as you go, but as I understand Alias' problem, he's having a hard time figuring out how to do it. By just writing and assuming an informed readership, he'll at least get the story down, and might even fall into natural backstory insertion if he stops worrying about it.

Too -- and I'm sure I'm not alone -- I've gone back to add background, whole scenes, etc., particularly since I tend to write sparesly to begin with. Sure, you have to re-fine-tune the surrounding text to repair the flow, but that's part of the writing process. And in the initial writing and rewrites, the flow isn't usually that great anyway. In the later rewrites, just feather it in.