posted
It's been talked to death, but let's talk about it again.
Yes, we all do a great deal of world building in spec fic. Yes, beginner writers feel the need to give as much information as they can about their wonderful weird new world. Yes, eventually you learn not to do that because it's amateurish, and nobody cares nearly as much about your world as you do. Yes, you learn that describing how that world affects the characters is enough to establish it.
That's where I am.
BUT, after you've boiled away anything that really doesn't need to be there, what on earth do you do with those few details of your world that the reader MUST have early on in order to follow the story?
In my case, the details I'm thinking of can't go in that free first paragraph, because they aren't appropriate to bring up until chapter 2. They take more than one sentence to explain, so I can't just work them into the characters' action smoothly. I can't have an "as you know Bob". Having a plain old narrated paragraph with the info seems like a break from the story. So I'm at a loss.
posted
Why can't you just work it into the first two pages of text via what the characters see as they move through the world? Or perhaps they could comment on some aspect, showing that they're in an alien world (or is it a "normal" world to them?) Perhaps you could add "the red glow of the dying star" (if their sun is red instead of yellow) or "the luridly orange branches of the bon-bon tree" or something like that just in passing. Give the reader the information in bits and pieces as the information would fall naturally into your characters conversation or travels through the world and it will feel natural. Just an idea.
posted
Are these important facts related more to the setting? Or to the politics? Or to the economics? Or to life itself? The answer makes a little bit of difference to how you can drop it in.
The best way I can recommend though (take my advice with a grain of salt; my novel isn't ready yet to even shop around, much less publish) is to put in little drips and drabs and spread them out as much as possible. I'm 25k into my novel at the moment and still haven't spent much more than a few lines introducing a major species that will impact the second half of the plot. Why not? Because I've been introducing other more important things to the first half. When the time comes I'll describe this species in the right context. Those few sentences in Chapters 4 and 8 will be enough for the reader to remember that oh yeah, they've heard of these guys before.
You say that they'll take more than one sentence to explain. How about a paragraph? That doesn't interrupt narrative flow too much, particularly if it is a logical extension of the events that are happening at the moment. The only way to find out if it is too much is to get someone else to read it and tell you (I wouldn't during your first draft. Worry about getting it on the page, not making it perfect just yet). And how much do they really need to know at that exact moment? If you can honestly say a paragraph, then write a paragraph. I've written more than that in places where it fit in naturally. I wouldn't stop a swordfight to describe the history of the sword that the bad guy is currently using to bash in the brains of the good guy, but maybe, before the fight, I'd have the sidekick whisper in scared awe to the good guy about the legends surrounding this sword, and that he has to disarm the bad guy at all costs. Or what have you.
Read other books in your genre and see what they do. How do they make it seamless and unnoticeable?
Another technique is to not really explain much, but have your characters refer to events in a matter-of-fact way. That's why it kind of matters what type of information you mean. The reader will be momentarily confused but pick up a lot in context. An example I'm thinking of for this is Neil Stephenson's "A Diamond Age; Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer." He just drops all the nanotech and neovictorian stuff right in the reader's laps, not really explaining any of it; uses tons of vocabulary words that he invented solely for the story, without defining a one. It takes about 30 pages to figure out the swing of things, but by then you are so immersed in the world you can't imagine it any other way.
posted
Thanks for those responses. All good advice.
As far as the type of information, it is cultural/political/economic. More difficult to work in than plain old setting. And the hardest part is that the characters already know it. This isn't their society - they are visiting elsewhere, but they are familiar with the culture they are visiting.
The biggest problem is it is central to their actions. They can't do this or that because of X, Y, Z in this culture. Later on, this plot event is possible because of X, Y, Z in this culture. You get the idea.
Maybe I've just been staring at it for too long.
[This message has been edited by sojoyful (edited October 03, 2006).]
posted
Are these details that can be alluded to through something else?
I'm thinking of how one might establish the existence of magic through an otherwise irrelevant action, and then later flesh out the particular form that magic that's needed for your plot. And... well, there are lots of possibilities, but I don't know what your particular problem is.
There's that old line that I should be able to quote about a gun on a wall in the first act being used in the third. Your question, essentially, is: how do I show the gun?
Can you make the character have a problem related to the world's characteristic? One that's not major, maybe one that's part of everyday experience, but that's noticeable (making dinner, the boiling point's extremely low because the atmospheric pressure is so low; going to work, they have to ride in a special transport to repel the evil robot monkeys; the radio at the bar announces that the Consulate for Special Activities has instituted martial law on the planet Margaritaville, where the Fishheads that still worship the old god Crysanthemum).
Maybe. I can't know without knowing more about what you're talking about.
posted
I figure serendipity. You never know what you'll run across or put to use. Or what might strike a reader's fancy.
I once read how Heinlein (and his wife) worked out some orbital mechanics for a space station in Space Cadet. Said calculations took two days to work through (in pre-computer days), and vanished into one line of the novel.
Work well spent, I thought, because I remembered that line and that particular orbit vividly...it struck my fancy on my first reading and stayed with me.
I may not be as detailed in world building as that (my math isn't really up to it these days), but I'd like to get details mostly correct even if they don't play into the story.
(autumnmuse: Thanks for mentioning Stephenson's work. You might remember the thread where I was trying to figure out how to explain nanotechnology back in the past: I really should seek out more examples like that and see how others have done it.)
I say this only because I read the classic I Am Legend by Richard Matheson the other day and it opened like this:
On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back. If he had been more analytical, he might have calculated the approximate time of their arrival; he still used the lifetime habit of judging nightfall by the sky, and on cloudy days that method didn’t work. That was why he chose to stay near the house on those days..etc etc
It got me thinking that if I had seen that in F&F I would have asked straight away, who are in the streets? why does he stay near the house on cloudy days?
Of course having seen the cover of the book and read the blurb I knew that these unsaid people/things were vampires.
Maybe this is not applicable to you situation, of course. Probably obvious but just thought I'd mention it as something to bear in mind when trying to squeeze all that information into the beginning of your novel.
quote: As far as the type of information, it is cultural/political/economic. More difficult to work in than plain old setting. And the hardest part is that the characters already know it. This isn't their society - they are visiting elsewhere, but they are familiar with the culture they are visiting.
The biggest problem is it is central to their actions. They can't do this or that because of X, Y, Z in this culture. Later on, this plot event is possible because of X, Y, Z in this culture. You get the idea.
Boy do I. In my novel, completed and being shopped around, I have three very different cultures and they why of how many of the central actions occur because of the conflict between the three. Part of what I did was work in the details bit by bit. For example, if MC1 is doing something that she wouldn't be allowed to do under Antagonist #2's cultural norms, A#2 or MC1 comment on/reach to it as part of what is happening. Specifically, I have one scene where Falcon (MC1) is drilling with a sword to burn off some excess frustration. Herree (A#2) watches and accepts her challenge. They spar. When he propositions her, she comments that she probably would not be considered a good mistress in his country because she'd be put to death for sparing with him. Now I've worked the information into the scene without falling into an info dump. At least I hope so.
They can also get into difficult situations because of the cultural norm differences. In another WIP, the MC has been "gated" to another world. Unknown to her, this culture has very different views on chastity than her former world where she was a courtesan of much renown. Needless to say as she discovers the cultural differences the reader knows about them. You might want to reconsider how much of the other culture's norms your characters know. Even if they have studied the culture, innocent mistakes still happen.
posted
If the details are really needed to understand the events of Chapter 1, then, well, they'll be needed in Chapter 1. Of course.
Maybe some can be left to Chapter 2.
I'd say put the necessary ones -- but only the necessary ones -- no later than they're needed to understand the action. I'm not saying that's an easy decision (exactly what's needed).
I would drop the struggle to ease it into the story somehow. If it's what we need to know, we'll *want* to know it.
A good example of this balance is in OSC's book On Writing SF, when he looks over the intro to Wild Seed. We know exactly what we need to to understand Doro's trek, but we don't know where he's from and who "the woman" is yet.
posted
Really, don't stress too hard over this, especially in a novel. There's a lot of wiggle room in a novel to give details, especially if you know how to write them interestingly--which usually means, simply enough, staying in POV. Things miraculously become a lot more interesting when they're the MC's perceptions rather than just cold description.
The only time to be careful is right in the beginning of the story, obviously. At that point, pare it down to what is crucial to understand what's going on, and then start working the rest in incidentally as it becomes necessary.
quote:If the details are really needed to understand the events of Chapter 1, then, well, they'll be needed in Chapter 1. Of course.
As usual, I didn't express myself clearly. This information is not necessary in Chapter 1, but it will become important after Chapter 2.
However, in the course of this discussion you have all helped me realize that some of this information doesn't need to be inserted yet. I had gotten it into my head that this set of details had to be downloaded to the reader ahead of the scenes where it would matter, when you all have reminded me that it can just be drizzled over the scene at the moment it's needed. I still don't know how the heck to include it, but at least this does put it off.
I was suffering from writer's panic*. This is a condition where the writer fears that if they don't make things blatantly obvious way early, the reader won't get it. Otherwise known as "the readers must be stupid"-itis. I have taken my meds, and am now redeveloping a purposeful respect for my reader.
Thanks everybody!
*Actually, writer's panic has many definitions, in many situations.
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