Avoiding Painful Exposition

Hello all, today I thought I'd provide some personal insight about an issue that will more often affect fantasy, sci-fi, and steampunk writers, or any one writing outside of the real world. That is the issue of exposition.

Now, exposition is a problem all writers face; how to get your audience quickly acquainted with the characters and world without overloading them with a ton of details that are awkward and cumbersome. This can be especially challenging when you are world-building and you must familiarize your reader with the rules of the world before they can understand the stakes of the plot. Obviously, you could have opening pages where your main character muses on their life and the circumstances, but this is a tricky line to walk. First of all, introducing too many new concepts at once can turn off the casual reader, and it can just be dull as you wait for the story to start.

So, here are some suggestions for ways to seamlessly integrate rules of the world into your work.

1. Have a short opening document or statement from your world (usually issued by the leaders) that gives some important information on how things are done in your universe. An intense example of this would be of course, The Fellowship of the Ring, which Tolkien kicks off with his famous passages including "concerning hobbits." But if you're worried your indie author publication might not have the same pull, I also used this tactic in my first book, Of Slaves and Exiles, giving a brief paragraph from a government document detailing the official passage of power to the human races. Also, I know I spoke of Entwined in my last post (sorry not sorry, I love that book so much!), but in that Heather Dixon includes a passage from the lady's dancing handbook, explaining the dance known as the "Entwine", and how it derived from the High King's practice of capturing souls. Spoooky...but effective!

It might be a bit much to explain everything about the specific rules of your world in an opening passage, but there are ways to integrate rules so your can stealthily catch up your readers before the plot thickens!

2. In that vein, a useful practice in stories can be to have an outsider of some sort, perhaps someone who literally doesn't live in the society, or for some other reason is an outsider. Now, this device is a fickle creature -- don't over do it by dumping the readers with a ton of information in one chapter. Dare I say, that almost feels cringey. But you can integrate the information in gradually. Perhaps the outsider character learns things while exploring on their own, or meets different people who provide information. An example of this is most obviously Harry Potter, who is taught things about the wizarding world by Hagrid, and then subsequently filled in by his friends, honestly through all the books. That way, the readers can feel like Harry, getting acquainted with the rules and taboos of magic.

However, your story might not call for an outsider character ... and I do not recommend putting one in simply for that reason! That is one of the main ways exposition can come across as painful or forced.

3. A final suggestion (for today) on how to explain your world is to have an immediate breaking of the rules! You heard me, write a character doing something that is a clear violation, and then have the other characters react to it. This can be good fun, because you might get to have some angry scenes, or comic scenes, and overall you make the reader care very quickly.

There are obviously lots of other ways to tactfully explain your unique world, so if you have other ideas, please comment below!