Welcoming a Reader to the Party

I'd been asked to do some editing, and so I was speaking to a writer yesterday, trying to explain to him why he needed to restructure his book because the characters (and info about them)were coming at the reader at too frantic a pace. 'But it's all clear to me,' he said. 'Why isn't it clear to you?'(or something along those lines). 'You're too close to it,' I began. Then I had my moment of epiphany and explained that when an author writes a novel, it's as if he is at a party with about thirty or so friends, whom he already knows intimately. A stranger (a reader) walks into the room and if the author throws too many names and too much info at the reader, he's bamboozled and forgets who everyone is. So the writer has to introduce the reader to people at the party (the characters) at a measured pace so that it sinks in. He seemed to get the message. I'll probably use that analogy again, at some point.