#but in addition that setting's worldbuilding is way more detailed and i'm way less familiar with it

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Hello! My novel is a sci-fi/mystery/adventure story, so I'm trying to pack detail into an action-oriented plot. I've rewritten my first chapter at least 5 times now, cause I feel like it's just an info dump to set the story up instead of a slow release of relevant info. But I don't really know how to do that "gracefully", per-se, in addition to the other plot stuff going on. Tips on how to do this? And is one of these pacing strategies better than the other (info dump vs. slower)? Thank you! :D

I think that [THIS POST] about introducing details via action is going to be a big help to you.

Now, I do want to take a moment to talk about why exposition dumps are generally discouraged, because I think that when you understand the reasoning behind a lot of generalised creative advice, you’ll be able to see how and why it might be useful to you and also when and where it might be good for you to disregard that advice if you want to or if you think it will have good effect.

Most of the time, we avoid exposition dumping because, while it might seem like it’s a good way to quickly get the setting and premise on the table and understood, it usually does the opposite. A lot of times exposition dumps (the Bog of Exposition, if you will), make the description and scene setting feel much slower to the reader, as there’s no action to propel them through it.

Rather than having a character experiencing the setting, and interacting with it, the reader is presented with a static scene, or a list of descriptive elements for something that they aren’t yet invested in caring about. Starting off with an exposition dump can mean that you’re not getting out of the gate with a lot of readers because it means that you’re requiring them to invest time to get through something that they’re not yet sure they even want.

By giving setting and descriptive information through action packed passages feels slower when you’re writing it because it takes longer. It’s more difficult to get the balance between description and action, to manage to hash out how the character observes the world and how it changes around them as they experience it, but for the reader it means that absorbing that worldbuilding and setting and description is much more natural and seamless, because it’s being delivered via an active agent that they can become invested in.

As well, when exposition is delivered via action, it is easier to remember. If something important happens and the reader learns a new fact about the world of the story through that event, it’s going to be a lot more memorable than if they read one fact among many in an exposition dump. When you pair action and exposition, you’re less likely to have readers having to flick back to the beginning fifteen chapters in when something you’ve established becomes relevant again.

Nathaniel Hawthorne said “Easy reading is damned hard writing” and to my experience this can be very true. 

It’s easier to write your exposition all in one big neat package, but especially at the beginning of the story, the reader often isn’t committed enough to work through it. I’m sure you’ve often read that the beginning of the story should ‘hook’ the reader, which is a difficult thing to manage as well, and which is rarely explained.

Essentially you want to make the beginning of the story do a few things: Introduce characters that the reader will be interested in seeing more about, set up a world that makes sense, and raise questions that the reader will want to find out the answer to.

Now, the opening action of the story doesn’t need to be on a level with the main action of the narrative. You can have an ‘entry’ conflict to introduce things, and to establish the world, etc. Let’s look at a couple of examples of an initial conflict that illustrates much about the world of the story, but which is connected tangentially to the main body of the narrative.

The opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone introduces the Dursleys, and uses them as a vehicle to emphasise the strangeness of the elements of the wizarding world that are then introduced. The story of how Harry gets to the Dursley’s house and the events of that night certainly are connected with the main plot of the series, but they also provide a very small-scale conflict that contains enough action and raises enough questions to lead the reader into the rest of it.

The opening of The Fellowship of the Ring begins with the preparations for Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday. Obviously the One Ring being part of his possessions and it being passed on as a part of the celebration is connected to the events of the rest of the series, but the birthday party preparations also give the reader the time and action to become familiar with the Shire as a setting, with the habits of hobbits, and with the idea of wizards, dwarfs, elves, and all the rest of it. 

So, generally, exposition dumps slow down the pace of the action, and can discourage readers who just want to move on to the juicy bits. By eliminating the Bog of Exposition, in favour of a action-with-exposition approach, we can break down worldbuilding and set-up into easily absorbed bites. It’s like grating vegetables into a spaghetti sauce so that fussy eaters won’t notice they’re there -- still get the vitamins, but don’t have to worry about the taste or texture of the big chunks!

I hope that helps!

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#writing #exposition dump #opening chapters #hook #Anonymous