I'm currently writing out a historical event for one of my fantasy worlds where I'm telling everything, and showing nothing. My original intention was for this to merely be a reference piece for myself - something to turn back to for worldbuilding purposes. But as I got into it, I decided to write it at a level that others might enjoy. To create something that reads like the lore/history of roleplay settings and the like. As of right now I'm aiming for around 3k words. My questions for the forum are: have you ever wrote anything like that? If you have, was it a good learning experience? And finally, do you have any tips for undertaking such a project?
I'd keep it to a minimum. That being said, go ahead and write as much as you want for the First Draft with the intent of eventually cutting it down a bit. You don't have to get rid of the history lesson 100%, just thin it out is what I'm saying--when you reach the 2nd Draft anyway.
I've done it countless times for my research, but I've never set a word count. Depending on topic, I can't even put up an average. Between two paragraphs for a very specific topic and ... uhm ... a 350k size simple text document. That's the current size of my timeline 'master' document, getting enlarged every other day. I am not sure if other people would enjoy reading it, but as reference-writing the process has been priceless. Putting events and the timeline in concise words lets me identify logical errors or blind spots. It also shows me where I need to research more—when I write a sentence and my backbrain says I need to read more. First off you need to identify which focus to give your master. Are you defining a world, a part of society, a religion, history? Or all together? I started with folders full of text documents of small-scale specific topics, that I had named according to a strict convention (e.g. 1_ for geography, 2_ for politics, 3_ for resources, and so on). It helps if you do this from day zero when you start with research, because otherwise there comes a day when you have to open each single document to find out what's inside. Trust me, you don't want that to happen. Once I forgot which topics I had already researched (and renamed the documents), I put together the 'master' document where I started with t=0, writing new or copying-pasting from the pile of individual documents according to need. When I opened a new small-scale document, I looked for the place in the master it fit to copy-paste and fudge it in. Once done, I went to the next small-scale document. Rinse and repeat. Have fun
Making it an enjoyable read is the real challenge in my opinion. It's one thing to create information/exposition dense notes for yourself, but it's another thing entirely to write them with an audience in mind. When you do the latter you have to consider pacing, prose, and voice just like you would in an actual story. Because it is a story of sorts - a story where you tell everything and show nothing. As I've already mentioned, this is commonly done for roleplay settings. It's likely been done in few (or maybe a few too many) fantasy prologues as well.
If you're shifting your focus with this and was to make it enjoyable for readers, maybe it's time to shift your approach as well. I see no point I sticking with a tell-only method if it's more than some sort of draft or notes. If you want it to be enjoyable for readers, there's no reason to restrict yourself to something most readers probably won't enjoy.
A lot of Hitchhiker’s Guide is tell-only. Much nonfiction is tell-only. I mean get suggest looking to particularly engaging nonfiction. Edited to add: That was weird. “I might suggest...” is what I meant.
If we're going to categorize nonfiction to include manuals and the like, then yeah we're talking tell for the most part. But magazine stories and creative nonfiction are far from tell-only, in my opinion and based on what I read and write. I just don't really see the point in limiting yourself to a dry and non-engaging method of writing. I mean give it some flavor. Look at the nonfiction in places like The Sun magazine. That's a really good example of nonfiction done right.
It's fun. Not anything I'd show anyone, but I have a lot of things I'd never show anyone. People are under the impression that "show don't tell," means that telling is bed, it's not. It just has it's own place and function. Once you know what that is, telling can be a great writing tool, and one of the best ways to figure that out is by playing with it. So, good job.
Fire & Blood by George R R Martin is a good example of this. As a lover of history, the most interesting part of this kind of fiction is in the uncertainties. Think about the sources that are telling the fictional historians about these events. What we're their biases and motives? What secrets have been lost to history? How were things influenced by the winner or the cultural carrots and sticks of the time? And what does the contemporary writing the history think about that? What are his or her biases?
After finishing the prelude (the first of story's three parts) I have to admit, it did end up a bit a dry. I'll take the blame for that. But despite that, I'm actually happy with it. And just as importantly, I enjoyed writing. It's in the workshop for anyone who might be interested: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/the-glacian-war-prelude-670.162767/
I've read some books where there's a paragraph of exposition / world info placed as chapter headers, both to get exposition out the way and to highlight an aspect of the world that's about to become important. The Otherland series by Tad Williams presented them as news snippets, while the Thursday Next series presented them as in-universe documents, such as a biography of the protagonist or a police profile of a villain.
