At the beginning of my story, the first chapter has the main character teaching a bunch of children about labels. I go more in depth with those labels in a specific post in the setting development forum, so take a look at that if you want a more detailed description, but I'll just give you the general gist. Orphans are essentially turned into slaves, but it's slaves under a different name to make it "okay", and there are different categories to separate them depending on what they do. Anyway, in this lesson teaching the children, it goes over the roles of the different labels or sects, goes over what they are, the general story of how they were made, but it doesn't go on too long. This goes on for about four pages. It doesn't jump right into the lesson, it start with a bit of a monologue about poetry (the MC loves poetry) and then transitions into the MC going to the lesson. Is this opening thing okay? I originally was on the extreme other side of the spectrum, showing everything and not telling anything, but I wasn't sure if that was too confusing or not. Basically, should I go with the extreme show-don't-tell (what I typically go for) and risk confusion, or go this way?
Well, if you can sprinkle the necessary info throughout the first few chapters, then that's what I would do.
If an author is too coy about what's going on at the beginning of the story--extreme show-don't-tell, as you say--it turns me off. I don't like being asked to put a jigsaw puzzle together by paying attention to all sorts of minute details before I've even decided if the story is worth my time. That said, not disguising an info dump is off-putting too. Maybe write it as more of a Q&A between teacher and students rather than a four page lecture.
I think four pages of this kind of info-dump is way too much. Why does the reader need to know all of this in the form of a dump right at the outset, instead of learning it as the story goes forward?
Look, eventually you're going to have to use exposition. And exposition in itself isn't necessarily bad, it's just that inexperienced writers end up using it in clumsy, intrusive ways and are subsequently told to stop doing it. Having a character relate the exposition by informing or teaching another character is one of the most legitimate approaches, because that actually makes sense: You have a justification for that information being a feature in the story. That's why I have strong preference for using fish-out-of water type protagonists who don't really know what's going on in general and has to be told stuff. That means the readers learn everything they need to know along with the protagonist, which helps them relate. As for Showing vs Telling, that's sort of a different thing - "telling" isn't quite the same as exposition, it has more to do with how the story is told in general. That said, it does work by similar principles. Pretty much every beginner use far too much telling language, so they get taught to never tell and always show in order for them to curb that habit as early as possible. It's just that sometimes you do want to tell, because not everything is actually important enough to show. There will be stuff you want to get out of the way quickly without lingering on it, so that you can move on to important stuff that actually matters. It's a judgement call. "Show, don't Tell" actually makes a lot more sense in visual storytelling, like film. You know, the types of stories that don't need to rely exclusively on using words. In fact, I sorta suspect the advice was originally intended for screenwriters.
Four pages sounds excessive. In my editing for a friend, she used to do an entire page info dump at a time, and I told her to basically write the ENTIRE info dump down as a bullet point list and put it to one side. I told her which points were -relevant- to the scene at hand and to get the basic jist, like Friedrich mentioned(most important), and keep the others for later. I then told her to take the bullet points that remained and split them apart so they aren't in one big info dump. Sprinkles! One sentence here, the other over there. BUT..... There is an art to sprinkling and disguising an info dump. Read the scene through without the info dump, look at the action, the dialogue , and location, then look to the bullet point list and see if there is action, dialogue, or scenery that naturally lends itself to one of the bullet points. For instance, if your character is a detective and he's looking around a messed up crime scene, but you want to get along the info that he's in Los Angeles, make a discarded newspaper on the floor be the LA times, for example, and mention it briefly as part of your description of the scene. Some info dumps are necessary when the scene naturally calls for it, but 4 pages is perhaps overkill, and you could do with breaking it up.
Yeah, that seems to be the gist of everyone's comments. I'm not necessarily new to writing, but I'm new (sort of, it's a weird story) to writing things and actually showing it to people, so I figured four pages was overkill, but I didn't want to turn off readers with this confusing plot dynamic that was never explained, because I know I've been really annoyed by that and put off a book by too much showing.
Basically you want to keep it natural. When you get to an artificial level of explanation and it's almost as if you're compensating for a narrative defect that somehow keeps you from working the exposition naturally into the story, then maybe time to rethink it.
Yeah. Since, I've started rewriting it, and I think this one does it a lot better. I've rewritten this first chapter so many times, but this might actually be my favourite rendition. It doesn't feel artificial, thankfully, and it displays the main character's personality better. I think the teacher scenario, because the MC deep down actually hates teaching, might not have been the best idea for showing her character anyway.
I find sometimes that the best way to show a new world is have someone doing something wrong - because that's going to show the reader how different things are. Like Dorothy first thing she does is land on the witch - she certainly learns that wasn't the best thing to do in a land of witches. She also makes friends with Glinda and gets the ruby slippers also not the best idea as this sets the Wicked Witch against her. Alice does the exact opposite. Every normal thing she does activates Wonderland -- if she cries she creates a pool, if she eats she could literally shrink. So I would suggest - what is the worst thing your mc could do in your world and consider having him or someone else do it. Or what normal thing could he do that would not be considered normal in your world.
This isn't a fantasy world, so unfortunately, I don't have the freedom to do that sort of thing. Good advice, though.
Who is your POV character? Use that POV character to convey the information. For example, if your POV character is a slave at some level, then what does the character think/feel about being at that level? What's the character's hope/goal? To get to the next level? Why? What (specifically) might help her get to that level? What does she need to do, or avoid doing, to get where she wants to be? If she knows she can't get to another level—because of something she can't change about herself—how does that make her feel? Despairing? Jealous? Resigned? Or maybe she wants to escape slavery altogether ...because none of the levels are acceptable? Why? What do non-slaves have that she wants? What would the dangers of escaping be? What has happened to people who previously tried to escape? And what kind of opportunity would she need, for escape to happen? Is she planning for this, or just wishing for it? You can get a LOT of backstory information into your story—quite painlessly—by putting it into your POV character's perspective. Readers who aren't interested in plodding through a dry, 4-page history lesson about something that doesn't actually exist, WILL identify with the POV character's wants and needs and personal observations. If your POV character is the teacher and not a slave, she still must have some opinions of the system. Does she believe in this system, or is she secretly opposed to it? How does she feel when teaching the children this stuff? And what about the children? How are they reacting? Are they all passively taking it in? Do some of the children seem resentful? Etc. Get the emotional angle into your story ASAP. And use your POV character to do it. That's what will bring this story to life.
I've already done most of this. The first rewrite of the first chapter (before the time I just blatantly exposited) I had all of this in here. I'm pretty good at writing little bits of exposition into the story without being too blatant, because I just ask myself "Does it make sense that the character would think this explanation, or would she just think the name of the thing?" If it would make sense, then I leave it in, but if it doesn't, I'll edit it to leave in just the name and let the reader infer what it is. As for the emotional angle, that's definitely there already. In the first chapter, my MC tries to take a book from her Home's (Homes are where they're "trained") library, which used to belong to her but was confiscated; she's trying tot ake it because it was a birthday gift from her mother and there's a handwritten letter at the back from her mother; she wants to tear it out and keep it for herself. She gets caught in the act, and because "sentimentality" is highly frowned upon from people like her, they aren't supposed to have any personal belongings, and they're not supposed to take anything from their past lives into their lives now, well...I have to explain something first. Essentially, these slaves aren't actually sold until they turn eighteen, at which point they "go on the market" and families can take an interest in them to "take them in". However, after it's learned that the MC is sentimental, all the families lose an interest in her, and if she's not taken in by the time she turns eighteen and a half, she's just turned out on the streets for being useless and unmarketable. So, she shows the mechanics of the system because of how scared she is of going out on the streets, and she thinks of how it might affect her little brother, bringing him into the story. This makes her feel despairing. Also, there are no "levels" in the slavery system. There are different sects, but they're all officially on the same level, even if some have it better than others. Once you're in one sect, you can't change which one you're in. This "emotional angle" to get in exposition is something that's been coming naturally to me for a while now. I put it down to increasing skill as I'm getting better at writing, at what's good practice and what's not, etc. One of my favourite things to do is to put the small little changes in wording to try and show my character's priorities, her personality, her views on the world, that most readers might not pick up on. For example, after my MC is caught, her first thought is "What will happen to me?" but her next thought, and the rest, are all about how this might affect her brother. I love doing the little character building moments like that. Sorry if I went a little off the rails by the end, but I'm really passionate about writing this book; I love sharing things about it with others, even if I do try and keep it vague.
