Hey writing gang! Looking for some tips here with a WIP I plan to return to after a VERY long time of not touching it. It's a scifi story with a pretty complex world. Here's the short and curlys: -Earth, hundreds of years after apocalypse. Ozone layer turned solid. - New, even bigger Earth is populated with fractured communities with widely different technologies and beliefs -Kingdoms across regional borders from massive high-tech cities and democratic republics with towns, small cities ect. The story features a protagonist who is essentially a hermit coming out of the woods for the first time in his life. Naturally, he has almost as much to learn about this crazy world as the readers. My fallback for giving exposition on the setting of a story is conversation. Either things the characters talk about themselves or overhear, organically, to avoid info dumps. What I'm wondering is if you guys have any other suggestions on how to fluidly put details of the world into the story. Eager to hear what you think! Happy writing everyone! Justin
Your technique is called incluing. The point is to deliver exposition without sounding like an encyclopedia. The world is explained in small doses. All of the following work: dialog inner dialog found sources in the story (radio, letters, etc) flashbacks carefully selected in-line details (e.g., Heinlein's famous "the door irised open") I might have missed some. If I remember right, Kipling was the first author to really nail this down. Not the inventor, of course, as if anyone can claim that, but he was the pro who refined it. Then later somebody coined the term "incluing," which is kind of funny . . . It means "including clues" for the reader regarding the story world. I guess we all have our own approach to this. I probably favor this order of importance: in-line details flashbacks inner dialog (seamless though. I don't like drawing attention with italics or unnecessary tags if I can help it) dialog found sources (this is rare for me.) Keeping in mind that a flashback can be very small and done in a few sentences. I really don't do scene-level flashbacks, but I love falling back out of the story, especially with introspective characters; and then it's right back in. I know I'm different than most with that. Most people would have dialog higher.
That story sounds interesting to me. If your POV character is a hermit, just emerging from the woods for the first time in his life, he probably isn't used to speaking, right? He may not even be familiar with language, unless he's had access to recordings (DVDs, or the equivalent.) So dialogue as exposition isn't really going to be very practical, is it? Instead, maybe get us into the story via his impressions (awe, fear, delight, puzzlement) of what he's experiencing as he emerges and moves on with his life. Do we readers really need to know stuff he doesn't know yet? My own inclination would be to let readers discover the backstory as he does. The only backstory that matters early on is his own. What does he remember about his childhood? What has his life been like up to this point? Then take him 'out there' and we start learning with him.
These were some great pointers to help the MC's journey flesh out the world more organically. Thank you!
Wow I never knew it had a name! Incluing. I feel like I've discovered something about myself. Anyway, thank you so much for all the helpful info!
