World building is a major component of speculative fiction genres like fantasy and sci-fi and others, and it’s also a component in other stories within different genres. The idea of world building is important because it allows for creativity to thrive and creates an alternate reality where characters live and thrive in a place different to our own. However, there are many issues I’ve seen with world building in stories where writers may dump information in random spots throughout stories, leading to an unsatisfying feeling to world building. So, for today’s post, I’ll be talking about how to world build without info dumping on readers, and when there are exceptions to this.
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Weave the World Building
One of the best ways you can make sure your world building is shown to readers without outright telling them is to just weave the elements directly into the overall story. This could be integrated into the main plot and show the differences between our world and this world you have created.
You can show the world through your characters, such as what their daily life is like, what job they hold, what structures they work out of, how they pray, what religion they practice and the rituals associated with that religion, if there are deities that people venerate and build statues for, etc…
You basically just want to think about how you live your own life and then change elements to fit this new world that you are talking about. I think one story that I read recently that does this really well has to be The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie where the world is revealed through the way the characters act and work in their daily lives.
Dialogue as a Tool
Dialogue is another way when characters can reveal information about the world and thus convey that information to the readers. Characters can talk about past events, current affairs, the situation around them, war, etc… In normal life, we talk about politics, global events, the weather, the state of the economy and so on. It only makes sense in a fictional context that characters will do the same, but they’ll be obviously talking about their own world instead. You might fall into info dumping here, but let me explain this point a bit more.
Oftentimes, if a character is explaining something to another and the context of why this character is explaining something makes perfect sense and benefits the story overall, then it’s fine to have some info dumping here and there.
What you want to avoid is the idea of constantly info dumping. In light-moderate uses, it can help to enhance a story because we do often tell each other about history and we often explain to each other about the “lore” of the world, so-to-speak. So, don’t worry if this is something that has happened before in your story, it’s fine. Just don’t do it too much.
Show, Don’t Tell
I’m not always the biggest fan of show, don’t tell and I do think that overall, it’s not the best way to explain how to write a story. However, I can’t deny that it does have its benefits in helping writers get past the exposition style of explaining things happening in the story. Still, show don’t tell is a great way to actually get your world building across to readers.
You can show the world around the characters by creating visual scenes of how this world actually looks like, what sorts of smells and sounds there are in this are, and what sort of behaviors are performed by people in relation to this world.
For instance, in a place that is cold, you’d likely have people dressing in coats and warm clothes. Obviously, this is a place where you could go into show, don’t tell because instead of just telling me that it’s a cold place, you could talk about how the people are dressed and the idea of the place being cold.
Don’t Over-Describe Stuff
Oftentimes, writers make the mistake of over-describing things and explaining details that are not very necessary to talk about or are overbearing. Explaining too much about the visual can be boring to readers, and you might find that readers will skim over these details and not know about them anyways.
The inclusion of descriptions can be just for flowery purposes, but when it comes to world building, you want to include relevant details and make sure that descriptions are serving a purpose in the overall story. You can include descriptions to do things like set the tone of the world, show the culture, foreshadow a plot point, etc…
The Characters
The characters of your story can serve as a major delivery tool for the actual world building of your story. Each character you include in your story will have a different means of interacting with the world, such as different beliefs, different motivations, different jobs, different cultures, different classes, and so on and so forth.
For instance, if you have noble houses in your story, then one of the main characters might be a member of this house. In another context, you might have peasants who are planning on rebelling against these nobles. Thus, you are showing the division in society.
Conflict
Conflict is one of the best ways to showcase world building in a story and can be a much more natural way to actually include details about your world into the narrative of your story. There could be a cultural clash in a certain city, a war that is ongoing between two kingdoms, an internal conflict with a character as they grapple against two sides of their life, and other similar ideas.
Conflict basically helps to reveal different aspects of the world to the reader and can allow for things to feel natural. If we were to take the idea of Earth as an example of world building, the conflicts we see in the world around us all introduce to us the different countries, cultures, religions, ideologies and more on Earth, thus it’s natural to emulate this in the context of a story.
Symbolism
Symbols are an excellent way to showcase world building in a story because you can convey information without necessarily having to explain what everything means. Symbolic pieces in the world can represent things that exist such as cultural and religious values, the history of the world, the lore, and more.
A lot of times, you’ll see in some countries that there are architectural feats that are very representative of that particular country’s history and so that reveals more about that particular country. This same thing can be done within your own story, as you can include symbols and things of that nature to show to the reader what the world is like by providing more subtle and smaller details.
Don’t Explain Everything
I think sometimes, we as world builders get into the habit of wanting to talk about everything we’ve created for this world, but sometimes it’s OK to not include everything. Sometimes, too much is a thing with world building and you might overwhelm the reader by just forcing them to hear the information. You can give readers a chance to fill in the details and infer information about the world because it helps them see things on their own.
Dropping hints and giving readers time to actually figure out the world on their own is another great way to avoid info dumping the world building on your readers.
Don’t Give Too Much Early On
Instead of outright telling the reader so much information close to the start of a story, you should give few details about a singular area in the world and reveal the expanse of the world as you go on. This is especially important if you write something like epic fantasy or grimdark fantasy where having many countries, cultures, languages, religions, and more is very common. Giving too much is akin to basically just info dumping because your readers will feel overwhelmed and might not enjoy the world the way you wanted them to.
Flashbacks and Memories
One way that you can avoid info dumping but still showcase elements of your world is through things like flashbacks and memories that characters recall. Flashbacks let you show important details about the world and the backstory of the characters without interrupting the story and still revealing things in a story format.
I personally use flashbacks quite a lot in The Fallen Age Saga because the “real” story didn’t truly begin at the start of Book 1 and the lore of the story goes back to almost the creation of the universe. The idea is that the conflict is very expansive and not just limited to this time on Earth. This helps me reveal more about the world and what’s happening but over the course of several books.
Epigraphs
An epigraph is basically something like a quote or some sort of in-world text excerpt that you can put at the beginning of the chapter to reveal information in a subtle way about your world. A lot of fantasy books do this because it’s really helpful in showing readers information tidbits while still feeling like it’s part of the story.
These epigraphs can help provide context for the way things are, foreshadow events, reveal cultural details, and more. In the updated version of my book, Malware, there are epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter in order to reveal more about the world of The Fallen Age Saga.
You can also use things like in-world artifacts such as letters, news reports, diary entries, and more to reveal things about the world as well. I also employ this in Malware and the rest of The Fallen Age Saga.
Use the Prologue
The prologue is something that some stories include and others don’t, but I feel like a prologue is one of the best ways to quite literally tell readers about information that happened preceding the beginning of the story while still adding onto the world building.
A prologue is something that I think is really great to include, especially in fantasy stories where having a prologue can really enhance the way the world feels and the way the world is introduced. If you want to learn more about how to write a prologue, then check out this post!
Conclusion
World building is something that I think is a lot of fun, but sometimes, info dumping or not incorporating the world building in a natural way can really hinder the way world building feels in an overall sense in the story.
So, the best thing to do is to avoid info dumping your world building and to try your best to actually incorporate it throughout the entire story. Info dumping may serve a purpose in some cases, which makes sense, but in cases where it feels unnatural or if it’s constant in the story, then info dumping doesn’t make too much sense.
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