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Tangentially related to our earlier discussion on Worldbuilding


A couple of books I've read recently got me thinking about wildly different styles authors use for explaining the world we're building.

Sunny Side Up A few authors just like to lay everything out right at the beginning. E.g., at the very start of Parasite the author includes excerpts from fictional books and magazine articles detailing the nature of her world's fictional bio-science.


Over Easy Most authors seem to insert information as they go along in the early pages. Sometimes this is in-character dialogue, sometimes in a student/teacher relationship (Gandalf lectures hobbits, Kelsier explains allomancy to Vin & Susan Calvin explains the three laws to everyone she meets :) The old 50's cliché was the pipe-smoking scientist explaining things to the reporter.

Hopefully nobody resorts to the "As you know..." exposition in which characters explain things they should already know to each other. "Did you see last night's 'Game of Thrones' on TV? As you know, TV is short for television, which is a means of transmitting moving pictures and sound for display on two-dimensional screens for entertainment or informational purposes."

Some authors prefer to insert their exposition in the narrator's voice, limiting the need to have characters explain what should be obvious to them (for example, David Weber will insert digressions on how space travel works into his Honor Harrington novels � often at great length. :)


Scrambled Some authors take delight in confusing us, simply dropping the reader into a new world and having characters simply acting as it's all normal (which of course it is for them.) A whole collection of new and generally unexplained terminology washes over the reader as they grasp uselessly for some meaning. Vernor Viinge's "Zones of Thought" concept just sort of floats around out there as if he's indifferent to whether you actually grok it. I never did figure out what the heck was going on with the Quantum Thief.

This is the "no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself," theory of exposition.



Do you as a reader have a preference for how things get explained? Do you like comfortable, upfront explanations, or do you delight in simply being immersed in a sea of uncertainty? Do you have a limit to how long you'll tolerate a lack of comprehension?

(Authors, do you make a conscious decision on how to lay things out?)

Which authors do you feel explain their Worlds with the most effect?

I actually like the Scrambled style. At least from a sci-fi setting. Makes the world more real, and the reading more challenging; having to figure out the invented slang and jargon, trying to understand future concepts from only a named device.

There's also the sort of archelogical style where all the information about the world is presented to you via "found" excerpts from enyclopedias or magazine articles at the start of each chapter.
I like that style as well, because again it makes you work a little for it.

I generally detest the "over easy" style. And will often skip past large paragraphs of a book that read like nothing more than physics lectures.

(Thanks for giving me this food for thought)

My analogy is chocolate chip ice cream. If you opened a carton of chocolate chip ice cream and found it was full of vanilla ice cream with a chocolate bar lying on top, that would be a problem. You want the bits chopped up fine and mixed in.

I generally prefer exposition to be mixed in well too. I don't mind front end exposition, so long as it isn't too long & involved, but I think it's the easiest & most likely to be poorly done. Without a hook to hang some of the info on, it just bores me & I won't remember it, especially if it contains a lot of weird, unpronounceable, similar names. I need a reason to care about it which generally means characters & a story to make it worthwhile.

Sometimes exposition is mixed in, but in large chunks. The data dumps in David Weber's Honor Harrington series are the weakest part of his writing. That the same data dumps come up in every book of the series makes them even worse. Thankfully, there's a really good story & characters to shore it up.

Scramble exposition generally means the author has worked very hard at it. They've had to go over the story numerous times to give the reader just the right amount of info at the right time & that often makes for a strong, well written story. Their world might be a bit limited in its distance from ours, though. It's tough to stray too far without explanation.

Roger Zelazny, without a doubt my favorite author, is a master of scrambling & dribbling out information. He cloaks quite a bit in subtext, allegory, & metaphors. Rereads are excellent, but often needed. The first time I read Roadmarks, I barely figured out what was going on. The second read was far better. Some of his stories & poetry just suck, likely because I just don't get them.

It's a fine line between being mysterious & incomprehensible, though. Most of Zelazny's books are short, which helps a lot. I get it before I get frustrated. I wouldn't be interested in unraveling the mystery in 750 page book, but am in one 1/3 that size.

As much as possible I would prefer the information to appear organically, as a "natural" consequence of the story, with short date dumps where necessary for comprehension.

I will not tolerate the "scrambled" method. If the author cannot be bothered to find a way to explain, then I cannot be bothered to read. Forcing the reader to extrapolate from skimpy clues is not clever, just lazy. That is not to say that certain non-critical technologies cannot just be there in the background, so long as the reader is not forced to make assumptions about it in order to understand the plot.

I like the over easy, but with a bit of scramble on the side. Learning through the characters journey on a need to know basis. Terry Goodkind and Brandon Sanderson do this well, for my taste. Can't stand the sunny side up method.

Brenda wrote: "My analogy is chocolate chip ice cream. If you opened a carton of chocolate chip ice cream and found it was full of vanilla ice cream with a chocolate bar lying on top, that would be a problem..."

So that's a "no" to Fruit on the Bottom yogurt? :)



Don't a lot of sword and sorcery novels start off with the candy bar, in the form of a map on the front pages? It's almost de rigueur in that subgenre that before you even read the first paragraph you're given coastlines and mountain ranges, forests and wastelands, nations and cities.

Matthew wrote: "I generally detest the "over easy" style. And will often skip past large paragraphs of a book that read like nothing more than physics lectures...."

I'm thinking you won't care much for David Weber's novels.

Mika wrote: "Jim wrote: "Roger Zelazny, without a doubt my favorite author, is a master of scrambling & dribbling out information."

The first Zelazny I ever read was Nine Princes in Amber and I thought his method was genius!..."

Zelazny used the "main character doesn't remember" technique in a couple of his novels, of which Amber is the best-known.

Having the main character be totally unaware of some hidden world and needing to have things explained to him/her (and the reader) has become a common trope. And not coincidentally a easy mechanism for introducing in-story exposition as the character and reader find out all about the unknown together.

Your father was a Jedi Knight, Luke; let me tell you about the Force. Your parents were great wizards, Harry, let me tell you about Hogwarts. I'm looking for the Dragon Reborn, Rand; let me tell you about Aes Sedai. Your dad was a God, Percy; let me tell you all about Olympians. Your mom was a ShadowHunter, Clary; let me tell you about demons. Door has brought you into London Below, Richard. You're a Mistborn, Vin; let me tell you how allomancy works.

Exposition is a lot harder when the main character is already living in the alternate reality of the novel and doesn't need things explained to him/her.

Oh sure, you can have a map in the front. Also a character list, like in Victorian novels. But will your reader read these things? These days it is a question, how much front material to pile into a book. Consider when you go to Amazon to buy a book. The Look Inside feature lets you look at the first page or two. Do you want this first glimpse to be a family tree?

If you need to exposit to somebody, get your hero a sidekick. Batman can explain his brilliance to Robin. Watson can spend a lot of time saying "This is amazing, Holmes!"

Artfully done!

You can open with info-dump: The Phantom Tollbooth, Persuasion, and Beauty all do it. Of course, it really helps to have an artful and engaging voice to pull people in.

G33z3r wrote: "Brenda wrote: "My analogy is chocolate chip ice cream. If you opened a carton of chocolate chip ice cream and found it was full of vanilla ice cream with a chocolate bar lying on top, that would be..."

Normally I glance at the map at the start of reading and then come back to it when I need to visualise where things or people are in relation to each other.

Maps in Military SF and Alternate History novels are useful, usually for the battle scenes when you have many groups of people moving about in a single area and positioning is important to understand what's going on.

Brenda wrote: "Oh sure, you can have a map in the front. Also a character list, like in Victorian novels. But will your reader read these things? These days it is a question, how much front material to pile into a book. Consider when you go to Amazon to buy a book. The Look Inside feature lets you look at the first page or two. Do you want this first glimpse to be a family tree? ..."

Oh, I can't remember the last SF/F novel I read with a family tree up front, but I certainly remember encountering a few over the years. And yeah, they're pretty meaningless. They're more reference material, the problem being if you put them in the back, most readers don't find out they're there until they've finished the book! (I know most of the Wheel of Time books have a glossary in the back.)

Good point on the Amazon "Look Inside" feature. For e-books, Amazon also has a "Read Sample" (which sends something like 3-5% of the book to your Kindle, with a convenient "Buy this Book" button at the end. I've been using that quite a bit lately, using Samples almost like a to-read shelf, with the ultimate decision to purchase based on my opening impressions. So, yeah, it would be a bad strategy for an author to spend that real estate on a lot of family trees and such.


Brenda wrote: "If you need to exposit to somebody, get your hero a sidekick. Batman can explain his brilliance to Robin. Watson can spend a lot of time saying "This is amazing, Holmes!" ..."

I think Sidekicks work when the world is familiar to the reader. The reader knows what a gun is, what radio is and what police are, so there's no need for Batman to tell Watson.

But when the story takes place in some strange alternate world of mysterious magic or advanced technologies, both hero and sidekick should be familiar with their world. It's just the reader who has no idea what a Focus Matrix is, what a Neural Implant can do or what Guardians are until the author finds some way to explain it. Presumably the sidekick already knows and the hero would sound silly explaining it (the "As you know..." school of awkward exposition,)

This might offend some people, but I like the over-easy style. I think it's because I like to take breaks from the characters and immerse myself in the setting.

As I read more, I think I appreciate a well done info-dump. It has to be in the right place in the narrative and written in an interesting way and not too long. A lot of info dumps don't try to be interesting, it's just the author grinding through the exposition to get to the interesting stuff.

Brenda wrote: "If you need to exposit to somebody, get your hero a sidekick. Batman can explain his brilliance to Robin. Watson can spend a lot of time saying "This is amazing, Holmes!" "

Those can be tricky for the lack of motivation. (Not because the other person already knows what is being exposited. Lots of people tell things they already known, and no one tells anyone anything merely because they don't know.)

Yes, Holmes can tell Watson he knew that the sorceress was a fake because her jewels were not the pure colors needed for sorcery, but that sorceresses use jewels to practice sorcery is probably better known.

Actually, that is where inference comes in. Holmes tells watson that the fake sorceress was betrayed by the impure color of her gem. Watson says "This is amazing, Holmes!" But now we know about the purity of color thing. The trick is to be quick and light with it. No ponderous 'as you know, Watson' stuff.

Except that people will scream, "Not fair play!"

Assuming it's a mystery.

Otherwise they will call it a deus ex machina.

You need to slither in your exposition before it's needed. Subtly and casually put a rabbit in the hat so that the readers are blind-sided by its coming out again, but in hindsight realize it was obvious.

I'm somewhere between Over Easy and Scrambled. If I come across a Sunny Side Up style novel, I'll drop it immediately. (Also, great names for world building styles!)

Mary wrote: "Artfully done!

You can open with info-dump: The Phantom Tollbooth, Persuasion, and Beauty all do it. Of course, it really helps to have an artful and engaging..."

I'm reading the Phantom Tollbooth to my kids, and I didn't notice an info dump at all. Although I noticed that when the characters are learning about a strange new world, the info dumps seem to fit plot. Sort of like Harry Potter. Everything was new to him, so the author had reason to explain everything.

It's much harder to pull off world building (without info dumps) when character has lived in a world all his life. Mixing Scrambled with Over Easy adds some spice and mystery IMO.

Basil Exposition. Sorry, couldn't resist.

From my time in literary fiction I tend to put it all in the first chapter if necessary. I also try to limit when it's necessary as much as possible.

Sabrina wrote: "I'm reading the Phantom Tollbooth to my kids, and I didn't notice an info dump at all."

The opening paragraphs are nothing but exposition, the narrator directly telling you what Milo is like.

Though it definitely helps that it uses his habitual behavior rather that just saying he was profoundly indifferent to everything and so bored.

Also that the voice is lively and engaging and would be capable of making eating breakfast interesting to read about.

I tend to prefer Scrambled (as long as it isn't too confusing) as I usually like to figure things out as I go. I don't really mind Sunny Side Up as long as it's more in the excerpts/articles format and not just a huge dump of info on setting. If there's just pages of explaining the world before anything happens though, I quickly lose interest. I recently tried to read The Bone Season and gave up within the first 50 pages because not only was there constant jargon I couldn't understand but also just paragraphs of info on setting that made me completely lose interest.

Mary wrote: "Sabrina wrote: "I'm reading the Phantom Tollbooth to my kids, and I didn't notice an info dump at all."

The opening paragraphs are nothing but exposition, the narrator directly telling you what Mi..."

I didn't think of the opening in that way, Mary. I guess when I think of Sunny Side Up, I think more of the books that try to explain the entire world in the first chapter. Like if in Phantom TollBooth, it would have gone into explain what the booth was, where it came from, what world he was going to travel too, all about Rhyme and Reason, etc.

Sabrina wrote: "I didn't think of the opening in that way, Mary. I guess when I think of Sunny Side Up, I think more of the books that try to explain the entire world in the first chapter"

Nothing to prevent someone from mixing types. Certainly they were exposition, even if only of the main character's character.

Mika wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "Don't a lot of sword and sorcery novels start off with the candy bar, in the form of a map on the front pages? It's almost de rigueur in that subgenre that before you even read the f..."

I actually like having the maps, not so much for before I start the story but I like mentally tracking where the characters are while I'm reading. Even after reading two of Martin's books, I still constantly refer to the map to figure out whos's in what place.

Mary wrote: "Sabrina wrote: "I didn't think of the opening in that way, Mary. I guess when I think of Sunny Side Up, I think more of the books that try to explain the entire world in the first chapter"

Nothing..."

I think I'll change mine to: I like my exposition any ol' way as long as its cooked well and seasoned nicely. :)

I agree with Caitlin. I don't get much out of them to start, although I'll look them over & often dog ear the map page so I can refer back to it as the story progresses. It's one of the things I dislike about an ebook, the amount of time & clicks it takes to get back to such a book mark & then back to reading.

I don't mind what kind of exposition it is as long as it's well done. Baby Bear exposition, if you will -- not too hot and not too cold, but just right.

Sometimes info dumps are the best way to get a lot of info out quickly, sometimes it's better to sprinkle the choc chips through the whole tub (love that analogy, Brenda!). It depends what the story calls for. A good author can make any way work.

I do enjoy getting thrown in the deep end and being left to figure it out myself, though. As long as I'm not still mystified by the end of the book!

Sabrina and Marina: I like the analogies of cooked just right with appropriate and occasionally surprising, seasonings. However, if I am still confused by mid book I will most likely stop reading. I certainly don't want the two-by-four between the ears for chapters at a time. Certain things do need to be explained and a good author should be able to figure out how to present that needed information to keep the majority of readers engaged in their story. No matter how much information some readers want I prefer to read a good story. I am not interested in the fine details of quantum physics-a general layman's definition as necessary to the story is okay, but I do find myself skipping over those parts, especially if the story is engaging.

Some recent books (I'm thinking Todd McCaffrey's continuations of The Dragonriders of Pern) have been a bit heavy on genetics. Though I am fascinated by the topic there have been sections or entire books, "Dragon Blood", that were just a bit too much like a PhD thesis paper. I do have enough of a biological background to understand it all but I felt that it almost detracted from the story.

Caitlin wrote: "I actually like having the maps, not so much for before I start the story but I like mentally tracking where the characters are while I'm reading. Even after reading two of Martin's books, I still constantly refer to the map to figure out whos's in what place...."

The Wheel of Time books have so many small towns as well as cities and nations that frequent reference to the map is useful.


Jim wrote: "I'll look them over & often dog ear the map page so I can refer back to it as the story progresses. It's one of the things I dislike about an ebook, the amount of time & clicks it takes to get back to such a book mark & then back to reading...."

I don't mind bookmarking the maps to jump back for reference, but I do hate how small they are on an e-reader screen (if you enlarge enough to read the names, you can't see more than a fraction of the map anymore.) Maps seem to be drawn for best reading in hardcover page size.

I flipped through the beginning of some books from my shelf just to refresh my memory of what reference stuff is up front.

Anne McCaffrey skiped the maps for her first Dragonrider novel. But by the second book she has a not just a map of Pern but also a list of all the Weyers & Holds in their leaders (and dragons).

Carey's Kushiel's Dart has a list of the great families & genealogies of Terre D'Ange right at the front.

At the front of Campbell's Lost Fleet series, he's actually listed the composition of the fleet by division and ship type (cruiser, battleship, ancillary, destroyer) � something in excess of a hundred ship names. I don't think I ever once referred to that material while reading the series.

David Weber is the only SF guy I found who includes actual ship layouts and even armament diagrams in some of his books. (But then in one book he actually included a page flip animation!)

Brandon Sanderson is definitely the geekiest fantasy dude. In The Rithmatist he leads with the basic glyphs on his writing-based magic system.

A good deal of this material does not have to be in the actual book. Certainly it should not be at the FRONT of the book. You can always put it up on your web site for fans to geek out on.

Oh, Brenda, that is an excellent idea. I need to improve my website and that just may be the ticket!

I remember recently downloading a sample of a non-fiction book on Amazon, and it choose the table of contents mainly. I think there is a way to affect which pages Amazon chooses for the sample and in that case the author lost a sale because of their poor book structure.

And you can put in your web site address in your book. One line, so it can even be at the front and not impact the 'look inside' thing at all.
And, your website, you can change. You can add stuff as you develop it. You can put in photographs of relevant sites -- I did this, for HOW LIKE A GOD. You can put in videos or music. You could have a playlist! None of these things you can do (so far) in a book.

Brenda, another great list of possible items to add to website as I make adjustments and improvements. I have started a list. Now I just need to make time to do it! Thanks for helping me get excited about this project - it's almost as important as working on book 2 of my series.

If people take the extra time to go to the web site. I rarely do. There's a lot to be said for appendices, but I'm admittedly old school, too. Ebooks aren't my first choice & I prefer to read just the book rather than bop back & forth to the web. I did read a mystery where the author had created a Google Earth map for the area. I checked it out. Kind of cool, but it didn't keep me coming back to his books nor make any real difference at all, so a lot of work for not much gain.

It may be a generational thing.

It likely is, Brenda, but it might also be how books are written. Typically, they stand alone, without any real need for the web. Why? Because they've always had to. Times are changing, though.

Depending on the type, I could see where links could add a lot of value, though. Those that tie in with other media; games, movies, TV shows & comics might gain. Links to the origins of a character, histories, & games might add enough value to hook people. Still, the author has to hook folks in the book itself.

Anyone remember the Robotech series by Jack McKinney? It was a long running cartoon series & set of books.



Nonfiction ebooks could really gain a lot from the web. Again, they'd have to stand alone, but could be more of an overview or summary with links to delve into portions & other, tangential subjects deeper. Programming language books often have links to sites with examples & user groups, but it would be really cool if histories could bring up time lines, maps, & links to information on other characters.

I just finished listening to The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia. As an audio book, it didn't wow me. Too many names, dates, & threads that wove all over the place. It might be better as a printed book with appendices, but it would be awesome as an ebook with links. For instance, Joe Valachi is mentioned several times, but the author really didn't get into his story at all. I would have liked it if he had, but others might not agree. A link to his bio, even just on Wikipedia, would have been awesome.

Of course, this depends on your ereader. I have a Kindle DX which is grayscale & has a very primitive browser. Those with color screens & better Internet support would get far more out links than I would. I really like reading epaper on the bigger screen since it's easier on old eyes, though. It's one reason I've been suggesting someone make an ereader that uses epaper on the left with a smaller color screen & full keyboard on the right for years. Best of both worlds.

This comes down to a matter of economics in 2 ways. First, how much time can the author & publisher afford to spend on these extras? Secondly, The type of ereader I describe would like be as much as a cheap laptop, but wouldn't have all the functionality. I'd buy it, but would enough people? Probably not. My kids read books on their phones.

So does mine. When I read ebooks I use my Ipad, which allows me to tinker with font and size. It would be relatively easy for me to tap on a link in a book's text, and get taken to the map or the genealogical table or whatever over on the author's website.

I generally prefer scrambled, but I'll accept any so long as they're done well.

As a writer, I have a strong preference for mixing it in as much as possible. I don't want to lose my readers because they can't follow things, but I'm even more concerned about losing them because an infodump is boring. I want my readers to care about what they're reading, so I need to focus on story.

@Dave: and as a writer wanting the readers to care about the story you make the choices of what info about your world you give to the reader in the text. But you should have so much more information already 'set up' and known to you the author, in case some reader has a question - then you can offer value beyond the book itself. And this provides fodder for discussions with and amongst your readers. You should not tell the reader EVERYTHING - let them use their imagination by giving them just enough. Figuring what exactly is just enough is the difficult part of writing.

Sure, I always know more about the world than the reader. I not only know why the dinosaurs speak French but also who taught it to them.

But at the same time, all the information a reader NEEDS has to be in the text because you don't know if they'll read anything else.

That's why I try to work the parts that are necessary into the body of the story as smoothly as possible. A sentence or two of exposition here or there where context doesn't make it obvious.

@Dave: Mostly scrambled is my preferred method but I have some info that won't be explained until much later in the series - even the characters don't know it all. That is part of the mystery and is part of the underlying theme of The Stone's Blade: discovering and accepting your true identity. I'm pretty sure the readers are getting all they must know to understand the story and some of the characters are beginning to question the connections between the two planets currently involved. I think we all will discover the truth together.

Plus I still have to do some scientific research to backup my story's base premise. That research may or may not ever be fully revealed. I just might let the readers use their imagination to fill in the gaps. As I said, I'm still working on that - and I have until at least the end of book three to get there. I've got 65,000+ words in book two at the moment and I'm outlining #3 & #4 as I go.

I really don't like the info dump thing. I also hate the style that old-school hard-sci-fi writers had where the hero scientist would explain physics in pages of detail to their female companion.
(Asimov, Clarke, Baxter, etc, etc,)

go back to the pre-Amazing days, when Gernsback was running stuff in The Eletrical Expermenter, the "stories" were more or less an excuse for a scientific lecture...some of the early issues of Amazing the info dump in the story wasn't enough, you got footnotes as well...I can rember wadeing thru pages and pages of a science lesson about Capt. Nemo's sea shell collection in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea....

May the Ghods save me from Ralph 124C 41+

Agree with that - as if women could not understand it - I always skimmed over those parts even though in high school and college I was reading a lot of Azimov and Clarke. If I needed the information I could always go back and find that little snippet that answered my questions - which in reality was not that often and most of the time I didn't need it to enjoy the story. Perhaps that is one reason why I don't read hard-sci-fi anymore.

I will say that modern SF is much more subtle about that. The really datadumpy writers (Weber) tend to geek about military matters.

In defense of David Weber (since I first cited him as a datadumpy author), what he is trying to do is provide the feel of a Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey early 19th-century naval warfare, and on a relatively small, tactical scale. To do that, he needs to provide spacefaring analogues to sailing vessel tactics. Fans of Forester or O'Brien (e.g., me) just eat that stuff up.

To do that, Weber's created an elaborate system of not just weaponry but ship propulsion and defense, along with their strengths and weaknesses. (He's also made his star empires into reflections of England and France.)

I think it's in the second Honor Harrington book, The Honor of the Queen, that Weber provides an extended engagement of a small inferior force defending a key planet against a superior aggressor, using orbital mechanics as well as weapons and defensive tactics. It's an extended cat and mouse game. If you're into geeky space battles, it's pretty cool story, but it requires a lot of prior exposition. Weber uses the narrator voice for his exposition, which may make it seem even more datadumpy.

Weber's other dilemma is that in order to keep each book in the series self-contained, he has to keep repeating the same lectures.

It's not a whole lot different than Asimov repeating the three laws in every robot story, just a bit more long-winded. :)

I like mine poached - some soft exposition in the beginning, then a big messy middle ;)