You’ve undergone the arduous process of creating a world. Politics, magic, cities- all carefully designed to breath life into a universe that doesn’t exist. You know the names of the moons in orbit, the gods that ancient civilizations projected onto them, and the colonists that would destroy those ancient peoples. You’ve become a god of your own little world. You looked upon it, and it was good.

Now it’s time to open up that world, and let the reader come in with you as their guide. The task isn’t easy. You can’t just show them around and expect them to like what they see. Show them the things that will keep them coming back to your world. Like a magician, your job is to spark wonder in the audience, and make them ask questions of the incredible things to come.

Introducing Your World

When you bring readers into your world, you can’t let them in on all the secrets. Spilling out superfluous detail will overwhelm the audience. They have to learn about our universe at the same pace as the characters. This connects your protagonist to the reader. They are on the adventure together.

Remember that worldbuilding is only there to serve the story. As the hero navigates their world, give the audience enough to understand what is happening, but don’t distract them with excessive detail unless it accomplishes something.

Perspective

What perspective you choose to write in will guide how you tackle exposition and worldbuilding. Each one allows for different amounts of direct exposition.

Third Person Omniscient stories allow for the freest worldbuilding because the narrator knows everything and can give details on anything. In this perspective, you can give specific details that make a world feel full and lived in, but sometimes this doesn’t work the way you intend. Third Person Omniscient makes it tempting for the writer to get bogged down in unimportant details.

Third Person Limited stories are harder to give direct exposition in, but provide a closer connection between reader and character. The lack of information this perspective provides isn’t a bad thing. This perspective starts to force the writer to let the audience and protagonist learn about the world together.

First Person gives the closest connection to the character, but the least amount of information about the world. The audience and protagonist have to learn about the world together. This can be restrictive in worldbuilding because the writer can’t share the history and detail of our world as easily.

Each of these perspectives have their pros and cons. Keep in mind how much information you need to share to properly worldbuild and give exposition, and decide what the relationship is between the reader and the characters. Those decisions will make the choice of perspective clear.

Elements of Worldbuilding

Let the interactions between characters show their relationships. It is tempting to provide grave detail about how one tribe hates another upon meeting them, but it is much more interesting to watch that conflict play out naturally. The reader doesn’t need to be told that Starks hate the Targaryens if they see them constantly butting heads. Obviously, they don’t like each other, and we can show why as our story progresses.

Readers are humans like your characters, so they understand how people react to things. Don’t say that Jon was annoyed at Theon. Let him roll his eyes or argue. They know what these reactions mean. By letting your worldbuilding play out in the story, it becomes more natural and interwoven. If the protagonist doesn’t know how two people will react upon meeting each other, neither should the audience. They will learn together.

The best writers let their characters interact with their setting. Don’t tell us that the church is old. Tell us about how our protagonist runs his fingers across the front door, covered in a warm patina, surely crafted by legendary, long-forgotten woodworkers. This fills the world with more life while hinting at details that will never be revealed. Even the smallest details can open up the doors of the imagination, sparking wonder in the audience.

Items can have just a storied history like any person or place- a crown worn by kings for centuries or perhaps a ring of ultimate power. Giving items history makes them powerful world-building tools but don’t bog them down. The audience doesn’t need to know why the ring of power makes Frodo invisible. They just need to know that it does.

Story & Exposition

Every time a writer halts the story to explain something, it damages the momentum. Exposition is never as fun as action, so be aware of how descriptions affect the flow of your story. Diving in and out of exposition and plot can feel like whiplash, but long sections of each can be straining. Great writers find the balance. Read the piece and ask, “When did my attention start to drift? or “When did I get lost?” These questions can help you juggle the pieces.

The majority of these issues can be boiled down to one piece of advice. Show, don’t tell. Show the audience your world, don’t tell them about it. This turns regular exposition into plot and action. It is much more interesting to watch a scene play out instead of being told what happens.

Writing for the Screen

This “show, don’t tell” concept gets kicked up a notch on the screen. When writing a script, you don’t get to “tell” without using dialogue or narration. Lines of action can’t tell how a character feels; they can only show. You can’t film someone being sad. You film someone slumped over with their head in their hands.

Using a narrator to give exposition is generally regarded as bad practice in filmmaking. It is considered cheesy and lazy. In the same vein, characters shouldn’t give long strings of exposition through dialogue. It is painfully obvious when a writer tries to squeeze in exposition through dialogue, and narration can break the suspension of disbelief.

Writers can give the audience action that provides exposition. For example: Instead of having a character provide backstory through dialogue, use a flashback scene. The details of the world will be more engaging if the viewer sees the events happen instead of being told it’s something they should care about.

Here’s an example:

Compared to this:

The first example gets across the point that Johnny was abused, but the second example makes the audience feel it. We didn’t just tell the audience that Johnny was abused, we showed them the conditions he was in and how he felt. This is a really common tool in film and television. Cutting to action keeps the characters from having long strings of dialogue that will lose our audience’s attention.

There is no certain path to properly weave exposition and worldbuilding into your stories. The only way a writer can ensure they are providing appropriate exposition and worldbuilding is to stay vigilant. Move stuff around, take details out, add things in. Paying attention and trying different things will help you find what works in your story.

Weekly TL;DR: We have to be careful with exposition and worldbuilding in our stories. If we use too much it can slow our stories and make them boring for readers, and when you can, show, don’t tell the audience what we want them to know.

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