World Building – The Perils of Exposition
World Building – The Perils of Exposition I think anyone who has tried to write a fantasy or science fiction story set in its own unique universe will understand me when I say – setting up a world is hard. Creating it isn’t, at least not for me. I love creating new worlds – drawing maps, thinking of cultures and rules and how things work – that’s as much fun as writing itself as far as I am concerned. In fact, in many ways, it’s more fun – it’s use of the imagination without the pressure of having to word it properly. I get to play with my favourite things - history and geography and magic - all at the same time. I love world building. But transmitting that information to poor, innocent readers – aye, there’s the rub. Because once a world is created, it’s important those reading it can get the hang of it for the story set within it to make sense. But exposition is dull. Many a writer has lost their readers with a big, fat factual overload dump early on. So how to introduce the