McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Pacing of information in a fictional world
meh:
So, to sum up, you're not really looking for the tools by which to do it (the majority of the answers thus far), rather you are polling the level of indirect revelation that has worked for most people here?
--- Quote from: neurovore on June 15, 2010, 08:44:01 PM ---The harder bit is issues equivalent to, to stretch your metaphor, polyamory being so much the norm that nobody had ever heard of monogamy for centuries, and that they would never bump into anyone who practised it or have any reason to talk about it or even think about it consciously; the unexamined background assumptions that are different from ours.
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One level at which that has definitely worked for me in the past is what Silverberg does in At Winter's End.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: meh on June 15, 2010, 11:40:07 PM ---So, to sum up, you're not really looking for the tools by which to do it (the majority of the answers thus far), rather you are polling the level of indirect revelation that has worked for most people here?
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Yes, though, tools showing up that I'd not already considered would be a good thing too.
Aludra:
--- Quote from: neurovore on June 16, 2010, 03:21:52 PM ---Yes, though, tools showing up that I'd not already considered would be a good thing too.
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The only author I can think of that doesn't use a 'tool' is Neal S. And you already said you didn't want to try to write like him. And aside from that, he doesn't get the whole of his potential audience because a lot of would-be SciFi readers don't have the patience to learn a new vocabulary every time the pick up a book entirely from context clues.
Although... Have you read Lovelock? It's by Orson Scott Card & Kathryn Kidd. If you haven't read it, it's worth a read. I can't think of any tools that they used. There's no 'talking book', or 'newbie character' or 'nerdy historian'.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Aludra on June 16, 2010, 04:26:55 PM ---The only author I can think of that doesn't use a 'tool' is Neal S. And you already said you didn't want to try to write like him.
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He has a great gift for the interesting infodump - I mean, he can spend a few pages of Cryptonomicon on the best way to eat breakfast cereal and make it compelling. I am not under the impression that i can do infodumps anywhere near that well.
--- Quote --- And aside from that, he doesn't get the whole of his potential audience because a lot of would-be SciFi readers don't have the patience to learn a new vocabulary every time the pick up a book entirely from context clues.
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He's not writing SF for non-SF readers, definitely. I am not at all certain where I would think of myself as being on that issue.
--- Quote ---Although... Have you read Lovelock? It's by Orson Scott Card & Kathryn Kidd. If you haven't read it, it's worth a read. I can't think of any tools that they used. There's no 'talking book', or 'newbie character' or 'nerdy historian'.
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No, I've not; will keep an eye out for it.
Gruud:
--- Quote from: neurovore on June 15, 2010, 07:43:03 PM ---I know one does not have to explain everything, but there's only so much I can leave unexplained; the failure mode there is "A happens for unexplained reason, and then B follows on from A for reasons also unexplained, and then C comes on from that where a contemporary reader would most likely expect D to happen instead", and unless enough of the How Things Work basics are in there somewhere, it just looks like pulling plot from thin air rather than playing fair with the rules of that setting. I mean, a detective story where one met all the characters and then had the detective present the solution but never got the reasoning between the data and the solution would be at best gimmicky and at worst pointless.
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This may not be your cup of tea, but have you considered some simple flow charting?
Taking A, B and C in your example, give each their own box in the flow chart (without any accompanying explanation) and then see what minimums you need to logically get from one to the other.
In this case the flow chart is really just a mechanism to try and isolate the event flow from the rest of the story stuff swirling around in your head, forcing them to stand on their own, logic-wise.
I may not have explained that very well ...
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