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Induction into a hidden society

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Lord Rae:
Any suggestions on how to tackle the induction of someone into a secretive community/group including explaining rules, and training without it being a huge info dump?

I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a clever way to do it or to hold information back but it seems incredibly convoluted compared to just telling someone what's going on, what's expected of them and then their training with new and clever weapons?

The dreaded info dump rears it's head each time.

Lanodantheon:
I got nothing....


Secret societies and organizations are by their nature, secret. Information is utterly important and they would only give info to their inductees all at once.


Unless you had a plot-device that could say wipe the MC's memory and introduce the secret society a little at a time.


That is of course NOT using the tired B-Plot series of flashbacks to the initiation that happened earlier chronologically in the story but is present later linearly.


That's all I got. 

OZ:
I think it would depend on how and why they are being inducted into the secret society. It could be critical for the audience to understand every nuance and detail or you might be able to just hit a few high points and move on or anything in between. It would depend on when it happens in the story. If it's at the beginning you might give a lot of detail as long as it's not too dull. You could also give some parts and fill in more details later. If it's at the end then you could sprinkle details about what's coming throughout the book (by observations of other inductions or someone giving them hints of what is to come). If it's the high point of the story you might break it up into pieces or you might just give the whole detailed ceremony while it's happening. Maybe have a humorous internal monologue to break things up or a whispered conversation among inductees.

It's very hard to know how to approach it without knowing a little more about how it fits into the story and whether the story itself is serious or humorous, first or third person, etc. Also are you talking about some of the real secret societies or is this a secret society specifically created for this story?

Lord Rae:
Well 'hidden' is probably the wrong word as people know of the group, but they know nothing of the internal workings of the organization. It's not a real society from our world. And the plan is for 3rd person limited with a 3 or 4 main points of view. That allows me to get around some of the issues by using certain chapters or characters to give the society time to explain things "off camera" without it being too boring and so I don't have to lay out every detail.

I just don't want the main character to end up being forced to ask the wrong questions so that I can keep things hidden and not lay it out all at once. I want to be able to train someone in magic, strange weapons etc without the reader having to sit through all the lessons and safety warnings. But I can't skip it completely or move on to when the character is an old expert for story and pacing reasons. While I'm sure that Jim could make every lesson Harry ever had interesting I have no such faith in myself and I'm sure even Jim wouldn't write a book entirely about Harry's early years with Justin.

Essentially if someone finds the keys to a nuclear weapon (or the magical equivalent) and then someone in authority has to train that person in its use they aren't going to be cryptic or withhold vital info from that person. Sage Yoda knowledge would be too dangerous and it would annoy me (and anyone reading it I think) if they did because the reasoning would purely be because I was avoiding Info Dump.

The protagonist has read lots of books and has a fair amount of knowledge of the world and his father is in the group in question but he mostly knows of the group through rumor and gossip and not anything his father has told him first hand.

OZ:
From what you are telling me it sounds like you could have the main character get all the training but only hit the high points for the reader. Look at how JK Rowling handled what in some respects is very similar to what you are doing. Obviously there are differences but you have a person with no knowledge of magic suddenly finding that they are part of a magical society and having to learn the ropes. Of course in her stories the training is the story where it sounds like you just want the training to be the beginning of the story. Give the introduction or overview of the training plus two or three interesting anecdotes about the training to give the reader a feel for what's going on. The anecdotes will also give you an opportunity for some sleight of hand as you give some specific information while seeming to just give an example of the life of a mage in training.

This is not the only way to tell this. Much can be learned by conversation among people in the book. If you do this be sure to avoid talking heads unless you can, like Jim with Bob, turn the trope on its head and have fun with it. You can do some of it in flashback. You can have the main character find some of the information on his or her own. (Reading an old book or scroll, etc.) You can use any combination of these things.

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