Re: Worldbuilding and Infodumps

[the_narration]

In response to a discussion on worldbuilding and exposition in tsubaki_ny 's journal, because I got longwinded and it wouldn't fit in a comment box.

Some thoughts on the subject from an avid reader and consumer of a myriad forms of fictional entertainment:

It's important to not allow exposition to turn into an infodump, of course, because it causes the story

Comments

[the_narration]

While those are all valid points, the question I was trying to answer was "How much worldbuilding is too much for a modern novel?" rather than a discussion of why epic poems of the ancient world were written the way they were.

While it may well be true that the audiences of epic recitations in ancient times enjoyed long digressions, that doesn't mean that the modern novel reader does. What worked then does not work now, which is why I put forth that those epics were not the best examples to follow. Perhaps ancient audiences didn't mind a 28 line speech mid-fight because they were enjoying the performance, but modern audiences have a much lower tolerence for the idea that Talking Is A Free Action. And even if a modern reader really does care about the backstory of a sword, a basic understanding of drama would indicate that the best time to cover that sort of thing is during a lull in the action, not by bringing the fight scene to a grinding halt.

(Regarding The Illiad, that those heroes got mentioned at all probably indicates that they were nobles or kings, and that Homer would have probably annoyed their descendants if he hadn't included them.)

Modern audiences don't appreciate having the tension of a dramatic scene disrupted for a lengthy discussion of utterly unrelated myths within the setting (i.e. Guy Gavriel Kay's "The Fionavar Tapestry") or the complete family histories of minor characters. As such, modern writers need to exercise judgment about what worldbuilding is and is not important to their story, and how to include it without disrupting the dramatic flow.