How to introduce a world that's alien to the reader
I'm writing sort of a space-opera and I was wondering what would the best way to explain everything about the world to my readers. The story is kind of a political intrigue, and it would be very easy for the reader to get confused.
In this universe there is quite a lot of propaganda and government disinformation in magazines and such. I'm thinking about placing these in-between my chapters as a way of explaining the setting to the reader. Is it a good idea? And in general how do you explain a made-up setting to the reader?
(also, it's my first post, yay !)
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You may be interested in Brandon Sanderson's lecture series on writing long form fantasy and science fiction:
https://www.youtube.com/user/WriteAboutDragons/videos
This is an excellent series on the practical craft of writing and particularly about what you asked about, writing about what is alien to the reader.
He talks at one point about the dangers of "Infodump", ie dumping a lot of information on the reader about your "alien" world, particularly at the beginning of the book. His main advice was to ground the reader in the scene by using concrete language and description, while layering abstract information on top. A description of a concrete object can say a lot about the world and the characters. One of his examples was to describe the wall of a city. One character might notice that it was an excellent wall to fend off a siege. This tells us that siege warfare is a reality in this world, and also that the character has a military background, while still keeping us grounded in an image of the physical scene. Every concrete description can have a multiple purpose that tells us something about the alien world. In a very alien world the trick is in keeping an appropriate balance. If you can show everything through the eyes of your characters you will avoid going off into abstract descriptions of things.
It's also worth considering that it may not be necessary for all of the details of your world to actually make it in to the book. Their presence can be felt without an explicit description. That feeling of realness comes from all the things you don't see as much as those you do. Just think about Tolkein's Silmarillion. He had a whole mythical history for Middle Earth that was never published in his lifetime, but the weight of that detail can be felt in his published fiction.
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Unlike @what, I often enjoy the extra material, particularly if you have it set up as a chapter interstitial or a page or two of introductory material before a chapter gets underway. It allows the reader to get another view of the world which could not be presented through the eyes of the characters — what's being discussed on TV, how people in other countries are viewing the events, newspaper editorials, email interchanges, etc. I think in particular the government propaganda could be really fascinating as an interstitial. It's not something you want to stop the actual story for in medias res, but as a "here's what Jack and Sally were talking about earlier" reference, it can be useful.
Write it and ask your betas for feedback. You can't edit a blank page.
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