How can I explain my world if the character is technologically not yet capable of understanding it?
One feature of my world is a plant that lives in a magmaous (rather than "volcanic") cave. It photosynthesizes by absorbing infrared radiation from the magma.
However, the world is roughly at a medieval technology level, so telling that this plant uses infrared radiation to get energy won't make sense. I use the point of view of the characters to explore the world. Just telling that there are plants in a cave isolated from the sun (that are not fungi) seems to break the disbelief.
What are the alternatives to telling the plant mechanism? Or should I just leave the details out?
Note: It's just that I think it's a waste if it's left unexplained. It's not really an important plot point or something like that.
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Pretty much what Tom said, and you could give the reader enough to pick up on a hint that the plants are affected by infra red radiation by introducing a temporary source.
Someone could light a fire in the cave, and a plant that was looking limp could look more healthy. Someone could stroke the leaf (or other part) of the plant, and the part they touched could change colour. The plants could appear to lean towards people as they pass, or petals could open when a source of heat comes near.
That way, the characters don't need to know what's going on in scientific terms, but a reader will probably be able to come up with some theories.
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Let your character stumble upon the book of a monk, that analyzed the flower. I guess he tried to remove the flower from the cave, expose it to sunlight, try growing other flowers in the cave, etc.
Then you can summarize the findings of that monk, leaving your character puzzling over what that implies. You can do that before or after your character finds the flower for himself.
You can also introduce a series of books by that monk, on various different topics, allowing you to have a recurring way of explaining other strange things in your world.
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Which is more valuable or necessary to you?
- that the reader be given the mechanical details
- that those details be codified in publication
Actually, I mention this one for the sake of completeness. It isn't quite pertinent here … - that the aforementioned details be available for a reader to discover
- that someone in your story appreciates or recognizes the details
There is some overlap early in the exposition, but the optimal set of approaches for each of those are rather divergent.
reader should know
This is good for the experience of the reader, listener, or viewer because understanding something helps bind a story together. Your purpose is not to clobber them over the head with the thing, but to expose it and to make it obvious for those who are able or who wish to recognize it.
For your situation, the best method is, frankly, probably to contrive a few co-incident events.
Actually, this doesn't seem likely to be a concern for your situation — it does best with ethical, emotional, or metaphysical drama, — and so I'll explain it with the characters need to know section.
codification
I'm probably not the only one who thinks like this: You've devised something which you think is especially clever or insightful, and you'd like to have it written and saved for the sake of posterity. Something like that.
As I stated above: I'll not discuss this here.
reader can discover
The important thing here is not that it be obvious. The reader who seeks the answer shall discover it; those who do not would not benefit were they to be given it anyways. More mystical mumbo jumbo, et cetera.
The pleasure taken by a peruser of your stories comes from discovering the detail, not from being given it. Your best way to achieve that is to drop hints, here and there — rather like the crafty crook smugly satisfied with their own work.
Works best in larger stories spanning multiple publications; it also works with interactive forms of storytelling, i.e. role-playing games or whatnot strongly in the storytelling corner of a Threefold model.
How exactly is it done, though? Well, think of the Blind Men and the Elephant parable: you know how it works, even if your characters do not.
characters need to know
Maybe they don't quite understand exactly how it works, but they do get some idea.
This is most likely to be what you need for your problem: so, this vegetation exists somewhere which is likely to be quite hot, yes? Your characters will probably need to devise something to protect themselves from the heat. All you need to do is to contrive a few fortunate happenstances whereby they discover that those same protective garments or shields also serve to weaken the vegetation, and — bingo!
The protagonists don't need to understand the details; indeed, you can have one or two of them suggest hypotheses which you would understand to be incomplete or even incorrect. This ties in with the reader can discover class: also, it features a good dosage of the unreliable narrators and all that jazz.
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If you are using POV characters to explore a world, you are not doing storytelling, you are doing world building. That is a perfectly legitimate hobby, but it is not literature and the normal concerns of literary writing, such as suspension of disbelief, or, for that matter, point of view, don't apply.
If you are engaged in storytelling, then the world you have build exists merely as the stage on which to tell your story, and should only exist as a distinct world as a literary device for exploring a set of themes that matter to your story. As such, flora and fauna that are not germain to your plot, characters, or themes have no place in the story.
You need to decide if you are more interested in world building or in storytelling. A world builder may tell stories to explore their world, but don't expect them to work as stories, or to follow normal story conventions. A storyteller may invent a world as a stage on which to tell a story, but don't expect all of the features of that world to be explained, or even explicable. Wonderland exists for Alice, not Alice for Wonderland.
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