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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35566
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35566
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

If you want to say something to the reader, just say it. You are writing a novel, not a movie. You are narrating the whole thing and everything in it is said by you to the reader.

In LOTR, Tolkien outright tells us all sorts of things. There are other things that we learn only when they are spoken by a character, usually because it is crucial to the development of a character that they learn about this thing at this time. The revelation is part of the moral development of the character arc, and so it is appropriate that we learn of it when the character does -- we are following their journey, after all and we learn as they learn.

But there is no absolute obligation to reveal all information in this way. There may be information that the character already knows that the reader does not, or information that the reader needs to know before the character or that the character never finds out. Thus there is all sorts of information about the Shire and the habits of hobbits that Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin would all be totally aware of. So Tolkien simply tells us that information directly.

Original score: 10