# How big is too big?



## Iburnaga (May 14, 2009)

As many writers know, settings can get huge over time. So how big is too big for a setting? How much detail is too much? is it too much when you could publish an encyclopedia on your world or when it starts picking at the fabric of space time?


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## foozzzball (May 14, 2009)

You fail to see the point.

It's not how big/not big your setting is. It's how much the author foolishly allows that to impact on the storytelling. Going into explanations of every little detail you crafted, from how they cut the paving stones to why the star in the sky flickers, is distracting and problematic. You can do that with a story set in contemporary times or with a story set in the most complex setting ever. The trick is to only bring up the details that actually matter to the story. It doesn't matter how the car that drives your protagonists around works unless it breaks and one of them has to fix it. The texture of their clothing does matter if you've got a very sensual scene, it doesn't matter if they're running for their lives from bad guys.

The issue you're talking about has nothing to do with the setting you're working from and everything to do with how you tell the story you're telling. Or rather, fail to tell your story, because you've been explaining how the traffic system works instead.


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## ElizabethAlexandraMary (May 14, 2009)

I see your point, foozzzball. However, when I read "encyclopedia", I can't help but think of backstory.

So, as it was mentioned, there's this issue where you don't want to assault the player with details, and that other where you simply end up having too much backstory to put it all in your main text without diverting entirely the attention from the action.

I remember seeing a thread on this, even if I can't remember where it was (if somebody could provide a link, I'd be very happy), and a few of the suggestions that came up were the use of an appendix, extra text at the end of the chapter, and separate chapters for the backstory.

What I personally recommend, if your story gets popular enough to gain a base of regular readers, is to open up a blog (blogspot works well for that) where you'll post every backstory-related article. Of course, you'll have to advertise it in your stories so people know it's there, but then it'll be much easier for us, readers, than having to scroll through entire parts of your story only to get some unrelated article.

Of course, that's what works best for me, it may change from a person to another.


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## ElizabethAlexandraMary (May 14, 2009)

Thanks, I totally forgot about this aspect. There's going to be a huge difference whether you write in a life-like theme, or with settings you entirely created yourself, where more backstory and general infos are needed.

(Oh, and, nice to see a fellow Finn on this forums. I used to work with Finnish people a lot in the past.)


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## TakeWalker (May 14, 2009)

If the backstory is that important and the setting that huge, write a novel that explains it all. Leave it out of your stories otherwise unless it impacts something directly.


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## M. LeRenard (May 14, 2009)

I agree completely with foozzzball on this one (I'm going to stop looking to see if I spell that name right).  Too many times I see beginning writers hash out these long complicated Silmarillion type essays about their worlds.  And if you think about it, it's only the die-hard Tolkien fans who read any of the extra stuff of his anyway, right?  His son was the one to publish them, AFTER he died; good ol' John Ronald never had the intent to do so himself.  And I think it's because he knew that most people just wouldn't care.
So yeah... you can make your setting as huge and complicated as you like, but until you become as famous as Tolkien, keep it to yourself and to the people who specifically ask you about it.


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## Iburnaga (May 14, 2009)

Personally in my writing I avoid long explanations of every little thing in the setting. The reader can reason a lot of things on their own and I usually trust that. I reveal enough to keep the essentials making sense but some things may only make sense after the reader comes across a separate writing that deals just with setting information.

I loathe long explanations at the beginning of a work because it's as though the writer is setting up an equation and they aren't, they don't have to even bother setting up anything they can just drop the reader in naked if they work their exposition well enough.

The reason I ask how big is too big is because I have a habit of working back and forth with a setting until I know its past and future and even alternate futures. A lot of stories I write in a setting may later be a legend mentioned in passing in that same setting.


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## M. LeRenard (May 15, 2009)

Something else I thought I might add to this....
It seems to be rather difficult to make the setting perfectly clear while at the same time not simply stating how things are right in the middle of the narrative.  For example, I'm having a hard time right now trying to get across the fact that in my novel, the planet where everything takes place has a longer year than Earth's, hence ages don't mean quite the same thing there as they do here.  Everyone keeps asking me, "Is 15 old for a fox?" or whatever, and in order to answer no, I have to explain about a paragraph's worth of information that I just can't fit snugly into the beginning couple of chapters.
So this is hard for me to figure out.  I don't want to resort to a 'prologue' where I explain all this shit, because I know for me as a reader that kind of thing is always an immediate turnoff (pretty much it only gets the attention of real cerebral types), but I can't think of any better way to get the information across.  And I would like people to stop freaking asking that question.
So sometimes it's the small details that really drag you down.


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## Poetigress (May 15, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> For example, I'm having a hard time right now trying to get across the fact that in my novel, the planet where everything takes place has a longer year than Earth's, hence ages don't mean quite the same thing there as they do here.  Everyone keeps asking me, "Is 15 old for a fox?" or whatever, and in order to answer no, I have to explain about a paragraph's worth of information that I just can't fit snugly into the beginning couple of chapters.
> So this is hard for me to figure out.  I don't want to resort to a 'prologue' where I explain all this shit, because I know for me as a reader that kind of thing is always an immediate turnoff (pretty much it only gets the attention of real cerebral types), but I can't think of any better way to get the information across.  And I would like people to stop freaking asking that question.



I think in your case, you might have to either leave out specific numbered ages altogether, or call it something other than a year. If readers don't have the word "year" to mentally latch on to, most will automatically realize that you're not talking about a typical Earth-based 365-day span.


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## Scienda (May 15, 2009)

Depending on set-up, you could have someone mention the longer year in passing ("Way I hear it, harvest only lasts five days on Earth. I just plumb can't fathom that, it takes us near on the entire twelve we have just to do it.")


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## ElizabethAlexandraMary (May 15, 2009)

I found out it works well to subtly throw these things at the reader as narration comments, (while keeping it short), through descriptive sequences.

Might work more or less depending on the writing style.


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## M. LeRenard (May 16, 2009)

> I think in your case, you might have to either leave out specific numbered ages altogether, or call it something other than a year. If readers don't have the word "year" to mentally latch on to, most will automatically realize that you're not talking about a typical Earth-based 365-day span.


I thought about that, but then I realized it went against my philosophy of not making up words for things that have a clear English alternative.  A year is just how long it takes a planet to go around the sun.  It would seem silly to call it anything else, especially considering I don't do that with any other words.  Leaving it out might work, but then I'd have to re-re-rewrite this one particular scene again, and I just got it how I wanted it.
Anyway, I'm still giving it some thought myself, so maybe I'll come up with an answer at some point here.  If all else fails, I'll just stick in a one-sentence disclaimer at the beginning of the story and call it good.


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## foozzzball (May 16, 2009)

"The years felt long. Each one made up of five hundred and eighty-seven hammerblows of daylight and five-hundred and eighty-seven breaths of respite during all too short nights. Tim the Fox(?) had heard that in the far north there were different numbers of days, days and nights that lasted whole seasons instead of a few hours. Of course he'd been told that when he'd been young, but now as a fifteen year old man he was ready to travel north and find out for himself."

Or something.


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## FoxyMcCloud (May 16, 2009)

I'm prone to agree with Fooz's take on this; a writer should be giving just enough description to give a specific idea in the reader's mind concerning current events (or pertinent details that surround the events), but at the same time urging the reader to use their imagination to fill in the blanks left behind. At least in terms of fiction.

If it's a big epic story that really deserves an analyzed overworld and history lesson for its universe, then perhaps delivering a secondary story that delves into that aspect is a good idea to go alongside your primary story.


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## TakeWalker (May 17, 2009)

I feel compelled to make a snarky comment, that being that it's all too easy to take a big breath and yell "LOOK WHAT I DONE!" when demonstrating the breadth of one's worldbuilding. I'm really fighting against this myself right now. Remember the story and what's important to understand in order to understand it.


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## Iburnaga (May 20, 2009)

X3 After making a nice world I find it easy not to tell people a good deal about it unless I'm discussing my story directly. Mostly because it's fun to make a reader expect something to be explained. Fantasy and Sci-fi readers are used to exposition, so much so that when something strange happens they may think nothing of it. One can take advantage and slip in plot intensive happenings and treat them as mundane instances. Awesome foreshadowing is awesome.


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