Uh, do I use an exposition or keep the readers absolutely baffled with my concept?

[Staag]

In order to not spoil too much, here's the basics.

1. Planet named ___ crashes into planet, 8 Billion Humans dead.
2. 8 billion humans reincarnated into a world with 8 moons, the only landmass is a supercontinent with 5 regions.
3. Each region are biomes: Coast, Jungle, Plains, Mountains, Tundra.
4. Humans all reincarnate as 8 year old children, from the 100 year old people to infants barely a week old.
5. Humans have a skill system, it's not a literal skill system. Instead the ranks of their skills determine how much they could break the laws of reality. Ex: F-rank cooking skill allows you to cook any normal food as long as you have ingredients, S-rank cooking skill allows you to create food out of manifested energy drained from your physical stamina, also might give buffs.
6. There are no animals, no bugs. Only plantlife, algae, micro-organisms and corals.
7. How to find food other than farming? People with S-rank skills related to things like animal husbandry, zoology are able to spawn animals at the cost of stamina (Big cost though)
8. Yes, it is a literal sandbox.
9. To start off this world, an F-rank [Skin Biting] skill turns S-rank. This allows the user to infect people, basically turning them into conscious zombies.
10. Zombies slowly develop, mutating into types based on the five senses: Sight, Taste, Touch, Hearing, and Smell.
11. Zombies also evolve as a society, making tribes based on their type.
12. Each tribe resides on one of the five regions.
13. Civilization starts alongside the Zombie Tribes.
14. Modern day, where the story will take place, a criminal Zombie is being chased by other zombies because it infected a child.
15. It is a taboo for zombies to infect children since it's more practical to infect an adult since they're at their peak at that age.
16. MC comes in, as the criminal zombie tries to eat a person dear to them, jumps in becoming a zombie themselves.
17. Story starts as MC develops and mutates as a zombie, alongside the human they saved.

Let me ask the question again, should I explain the story of how the world came to be or will the readers be able to piece everything together through subtle clues?

 

[Eldoria]

Yes, lore should serve as a backdrop to the story, providing a philosophical explanation of how the conflict in the main story works, unfolding step by step as the story unfolds as a world mystery. Don't reveal everything at once, especially not in the prologue. Don't treat readers like fools; let them unfold the lore in their own way.

 

[BigBadBoi]

Imagine literal drooling toddlers turning into 8 year olds instantly

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Imagine literal drooling toddlers turning into 8 year olds instantly

Anyone who works retail has probably seen this...

 

[Gray_Mann]

Anyone who works retail has probably seen this...

An insult to 8 year olds....gods I'm glad I don't work at the local Wal-Mart.

 

[Staag]

Imagine literal drooling toddlers turning into 8 year olds instantly

That's the idea, to cause chaos in the first parts of the timeline, lmao. It's also to make sure that it'll take a couple of years before native-born humans can live in the world.

 

[Tempokai]

You can't force exposition like that in one chapter without making it sound like a history lesson. Common thing is start small, from a single MC's action, and just expand when it's needed over the chapters. There's things that readers know at the moment and characters inside know at the moment, and your job as a storyteller is to make things that the readers wants to know are just enough to make the things that characters know and can tell or show about it over time. Because your setting is pretty much expansive enough you need to assume that the things that are done are interesting enough for those explanations you've done are given without being forced. Novice storytellers often dump information like you did in this thread as a chunk, so be better and spread that information over story-time, not like this.

 

[SirContro]

You're supposed to leave little hints towards everything in your story that is to be revealed, but that doesn't mean you go full force and explain everything all at once.

 

[Staag]

You can't force exposition like that in one chapter without making it sound like a history lesson. Common thing is start small, from a single MC's action, and just expand when it's needed over the chapters. There's things that readers know at the moment and characters inside know at the moment, and your job as a storyteller is to make things that the readers wants to know are just enough to make the things that characters know and can tell or show about it over time. Because your setting is pretty much expansive enough you need to assume that the things that are done are interesting enough for those explanations you've done are given without being forced. Novice storytellers often dump information like you did in this thread as a chunk, so be better and spread that information over story-time, not like this.

What methods do you think are the best at showing bits of the lore? Should I make arcs around the history? I wanna make a story that focuses on awe and the concept's absurdity, not too serious for the readers but the characters in the story take it seriously.

You're supposed to leave little hints towards everything in your story that is to be revealed, but that doesn't mean you go full force and explain everything all at once.

I understand. What parts do you think are the most interesting or the things people would be the most interested about?

 

[Eldoria]

What methods do you think are the best at showing bits of the lore? Should I make arcs around the history? I wanna make a story that focuses on awe and the concept's absurdity, not too serious for the readers but the characters in the story take it seriously.

I understand. What parts do you think are the most interesting or the things people would be the most interested about?

It depends on where your narrative begins, OP protagonists and growing protagonists have different starting points in the narrative. It all starts from the starting point of how you narrate your prologue to hook the readers.

 

[Tempokai]

What methods do you think are the best at showing bits of the lore? Should I make arcs around the history? I wanna make a story that focuses on awe and the concept's absurdity, not too serious for the readers but the characters in the story take it seriously.

You already have the action here.

14. Modern day, where the story will take place, a criminal Zombie is being chased by other zombies because it infected a child.
15. It is a taboo for zombies to infect children since it's more practical to infect an adult since they're at their peak at that age.
16. MC comes in, as the criminal zombie tries to eat a person dear to them, jumps in becoming a zombie themselves.
17. Story starts as MC develops and mutates as a zombie, alongside the human they saved.

You just need to do action-exposition-action cycle again and again. Which is hard, because you as a storyteller need to know when to stop yapping and start showing. You can use synopsis as a small lore drop, to prep the reader for the type of the story you want to tell, and just focus on action for first arbitrary amount of chapters. You just need to narrate like you know the world behind the words, and the reader is just for a ride, for them to understand MC first, and then only start lore dropping the things you've already hinted with synopsis and subtext behind the actions of the characters. What can be shown, cannot be said without sounding like a lecturer. If you want the example of what I'm talking about, just read any KR academy story that has good enough ratings, for example this:

The Victim of the Academy - Novel Updates

www.novelupdates.com

Read first few chapters, and observe how things are told without explanation at first, and how context expands with each dialogue or action.

 

[zephyrtrillian]

Readers can piece things together, but sometimes it's good to find an excuse to explain.

The action-exposition-action cycle is a great idea.

I had to explain, at some point, why it was a surprise that an Acolyte would have their own private bedroom. My MC Acolyte walked into a space that belonged to another Acolyte of a different Order. She had to have some internal dialogue recalling her own experiences with bunkmates, and what she assumed by seeing a privately owned bedroom... especially one with a giant bed.

This added to the worldbuilding by explaining more about Acolytes. I have to feed this kind of information into the story gently, however. No one is as interested in my worldbuilding as I am. They become interested, piece by piece, as I feed it to them. It's like serving a meal. If you want it to be tantalizing, do it a few bites at a time, don't just give the whole hog at once.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

One question, though... why is this in the Artist's forum and not Authors or Readers?

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Trickle it slowly.

Imagine you're a bartender who's also the owner of a bar.

You have wide array of menus and beverage.

And you have to add new beverage variety to your bar.

Do you just offer them lists of new beverages all at once ?

No

You slowly show them limited sets of beverages, and you might as well reccomend one special drinks from time to time.

You purposefully kept many of them hidden, so you can surprise them from time to time.

Put some regular scheduled surprises here and there.

 

[Macha]

Trickle it slowly.

And carefully.

Use condoms!

 

[SwordSong]

Question: does the reader need to immediately know all of these worldbuilding details to understand your story?

Personally I care more about the characters, their goals, values, relationships, etc. rather than the mechanics of their world, and any exposition about world should come through this context. Random info dump that isn't really necessary from the scene, or even outright distract from it, will actually make me less interested to know about the world.

e.g.
Bad exposition: During a fight scene, the main character is defending themselves from an enemy attack. In the middle of the sequence, the narration stops to explain the magic metal used to make the weapon they used, the properties of the metal, and how it interacts with other materials, how its unique abilities can be activated, etc. and the action grinds to a halt.

Better exposition: During the fight, the weapon does something unexpected, and the main character is confused. They take it to the blacksmith to ask about it, and the blacksmith gives an explanation about the metal used to forge the weapon and the specific properties of the metal that resulted in the earlier surprise, and teaches the main character how to activate it properly.

 

[Lysander_Works]

I would rather be baffled for a little while. The exposition should be exposed gradually over time, if possible. Even I struggle with this, so it isn't easy to get right...