S33E1 - Avoiding the Info Dump: Your World's Politics

Exposition - also known as information dumping - can drag a story down more effectively than any other form of bad writing. When you spend too much time explaining a detail to the reader, they are pulled from the story or lost in the mire of unnecessary details. It boils down to telling instead of showing the story.

One of the most common things to be explained in an info dump is the political structure of your world (especially if you've created your own world and politics tie into the story). It can be difficult to step back from this intricate thing you've created and really see what the reader needs to know. You may want them to know everything, but they don't need all of that in order to understand the story.

There are tricks to explaining a political structure without needing to take paragraphs or pages of space to do it.

First aired June 2, 2022.