What are some effective ways to introduce a fantasy world to your main character without information dumping?

Last Updated: 02.07.2025 03:00

What are some effective ways to introduce a fantasy world to your main character without information dumping?

I used to have an exposition problem.

Because I love world-building. I love writing about world-building. I have folders of “stories” on my hard drive that consist of world-building and nothing else, no plot, no character, no nothing, just pages after pages of history, geography, magic system, religion, culture, government, organizations, history of ruling families and their political struggle …

This way, you’re giving readers crucial information to help them understand the plot and the characters, not just information-dumping random facts.

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Occasionally, I will write an entire scene (or multiple scenes) unrelated to the main plot for the sole purpose of exposition.

One trick I learned is to give only enough world-building exposition for readers to understand what’s happening at this very moment and nothing more. Every time your character runs into something that either the character or you think your reader might not understand, do exposition just enough for the readers to understand what’s going on in this very scene, and move on with your plot and character development. The idea is that your world-building should serve the character and the plot. If an exposition does not serve the immediate plot advancement or character development, your readers do not need to know it.

When I first started doing this, I was so afraid that this would make my story less rich in detail and the world less interesting. Especially when some of the major criticism against a few high-profile YA Romantasy is that their world-building is paper thin; it’s like anything beyond the immediate plot and character does not exist in this world. One example of this is the Fourth Wing. And I want to avoid that.

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But it turns out that if you spend time building a rich world, it will come through your story even if you don’t intentionally do exposition. In fact, it will come out naturally and more engaging through your plot and character development.

That’s bad writing. I later learned that nobody likes to read about world-building. People read stories for plots and characters, not for an encyclopedia of various random facts about some fantasy worlds.

2) Since I usually write in third person omniscient or third person limited, I’ll write exposition as part of third person narration.

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So try minimum exposition, only tell your readers the information that immediately relates to your current scene and characters, and move on. Let the world-building trickle in this way rather than giving them infodumps.

1) I had an exposition machine character to explain to the main character (the readers).

Usually, I used the most common way to give information to the reader:

Hello,hope y'all doin good, i came to Quora to share my strange story , a very weird one , a story when luck smiled at me ,maybe u will enjoy it , let's begin,have fun... A year ago ,I was a real porn addicted(btw I was 18) ,but never had sex before, I don't have a gf I didn't try to find one even ,always thinking to go to find a sex worker but then I just don't , everyday watching different bodies getting fucked and everyday enjoying. One day, I was watching porn, a big ass lady with big boobs ,just after seeing her the image of my female cousin poped in my mind, (let's introduce her : she's 35 years old , very big ass , nice boobs ,not very big but nice,always wearing tight clothes , she's divorced ) and I thought of me fucking her ,I never had sexual desires for her but now I do days went by and when I met her I was so horny ,I couldn't stay with the family cz my penis was clearly erected , I realized this is my first time I get horny for one of my family ,it not illegal in my country.well to make a long story short( if u want details just text me I will tell u 😊),I decided to give her signs that I want to fuck her,finally I decided to have sex and with my cousin , I thought it is the best beggining for me, i started touching her when I came across her in a narrow place , make her feel my hard cock when we hug , I thought it will hard and I will be ashamed but no , I felt nothing and she said nothing , probably she thought it was by mistake,anyways, I decided then to talk with her about sex, waited for her to be alone in a room and talk with her, I confessed everything about me watching porn and addicted..etc,she said it's normal and u are growing up and u must have sex,well at that time I was like whaaat????? Well I didn't control myself and asked her for sex ( horny like I Ve never been before) she said that she will think Abt it ,2 weeka went by then she called me ,telling that she reserved a room in a hotel and we meet tonight ,we met,and bruuhh, sex is great , I mean, I had to find a pirstitue ,what I was waiting for to have such a feeling ????, I will never forget that night, I started kissing her she was kissing hard ,she misses sex so bad , she sucked my dick and swallowed my semen ,I felt I'm in a dream , then when fucked ,her ass was very big and the anus was open ,didn't struggle to get my hard cock inside it , she was obviously missing sex , she was shouting ,fuck me yh fuck me , I go fast after every word until I cum , we did that 3 times , then we went to her pussy , using condoms I fucked her so hard the moans were higher , everything was perfect ,in the end I asked her to lick her body , licked pussy ,ass, boobs,then she sucked my cock until we sleeped ,all I know that she was dirty ,well before even having sex with her I knew she is an open minded woman , and a woman that looks that she donesnt know anything , but she knows everything, but never expected having sex with her ,well she was horny and that helped...but no one of us regretted that sex ever.. We still have sex from time to time ,and I started having sex with sex workers , joining threesomes..etc If u want pics of her text me.