How do you explain your world building?

[Chocolate]

Do you try to explore/explain your world-building on the first chapter? At the end of each chapter? Or let the world unfold as the story progresses?

To follow up with that: which is a good strategy to explain your world-building in your story?

[DiegoPalacios]

Personally i'm a big fan of the "show, don't tell" principle, but when an explanation becomes necessary for the story i try to make them happen in an organic and interesting way

[TommyJShizuko]

So when I'm reading a comic I like to see establishing shots of the world and visually explore it. Give the reader a chance to figure it out. It's okay if the reader doesn't know everything about the world, I personally plan out when I reveal facts about it very carfully, usually under the premise that there's a time and a place to explain it. I might use blocks of text to further explain a system or a place in more detail if it's necessary and I can't explain it organically. My eyes get tired easily so I usually skip any lore dump at the beginning of a story unless they can make it visually interesting. That is, the story is visually showing movement to establish the setting while the lore is presented by a narrator and not an inner monologue.

That's my two cents anyway.

[Chocolate]

Avatar the Last Airbender explain its world building and how each nation is divided. Did you think that was a breath of fresh air explaining the lore for each element up front?

[TommyJShizuko]

I love the avatar opening it very quickly demonstrates the "magic system" and history with maps and benders. Even if it is narrated by a character, I have my preferences but I accept well done exceptions.

[DiegoPalacios]

this is a great example of well excecuted worldbuilding exposition because it's concise and straight to the point while showing fascinating visual elements to hook viewers.

[bronte448]

I let it happen over the course of the story in A Fresh Friend, but I think I'll try other methods when I move on to other stories.

[TommyJShizuko]

For your follow up question I think it's a matter of how much is there and how much needs to be explored. For example the setting for my story is one that I've been building since 2008 there's a lot to explore but the main character of my current work doesn't need to know much about it as most of it doesn't pertain to his journey (my comic is an Isekai). So instead of giving a block of text on the history I'm hiding it in the backgrounds and subtext for curious readers to look for and theorize about if they're interested.

So something I like to do is establish a status quo for the world so the reader can get an idea of what a day in the life of your average person is like. One of the downsides though is that it can be a very slow way of "showing not telling". If you're trying to get a readers attention quickly it may not work in your favor. I use this method and my comic is long and slow paced because of it.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I also think shows could get away with lore dump more often than comics. A lore intro sequence that feels awesome when animated with music playing might feel boring when in a static form with no music.

So instead of giving a block of text on the history I'm hiding it in the backgrounds and subtext for curious readers to look for and theorize about if they're interested ...

... One of the downsides though is that it can be a very slow way of "showing not telling"

For this reason, I also think video games have an advantage over comics for communicating lore. Video games can hide the lore in places the player chooses to explore, but if the player wants things to move along quickly, they can do so. No such luxury for a comic reader, who needs to go at the pace set by the author

In short, comics are a difficult medium to work with, and we should not be ashamed if our portrayal of lore doesn't match up to that of our favourite shows and video games!

[allenT]

Let the world unfold as story progress. Also it's a bottom-up worldbuilding for mine.

I don't have lore expositions in my main series (yet, possibly will at some point but very little). Since The story focuses on just 2 remote places & character dramas. The worldbuilding comes from the backdrops, events or props/items along with the story without descriptions. (I however explains some world lore in the comic extras, as well as other details on the worldbuilding.)

edit: em I do have descriptions in my comic when in-world terms appeared in order to clarify readers (they really small short descriptions on the comic gutter )

[Lensing]

Give the reader the minimum they need to know and is important for the story and like Diego wrote, "show don´t tell"

As a reader I want to explore a world slowly and their has to be a lot of room for fantasy, that´s what makes stories
interesting

[darthmongoose]

Lore dumps in Errant are largely optional extras thrown in at the end of chapters. Understanding the main plot of the story doesn't really require a person to know things like the names of different demon categories or how the magic spectrum works.
Anything that's actually vital, I try to work in as organically as I can. Interestingly in the earliest drafts, Rekki and Subo already knew each other and had been working together for months, and a major reason I changed that so Subo meets Rekki in chapter 1 is that as a knight who doesn't know Rekki and isn't super-dedicated to his job, Subo is a really handy person to have characters explain things to!

[miniscule]

You kinda have to make the reader feel like they're really there.

This can come in the form of slang, cultural actions, the scenery and ways of living. Basically those simple slice of life elements that juxtapose with the action happening throughout the comic.

Moomin (the anime) is a fantastic show that does this really well.

[igneriss]

If something from the lore is very important to the story, it's going to be mentioned in a conversation between my characters or it just happens at some point- not really in the first chapter, and not all at once, just bits here and there to avoid turning it into a lecture.

I have bigger info dumps in extras series (and at the end of first few chapters because I didn't have extras serie back then, plus for webtoons), but reading those is not necessary to understand what's going on, it's just additional info if a reader is interested.

[CommissarTarkin]

That is actually a very good question, one I was thinking of posting myself. Additional lore in the form of extras can be incredibly interesting for the readers, but I think these extras should not be mandatory for the readers to understand what's going on in the main story. So the most plot-relevant aspects of the world have to be shown - otherwise, people might get confused and some plot twists can look like they came completely out of nowhere, even if they are already established somewhere in the extra reading materials.

[faisalhussein394]

I am very interested in lore and exposition even if the MC is not there to interact.

I have made the prologue an exposition so that the readers will know what the main protagonist is going to deal with.

I did receive feedback, and aside from finding it interesting, they said it looked and felt very historical. They are talking about the background tales of the Nine Kingdoms of Araby in my comic; Mukhtar.

The prologue is done, and finally it is in its first chapter with the Main character.

[Lady_T_Musings]

I just jumped folks right on into the story. I figure if folks really wanna know more about the world, they will stay to find out or ask questions. The world is revealed through getting to know the charters and following them as they explore it anyway.

The cast uses magic pretty casually and the cast isn't all human, and though the comic is in English, the people of MM! have their own key phrases and inventions that allude to the otherness of the world in comparison to earth that I use to try and fill in the world of Magos.

[RobertBMarks]

There are two problems with a massive world-building infodump at the start:

1. While you're infodumping, you're not, well, telling the story.

2. You're kind of relying on the read to then remember what you've told them later on.

So, the best way to do it really is to just reveal details as they become relevant (and, for best results, as your characters encounter them).

Also, keep in mind that the reader will know how they should react to something by how your characters react to it, so whenever you can, introduce worldbuilding in such a way that your characters can react in some manner to it.

That's my two cent's worth, anyway.

[powerplantanimations]

I drip feed my little baby subscribers. That's before a hiatus point where I just grab a bucket and just pour everything. And then I slowly... starve them for more. That's when I drip feed them again. They'll be begging for that bucket, but they'll only get the dropper. That's right my babies. Only the dropper.

[TheLemmaLlama]

That's right my babies. Only the dropper.

Nooo Imma big boi!!

grabs bucket

spills lore all over my shirt