How's my exposition or lack there of

NGChloe 2025-05-04 23:25:57 UTC #1

When writing Glassflower, I've written a lot of the chapters with the idea of interpretation in mind.

Part of it was due to the character limitation, but my hope essentially was to encourage readers to pick up information as they go along, picking up information based on context clues and the events of the story. Like Signa Mortis are never quite explained, but one of them is the narrator and another is referenced like a deity to be worshipped in chapter 4, giving the reader the impression they're gods to be worshipped.

Then stuff like Colour Magic, Possessed and Disaster Beasts were more meant to figure out through bits and pieces. We don't know what a Possessed is in Chapter I, but in chapter III, we see Setsune is haunted by a Disaster Beast. What a Disaster Beast is, is more or less not given much explanation. That was one meant to be picked up as we went along, my hope was that the name should give enough explanation in itself for the readers to get a vague idea. Then Colour Magic is mostly explained through action, since each of the six(technically 8) colours has distinct traits they fall into. A lot of stuff like that.

However, a reoccurring feedback I've received is that people are confused as to what things are. I'm planning to ease people in a lot more when i do the novelization, as I may have thrown people into the deep end with the early the early chapters. There are only three chapters before we get to the big action after all, and we only spend 2 chapters in a more relaxed part of the world. However, if its really that bad, I would be willing to plan out a side project where I reworked the first two chapters into eight chapters that acclimated the reader better. A teaser as to what I'd like to work on with the novelization.

I might do it anyways, but I would like to hear some feedback as to whether the issues are that bad. I still won't directly explain what the Aeternum are though, that's meant to be more built up.

barewatbard 2025-05-07 17:47:12 UTC #2

A lot of the exposition comes down to reader-preference and ability to focus. Some people hate exposition or info dumps and want to get into the action, and others need the explanations in order to make sense of what's going on. Maybe casual readers who are just tuning in for a quick read during a busy commute will be less able to take in the new information. So I guess it's a matter of who's your target audience.

I only read chapter 1 Echoes of the Bear for now (might come back later though, it looked interesting). Honestly, that prologue sounds interesting, but there's maybe a bit too much going on - new names, new concepts, histories to remember. It's a bit overwhelming, especially since the names are pretty "foreign", making them maybe harder to remember. I wonder if this part scares off new readers? Could it be told less as a textbook and more like a fairytale or juicy gossip?

It gets easier at the start of the chapter proper, once you understand who Lena and Setsune are. The dialogue is easier to handle and there are job titles and such to help you understand their role in the world. Maybe a couple of details could be added to make the first scene clearer from the first sentence so that the reader can picture it in their mind easier. What or where is this stage? Theatre comes to mind first, but it seems to be a court. Is "The woman" in white kimono the samurai mentioned in the previous sentence, or Setsune, also mentioned in the previous sentence?

There are quite a few descriptions of what people and their clothes look like. This is good, but could there maybe also be similar descriptions of what the place looks like? For example, when they hit the button, where is this button, where did it even come from? Maybe what it looks like. If you first describe it in the text, you draw the reader's attention to it gently. The reader goes 'huh, that's odd, there's a button in my medieval Japan story'. Then you say that the characters hit the button and stuff happens. The reader can go 'oh, that kind of button, wow it's a scifi story'.