So I wrote a book about how I wrote my books. In it, I covered things like lore, character development, dialog, and planning. I thought, what if I showed some of my chapters here.
What you'll find below is one of the chapters from my book "How I wrote my books, And you can too." I hope it helps someone, but I'll understand if no one bothers to read it. Still, if you do read it and get anything from it, I'd ask that you let me know. Also, feel free to check out some of my books and see how I used some of my advice to put together my work.
https://tapas.io/11keys/series
Chapter 4- Lore
Everyone loves Lore. Back story and hidden secrets are like precious gems to most writers. A lot of times, we'll have elaborate answers to problems we haven't even written yet because lore is fun. We'll concoct complex histories, ecosystems, currency, and even biology. And there's nothing wrong with that, but honestly, you probably won't use most of it.
This is a perfect time to teach you a crucial rule.
When using research, lore, or anything that builds up your imaginary world, use information to tell your story, don't use your story to tell information. You aren't writing a research paper. Any research, lore, or backstory you come up with should only be added to the story to give it flavor and to build up the narrative. If you're writing a war story, chances are you won't need five pages of detail over what kind of birds migrate from the west. Include relevant information. Never bog down your story with things that distract from the Purpose. You want to be colorful and illustrate your world, but understand that not everything needs to have a moment in the spotlight.
If you don't know if you should add something in or take something out, you can ask these questions:
Can my story go on without the inclusion of this information?
Will the reader understand what is going on without this information?
Did this information add anything to the narrative, such as flavor, character motivation, or the construction of plot points?
Do I only want to include this information because I think it's cool?
As another general rule, if you have more lore written than your actual story, you have too much lore. This is a common pitfall that a lot of writers get stuck in. People will spend years writing thousands of pages worth of lore but never begin writing or finishing a single chapter of their book. Lore is fun because most of the time, it's full of exciting ideas, but those ideas aren't worth much if they never make it into the narrative. Don't be one of the ones to get stuck in this trap; it's extremely difficult to get free of.