Let There Be Light
Another workshop I give includes effective ways to reveal the world of your story to your reader. The instruction is built around the concept if incremental revelation, slowly drawing your reader into your story a little bit at a time. In the workshop, I focus on three main techniques of incremental revelation.
The best way to reveal the world of your story to your readers is to show it to them rather than telling them about it. One superb example of this technique is Kevin J. Anderson's Clockwork Angels. The opening scene of this book shows two characters in an apple orchard, but from their interaction, the reader is exposed to many aspects of this fantasy world.
This technique applies just as much to "real-world" settings as it does to fantasy worlds. Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada is another excellent example, especially when it comes to revealing her characters.
Another powerful technique for revealing your world is expansion. This simply means you start revealing your world from a confined space and then open it out, slowly bringing in more and more details as they are needed to move the story forward.
The Devil Wears Prada was the example used the first time I was ever exposed to this technique. The story starts inside a car on a busy New York City street. We are slowly told what the character is wearing (giving us insight into her personality), and then what is happening on the street, and then what her boss is like, etc. Each revelation builds on the previous ones and tells us a little more about the world in which the main character lives.
As you expand your story, showing your world to your reader, you must always consider what is important to the character and to the story. A lot of these decisions will ride on which point of view you are writing. It is more critical (and easier) to apply this technique when writing in first person, but applying it to third person POV can be very effective, as well.
The Unvanquished, by William Faulkner, is a great example. The main character is a young boy living on a Mississippi plantation during the Civil War. He is introduced playing a game of war behind the smokehouse with his best friend. We don't find out for several pages that his friend is the son of slaves. What's important to the main character, and to the story, is that they are friends, not their social standing.
By combining the techniques of "show; don't tell," "expansion," and "importance," you can reveal your world to your reader incrementally and slowly draw them into the story, making them a part of it rather than a spectator.
Show; Don't Tell
The best way to reveal the world of your story to your readers is to show it to them rather than telling them about it. One superb example of this technique is Kevin J. Anderson's Clockwork Angels. The opening scene of this book shows two characters in an apple orchard, but from their interaction, the reader is exposed to many aspects of this fantasy world.
This technique applies just as much to "real-world" settings as it does to fantasy worlds. Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada is another excellent example, especially when it comes to revealing her characters.
Expansion
Another powerful technique for revealing your world is expansion. This simply means you start revealing your world from a confined space and then open it out, slowly bringing in more and more details as they are needed to move the story forward.
The Devil Wears Prada was the example used the first time I was ever exposed to this technique. The story starts inside a car on a busy New York City street. We are slowly told what the character is wearing (giving us insight into her personality), and then what is happening on the street, and then what her boss is like, etc. Each revelation builds on the previous ones and tells us a little more about the world in which the main character lives.
Importance
As you expand your story, showing your world to your reader, you must always consider what is important to the character and to the story. A lot of these decisions will ride on which point of view you are writing. It is more critical (and easier) to apply this technique when writing in first person, but applying it to third person POV can be very effective, as well.
The Unvanquished, by William Faulkner, is a great example. The main character is a young boy living on a Mississippi plantation during the Civil War. He is introduced playing a game of war behind the smokehouse with his best friend. We don't find out for several pages that his friend is the son of slaves. What's important to the main character, and to the story, is that they are friends, not their social standing.
Incremental Revelation
By combining the techniques of "show; don't tell," "expansion," and "importance," you can reveal your world to your reader incrementally and slowly draw them into the story, making them a part of it rather than a spectator.
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