: Re: How to avoid the 'magic explanation' info dump in Fantasy novels In the second book of his Inheritence Cycle, Christopher Paolini makes the grievous error of landing his main character in the

@Pierce369

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I wanted to give another answer that goes in a different direction than my first. Write down every detail about what you're dumping about. Then look at each detail. Is it REALLY vital that the character know everything that there is to know about the entire history and every nuance of the magic? Probably not. You may feel it's vital, but it's probably not. If it's vital to the story, you can work it in little bits at a time later, but I see no need to do huge dumps that explain 200 years of history in one sitting.

Let's say you had a guest over that had no experience at all with electricity. They say it's dark and they'd like some light in the room. They are standing next to the light switch. What do you do?

Do you tell them the history of electricity and the invention of the lightbulb? Do you tell them all of the science involved to make it work? Do you tell them about how the house was wired with copper and how electricity comes from a power station far away? Do you tell them all the other things you can do with electricity besides make lights?

No! You tell them that there's a thing next to them called a switch. If they wiggle it, the light will turn on. They may be fascinated and ask all sorts of question later, but chances are that if they've never been exposed to electricity, they won't even know what questions to ask until they've been around it longer and notice that it seems to work in predictable ways.

You might step outside a day later and point to the telephone poles and say that electricity comes to the houses through them. You might be cooking and show them how electricity makes the stove hot. If you dumped out all of this info at once the poor guy would have no idea what you're talking about.

Also, as a writer, it may be important for you to know everything, but the reader doesn't really have to know what you know. You have to know it so your rules. Of magic are consistent, but really, the characters don't have to know everything in the world about it to understand it well enough to use it.

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