: "The flux capacitor--it's what makes time travel possible." When to keep world-building explanations short Gosh, I really think I'm quite clever sometimes. But what about those situations where

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I feel like the conciseness of the explanation of the Flux Capacitor was to point out both characters' personalities and the mysterious nature of the device.

Here we have Marty, who really doesn't have much of a head for science, despite hanging out with the town's resident mad scientist. Then we have Doc, who is established as an unstable, but more importantly, misunderstood scientific genius.

And lastly we have the Flux Capacitor, a device which did not emerge from carefully-developed theory but from head trauma. While Doc presumably spent a lot of time developing the device in the thirty years between his rather appropriate clock-hanging accident and the completion of the Time Machine, it would seem the basic theory came from the head trauma. As with many time travel stories, the time travel mechanic is mysterious in nature and almost feels brought about by destiny itself (which is a theme in the story).

It was important for Doc's explanation of the Flux Capacitor to be unsatisfactorily brief in order to accomplish all of those goals:

Marty doesn't really care how it works, and wouldn't understand if Doc tried. Hence his not asking for further clarification.
Doc remains misunderstood, as we aren't allowed to see any line of reasoning that brought him to the invention of the Flux Capacitor. In fact, there is no line of reasoning, which confirms the suspicions of the principal, Mr. Strickland.
The Flux Capacitor remains a mysterious device resulting from a freak happenstance rather than something rational that the audience can understand.

Compare and contrast with a scene from Batman Begins:

Lucius Fox: [Bruce Wayne is recovering after being poisoned by Scarecrow] I analyzed your blood, isolating the receptor compounds and the protein-based catalyst.
Bruce Wayne: Am I meant to understand any of that?
Lucius Fox: Not at all, I just wanted you to know how hard it was. Bottom line, I synthesized an antidote.

This scene also accomplishes the goal of making Fox's procedure sound beyond comprehension, but establishes Fox as extremely rational and competent instead of unstable.

So it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Think about what it means for the explanation to exist, what it means for a character to say it, and what it means for other characters to hear/react to it.

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You really should only explain something if it helps define the purpose of your story. Remember that the story is a piece of art, and as such it is to convey a feeling (or set of feelings) to the audience.

Things can change based on perspective. For example, in first person, Mark may go on and on about the "legs on that girl", because your trying to get the audience to understand that Mark is a "legs man" and a bit of "dog". In third person, you may only mention that Mark was staring at "that girls legs" for what seemed like hours. There's no reason to go into detail. In both cases, you got the point across. The "girl" and her legs may not even be a plot point beyond setting up "Mark" and his state of mind and attitudes.

There is often a desire to "geek out" on explanations. But it generally doesn't help the story too much. A famous example would be Star Wars and "midichlorians". We watched and loved the first three movies, with out knowing anything about midichlorians. "The force" was just a thing that did stuff. In episode 1, when it was explained into the story, it kinda sucked, it was a disappointment. It wasn't needed, and the story would have been better off (though some may disagree) if Qui Gon Jinn just said "The force is unusually strong with this one" and moved on.

Even the "dump" from The Matrix, helped set up the plot. It explained that the world was not what it seems, and that humans are D-Cell batteries. That "the machines" are the enemies. All important parts. By contrast the "Architect Speech" is often thought of as one of the worst parts of the trilogy. We were much happier when Neo just did awesome action things, without having to get into the mechanics of why. Agent Smith was Neo's enemy, that was good enough, we didn't need more.

In The Wheel of Time Series, there is "The one power", we don't know how it works. It comes from the "good guys" part of the "source". We know there is a Male part, and a Female part. We know about differences between both parts. But we never really get the full picture. The glimpses we do get either further the plot (Men go crazy, Women don't. Rand has to teach him-self, kinda.) or serve to highlight one of the main themes of the story (Men and women are different). By that same token, I don't remember there being a sex scene with Matt in the entire series (maybe with the queen, but I don't think so), but you certainly know he likes the ladies, and likes getting into trouble with them.

So, the point is, unless your are making a point, or furthering a plot. Let the magic be magic. No one know how Harry Potter magic works other then is has something to do with wands some times, or words other times, and either you got it or you don't.

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Do you build on it?

Sometimes the device is something your story needs, but doesn't need to dwell on; sometimes the story revolves around it as a central conceit.

For example, let's take the power requirements of the flux capacitor in Back To The Future. The plot arc of the first film revolves around its staggering requirements -- the uranium leads to Doc getting shot in 1985, strands Marty in 1955 with only one shot at returning to his own timeline via a lightning strike. So much information, which is directly driving the plot.

In the sequel, it's completely resolved -- Mr. Fusion provides all the power the flux capacitor needs; briefly displayed occasionally but otherwise entirely irrelevant and no longer requiring the audience's attention.

We need to know about the power requirements to comprehend the plot and the issues are front and centre, brought up early, foreshadowed; but when it is no longer plot relevant we place a fig-leaf over it and no longer draw attention to it.

Explaining the limitations and requirements of your time-travel solution are critical, especially if you want to play with them later; 88 mph is established early on, and only really becomes relevant in episode 3.

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It's a Your Mileage May Vary situation, but I think there are two good rules of thumb:

1) Explain only as much as you need for the story to make sense. This will vary depending on your audience, but roughly, anything specialized to your world or your story will need a minimum of explanation. Your readers are, at a baseline, familiar with 2017 (today's) technology. Anything set after that (or before it) will need to be accounted for. Today, if Person A wants to contact Person B, s/he pulls a cell phone out of his/her pocket. In 1942, you had to find a physical phone. In 1895, you had to send a telegram or a letter. In 2060, we might have data transmission chips in our heads, so you only have to think the message.

You need to explain what the chip is, and that a message sent from one chip to another is called a shunt, or shunting. What you don't need to do is explain is how the chip actually works. You have to establish that your character has a chip which can send and receive, you need to run through the procedure of Activate Chip — New Message — Address Book — Compose — Send or however it works the first time, and then that's it. Don't belabor the details. After that, it's "Betty sent a quick shunt to Carl about dinner. He shunted back //sure, sounds fine//, so she made the reservation for eight."

2) Explain only what matters for the story. Your alien city may have a magnificent monorail circling it, and in your worldbuilding backstory you had a whole two-year political fight about getting the permits and securing the space and protests and jobs and pollution and people buying and selling land and so forth, but if the only time the character sees the monorail is on approach... you don't need to tell the reader any of the backstory. It's not relevant. The only details you need to share are the ones which affect plot and character.

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