: Re: Cutting down story length without leaving out locations I'd like to write a story and I have plenty of elements for it, up to and including a set of locations, characters and events, as well

@Rambettina586

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What do your readers really need to know about location #73 in book 1? They probably don't need a scene there, with the landscape and biodiversity described in intimate purple prose. Oh, sure, you can have that for location #5 . But at this stage, a lot of locations can be referred to in passing in dialogue, and the reader can infer the rest. For example, if there was a widespread problem affecting multiple regions, a leader could receive an advisor's summary of what's happening:

A's reporting civil unrest among the goblin slaves. Spies think B's about to invade C. And the plague has already decimated D.

Obviously your place names won't be single letters, and feel free to drop a few more species names, but that's the idea.

Of course, that's just one example of how dialogue can tell us something. It's probably not even the best one, because it has something of an infodump feel (although you can improve that by fleshing out the characters' reactions through their expressions and movements). Another option is to show how group A feels about group B through the way a member of one mocks a member of another. And a group C member's sticking up for the victim, which adds even more information, has the added benefit of giving the scene some conflict.

Those are just some ideas for you to play around with. If you revisit your favourite works that have a similar difficulty to yours, be they books, films or TV shows, you'll notice little time-saving tricks like this everywhere.

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