: Re: How much value do publishers and editors place on informative/educational content in fiction stories? I have heard people say that ‘good stories are educational as well as entertaining’. But

@Kaufman555

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Verisimilitude Not Education

To add to Galastel’s great answer, and using your farm example, the details about farms and crops aren’t there to educate the reader (at least, that’s not their primary function), they’re there to provide verisimilitude. To immerse the reader in a real farm and make the story seem realistic enough to be plausible.

Agents and Editors

Agents and editors will want to feel like you understand the world you have created and can write it knowledgeably with telling details. They don’t want to read stories where the characters float around in thin air or in a setting that’s so inaccurate it detracts from the novel.

Frustrating Readers With Lack of Research

Also, as a writer, you don’t want your readers coming back to you and saying, that would never happen on a farm, you clearly haven’t done your research. But you’re right about info-dumping, you don’t want to do that either. The secret is to strike a balance between enough information to create your world and avoiding info-dumps.

Immersive Entertainment

I believe the primary function of a novel is to entertain. If I want to be educated, I turn to non-fiction. But in order to entertain, the world I’m immersing myself in must feel real. And it’s for that reason you need significant details about the realities of your world.

Best of luck with your book!

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