Another writing tip! Now that I'm not doing 11-hour days at my irl job, I want to start putting out more content on FA :3


So, while writing, I don’t put down details or background that isn’t relevant. Doing that bombards the reader with information, and trying to suddenly memorize a huge amount of info is overwhelming and unpleasant.

Example:

“We need to stop the bad guys,” said Character, thinking back to everything he’d ever been through. He remembered that time he first met the bad guys, and all their secrets that were already dealt with and taken care of in another story that will never come up ever again. While thinking about it, he reviewed all of his memories and thoughts on the matter, making sure anyone listening would get pulled out of the current story before getting to the point.”


In addition, I find it can create false foreshadowing, since the readers are trying to parse the info for things to remember. If you go out of your way to mention something very specific, it can stand out as something that might be important enough to come up again. It becomes a red herring for the story that the reader is looking out for, and then leaves the end feeling incomplete.


An alternate idea:

“We need to stop the bad guys,” said Character, thinking about what happened that caused this. Then he thought about what he was going to do next, based on what he knew to expect, briefly explaining how he knew the thing.”


Sample Text with how I'd write it:

“We need to stop the Glitarians,” said Rangavar. The last time they’d gotten away, they’d been impossible to find. They were a race of dragons that could disappear without a trace, so they needed to be stopped before escaping again.


It's a few sentences that give an exact explanation and why it's relevant, without removing the reader from the story to go on and on.