What are some effective ways to introduce a fantasy world to your main character without information dumping?

That’s bad writing. I later learned that nobody likes to read about world-building. People read stories for plots and characters, not for an encyclopedia of various random facts about some fantasy worlds.

Because I love world-building. I love writing about world-building. I have folders of “stories” on my hard drive that consist of world-building and nothing else, no plot, no character, no nothing, just pages after pages of history, geography, magic system, religion, culture, government, organizations, history of ruling families and their political struggle …

One trick I learned is to give only enough world-building exposition for readers to understand what’s happening at this very moment and nothing more. Every time your character runs into something that either the character or you think your reader might not understand, do exposition just enough for the readers to understand what’s going on in this very scene, and move on with your plot and character development. The idea is that your world-building should serve the character and the plot. If an exposition does not serve the immediate plot advancement or character development, your readers do not need to know it.

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But it turns out that if you spend time building a rich world, it will come through your story even if you don’t intentionally do exposition. In fact, it will come out naturally and more engaging through your plot and character development.

1) I had an exposition machine character to explain to the main character (the readers).

When I first started doing this, I was so afraid that this would make my story less rich in detail and the world less interesting. Especially when some of the major criticism against a few high-profile YA Romantasy is that their world-building is paper thin; it’s like anything beyond the immediate plot and character does not exist in this world. One example of this is the Fourth Wing. And I want to avoid that.

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Occasionally, I will write an entire scene (or multiple scenes) unrelated to the main plot for the sole purpose of exposition.

So try minimum exposition, only tell your readers the information that immediately relates to your current scene and characters, and move on. Let the world-building trickle in this way rather than giving them infodumps.

Usually, I used the most common way to give information to the reader:

Can you fly an American flag in the UK in your own private property there? What is the UK’s government stance on that? And if yes, do you also have to fly the UK flag or the American flag can fly solo?

2) Since I usually write in third person omniscient or third person limited, I’ll write exposition as part of third person narration.

I used to have an exposition problem.

This way, you’re giving readers crucial information to help them understand the plot and the characters, not just information-dumping random facts.

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