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Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago

The story I'm currently working on has a prologue, a background information page describing your family and town, and then the "true" page 1 which starts in the middle of some action. Obviously the prologue will be first, but should I put the background information about the character and the setting as the first thing you see after the prologue, or make it an optional link at the end of the first of list choices available on the first page of the action?

The only storygame that comes to mind that dealt with this is Endmaster's Necromancer. The first page sort of describes where you begin, and then you have the link where the story really starts (go to the library) and an optional link that leads to five other links that describe various topics relevant to the setting. It works for that story, but my "background info" page is just one page describing your town, your parents, and your early childhood. There are no other links.

The down side of immediately following the prologue with the background information page is that, well, action is more fun. Also I don't know if going from "ominous" in the prologue to "peaceful town" and then to "immediate action" flows very well. But on the other hand maybe a pace break is good?

So what do you think I should do? Prologue, background, then action? Or Prologue, start the action, but leave an optional link at the end of the first choice links?

Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago
Unless your first main story page is going to be confusing without the background information, I'd say put the background page in a link there rather than with the prologue. That way the reader has a little time to get into the story and WANTS to know more background rather than feeling like some Quotev story that starts off, "you have long (y/hc) hair and glittering (y/ec) orbs. Your mom is a dentist, and your dad was a police officer before he died of alcohol poisoning."

Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago
If infodump are necessary in the first place I'd like to at least start the story before getting hit by them. Otherwise it's just being expected to memorize a biography or history lesson regarding someone I don't care about at all yet.

Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago

First did it in Paradise Violated

Also did it in Geek, Alpha Wolf, Death Song, The Good Girl, Innkeeper and a whole lot in Eternal.

I try to avoid doing it nowadays, but that's more out of laziness than anything else.

Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago
I think of infodumps as being the lazy route tbh.

Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago

I dunno, never understood the whole aversion to “info-dumps” as long as they were optional which is why I got the idea to separate them from the main story back when I first started doing Paradise Violated.

I sort of do two versions of them. “Background World Lore” and “Extra Story Fluff”

Background World Lore is the common one where you’re literally adding more background lore to the world, people, places, events, etc. I usually do it because I feel like some of it is important/interesting, but I can see where it would potentially bog down the main story (Which in my case, is usually 6 pages of Word text per CYS page to begin with) so I make it separate.

Extra story fluff is sort of stuff that I think is important to the main story, however I don’t really have a good way to place it into the main storyline without slowing things down, so it becomes a side bit with a single link to it. It's available if you want more story gaps filled in.

A good example of what I’m talking about are the letters William writes to his family in Death Song, or some of the extra events that occur in Eternal (Like the bit of traveling to Rask to kill Kane, or finding various letters, etc.)

Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago
I like the way you do it because it's convenient for rereads and if I want to find a bit of info without reading the whole thing.
Plus I really like background lore. So having one or a few spots dedicated to it is really nice.

Background information first, or jump right in?

4 years ago
Well that was an overwhelming majority. I was leaning that way anyway, so I guess that's what I'll do.