What info does the reader need right away?

Wiglaf

Wiglaf

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In the first few pages, what does the reader need. I'm looking for what I shouldn't dribble in later. For example, if my MC is introduced, then I should include any physical description that is referenced later.* What else needs to be known off the bat?

* If Joe is the goes into the cave in chapter 8 because only he can fit, you might want to mention this when we meet him. Otherwise, the reader could have been picturing a 7 foot hulk for the last 7 chapters.
 
I think the answer is, whatever you think the reader needs, or whatever you are prepared to reveal to the reader up-front. Personally, I don't go in for much physical description, and even if Joe needs to be shorter than 5'6" I'm not sure I would rush to tell the reader in the first few pages. If the height thing (or equivalent) were important enough, I might slip that in at the end of the chapter - Fred swung round with a ladder on his shoulder; Joe was glad his pal was six foot tall - he didn't even have to duck.

Really, what the reader 'needs' is a reason to keep reading, which means story, interest, perhaps a bit of intrigue and some conflict with promise of more to come. If Joe is tall enough, or short enough for it to be immediately significant then put it in, otherwise I would say not. (So, at uni, there were five of us on my particular course. If I was going to tell you about them, I would definitely put in very early on that one guy was 6'8" because the rest of us were 5'10 to 6', so one tall guy really stood out, and I might even slip in one of his anecdotes about his equally tall brother, but only because it's entertaining, and adds to the story.)
 
Every reader is different. I'd write what you like to read. Personally, I either like any crucial physical description to be early on or not at all - there's nothing worse than forming an image and then having to change it later on. For me, it's the number one reason I get dragged out of a story and have to get my bearings before starting again. Having said that, I did wait until chapter seven or so to let readers know my character had a disappointing backside... usually though work the description into the first chapter: pushing glasses up a nose, shouting at a fellow redhead etc

My advice is look at your absolute favourite books and see what they do. There are somethings I get feedback on, and now I know I'm not trying for any official publication, I am unrepentant about because they are the way an author I like does things and I like them in my stories (mostly I listen to my beta readers).
 
The ideal is to give the reader the barest minimum visual cues and explain nothing at the start.

Humans are a puzzling-solving ape - picking up a story and not knowing how it might go, but wanting to learn how it develops and resolves, is a big part of its appeal.

Explaining anything at the start not only can prevent a story from actually starting, but it can also satisfy any initial sense of curiosity by providing immediate answers to immediate questions, thus prevent any need to explore further.

A good story needs to raise interesting questions from the beginning, and answer them only incrementally.

That's just my personal opinion, though. :)

Wiglaf said:
if my MC is introduced, then I should include any physical description that is referenced later
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If a character is described as physically strong, then any later skills requiring physical strength will not come as a shock. But, better to *show* this rather than just state it, if a protagonist. For example, by showing them lifting something heavy or doing something athletic, for example - as opposed to just writing "I looked in the mirror and admired my toned muscles"!
 
Would a mention that the MC goes to the school for the magically challenged be useful?
Her home town is under attack and I don't want to detract from<iframe width="248" height="300" src="What Etruscan Sounded Like - and how we know - YouTube" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allowfullscreen></iframe> that, but as of now there seems to be no reason to care. I want to proceed quickly and give the reader some idea of the character. I keep over shooting one way or the other.
 
A lot can depend of POV and even then you need to be very careful about the things you seem concerned with. Having your POV character list off their appearance and attributes is likely to jar the reader and having them look into the mirror and start listing them off as they catch their eye might require background music of Carly Simon singing You're so vane.

I don't mind the mini synopsis of a character bio now and then; however it can become grating when every new character begins their appearance with just such an interruption to the story.

The things that the reader needs to know have to be inserted as surreptitiously as possible.

However what you might want to focus on in a beginning is introducing some of the character flaws and strengths of your MC and the conflict or at least some important conflict. All of those while weaving the hook to keep the reader reading. You can put in the other as you go.
 
Can you show the character is magically challenged some how - then do a brief mention of the school? That way it's done quickly but forms part of the forward motion of the story.
 
Here's the problem. "The reader" does not exist. This reader does, that reader does, but "the reader" represents an abstraction. The ideal reader. The average reader. The potential reader. As such, you cannot know what will catch that person's attention, what she will miss, what she will trip over. So, you can present what you think is *exactly* the right information at precisely the right time in just the right amounts ... and still lose someone. Not everyone, mind you, but it's guaranteed that somebody out there is absolutely going to be blinking when a piece of information goes by and later will go huh where did that come from.

Happily, you don't have to deal with "the reader." As others have said, you have to please yourself first. You are the First Reader.

Next, you have to show this to your beta reader, critique group, editor (or maybe all three). Hear what they have to say. Very likely, you'll already have some "huh?" moments from them. That's when you can evaluate whether the reader just plain missed it, or you need to revise something. Inevitably there will be moments where you insist it's clear and at least one reader will insist it isn't. Then you make a call.

Finally, you will publish and then you'll hear from "the reader" with the same moments of confusion as above. But you've already published so just shrug and move on.

Notice that none of the above happens until you have actually written something. Asking this sort of question before the fact is an exercise in arm waving. There are a thousand answers, every one of which will be right sometimes and wrong other times.
 
From my view of things I hate "missing" when reading a book;

1) Clear narrative. Try not to jump around "too" much at the start of the story. Sure you can jump around, many fantastic books do jump around, but try to at least give the reader a few anchor points; characters ;events etc.. to hook them into the story and to give them points of reference.

2) Meanings of unique or specialist words. There is nothing more annoying than when a story starts throwing words at the reader that the reader doesn't know what they mean. You don't have to explain them, but you must describe them and their effect so that the reader can at least build a faithful mental image of what is going on.
It's very annoying to have words that are not easily deduced or worked out or to be bamboozled by "technogarble" and to have nothing to really build up the scene in your minds eye. It also throws readers if they sort of try and work it out and then later you reveal it to be something totally different.

Note if you include a glossary at the end do remember to make note of this at the start of the book in some form - remembering that many e-books often start on the first chapter page rather than the cover page ( so they might miss it sometimes ). A glossary (esp for unique terms) can be a huge help to readers; it lets you info-dump without actually info-dumping or interrupting the story; but it should never be used to replace showing the reader the story and the scene.

3) I want to know who the story is about. Even epic sagas with a huge kill-rate of characters often identify the core characters (or some) within the first few pages of the story. The Starks from Game of Thrones - the Bridge Burners from Malazan Book of the Fallen. Even though those series have, but the midpoint let alone the end, many protagonist characters; those who start the story are the ones that originally hook your readers; the ones that will draw them into the story and make them keep reading in those early days. I would thus ensure that your early characters include your main protagonist or at least some of them if you've multiple.

4) World history - this is a tricky one. Sometimes a star-wars style prologue can be a great help in setting a scene and can let you use the narrators voice to cover huge tracks of history of the story in a very short span of time to give a setting that the story is to take place within. I often find that I prefer this to the author showing me a key historical event because it harkens back to point 3 - if your first prologue or chapter is focused on a character setting up the history for my your current then there's a high chance that I might strongly identify and get interested in your prologue character; only to suddenly lose that character one chapter later and never get them back (esp if you take me from the mighty warrior performing epic deeds and then throw Bob the farmer at me for 3 chapters of slow steady build up).



In general I do agree with the show-don't-tell. In my view a book is about allowing the reader to build a picture in their minds eye. The world building infodumping is thus only important in those early chapters, in so far as allowing the reader to build a faithful mental image that will be added to through the story rather than being torn apart and rebuilt.
Note its perfectly fine for that mental image to be changed significantly through events and revelations in the story that happen to the characters - eg if they find out that the sky is, in fact, a huge TV screen rather than a real sky. That kind of revelation is fine because that's part of the progression of the story - of the world changing and thus the mental image advances and the book leads the reader on.
 
Pretty much what Brian said. There is sometimes no need to include ANY physical description of characters, even the MC, unless necessary for some tangible reason. It makes it easier to imagine that the 'hero' is YoU. Sometimes.
 
The opening chapters are bare-boned at the start and as I work through my manuscript, I often go back and add bits and pieces I feel readers should know (and take out stuff they shouldn't!). I'd get too bogged down if I worried about that at the beginning. It's a work in progress until I've completely finished.
 
I am of the opinion that the answer to the OP is 'How long is a piece of string?'

It will depend. Firstly, it will depend on lots of factors that will be personal to you and your story. Therefore I don't think there is a universal list of specifics that you must do. If there was one attempted, I'm sure you'll be able to find good examples that don't follow them.

And I agree with @sknox - all readers are different and will want or accept different ways of writing. (As an example I really don't mind @Overread's point 2 - in fact, if it's handled well, I love being bamboozled right away!)

I will say one thing though (albeit it's really not that useful!): In the first few pages, you do want to give a reader...a reason to continue reading. ;)
 
Brian G Turner said:
Humans are a puzzling-solving ape - picking up a story and not knowing how it might go, but wanting to learn how it develops and resolves, is a big part of its appeal.
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In my opinion, this is the key. And remember, a story doesn't have to be told in sequence. Murder mysteries, for example, frequently start off with the murder, to drag the reader in, without them even knowing who has been murdered and, especially, by whom.
 
Cathbad said:
What info does the reader need right away?

The price of the book? :D

(Okay, okay... I'm leaving!)
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Dunno, this was my favourite answer among a lot of good ones :D

I think for me I need:

A clear description of something interesting happening, frequently involving an open and unanswered question
Mention of anything the author will (not that much) later rely on in cou... err, the story
Explanations of the two if needed to ensure we grasp the logic
 
Overread said:
The world building infodumping is thus only important in those early chapters, in so far as allowing the reader to build a faithful mental image that will be added to through the story rather than being torn apart and rebuilt.
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Don't forget that I started reading your book a year ago, put it down after chapter twelve, then picked it up again and barely remember any of the details about what happened earlier. You don't want to keep repeating info about the setting through the whole book, but there's a certain level of repetition that's useful to leave in so readers don't give up when the realise they'll have to start again from the beginning if they want to understand what's going on.
 
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