The dreaded lore dump: a wall of text or other exposition outlining in excruciating detail the history, language, political environment, or other minutia of a fictional setting. Sometimes this information is necessary for an audience to know to understand a story. Other times it’s not. But always, lore dumping is a problem.

Lore dumping forces an audience to learn about a world instead of experiencing it. It is the difference between reading a travel book and taking a vacation. Pushing an audience into a history lesson can immediately cause them to lose interest while dropping them off in the middle of dangerous ancient ruins is far more exciting.

Lore dumping can be difficult to avoid for a worldbuilder. Afterall, they spent a great deal of time crafting their world and would like to show it off. And unique worlds do take a certain level of explaining for anyone to understand. However, there are ways of showcasing a world that feels more like exploring and less like being lectured at.

Worldbuilders approach the problem of lore dumping in a variety of ways. First and foremost is the idea of showing rather than telling. Contextual clues are often used help with this approach. Worldbuilders will also take the lore for those that want it method. Here worldbuilders place non-critical lore in places like appendixes. This way people who want more information can find it but it isn’t required reading. This can help tailor the lore of a world to an individual audience member all while preserving the depth of the world.

There are also benefits to leaving some things intentionally vague. Providing enough information to understand a world but not enough to be able to answer every question can be used to captivate an audience and leave them wondering and theorizing about the spots left blank. Remember, worldbuilders do not need to reveal everything about a world to an audience.

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