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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 2555638" data-attributes="member: 5171">Dialogue. I almost always do my setting through dialogue. I also do my characterizations through dialogue. Sometimes I do my action scenes through dialogue. In fact, in situations where I can't use dialogue, my setting becomes... bad. I once received a critique (from a good friend and fellow writer) who irately said, in regards to my Victorian fantasy murder mystery, "Your description of London consists ENTIRELY of cobblestones and fog!"I'm a bit better these days, but setting is almost always a second-draft thing for me. And for vital worldbuilding information, I almost always do it through a conversation. That lets me get the information across and establish the characters who are having the conversations -- so it serves two purposes. (I remember someone telling me that if I couldn't come up with three reasons that a given line needed to be in a story, it shouldn't be there. Right now, I'm happy with two.)So a world introduction conversation with characters who we've only known for a chapter or two might go something like:Biff: I can't believe your father accepted a trade contract to deliver to Harovia.Chet: Don't start with me. I've already heard half the town telling me who my father should or shouldn't be trading with. I didn't hear anyone offering to pay the djinn-price on our lands for us this winter, so until then, they can mind their own business.Biff: Relax. It's not for me to judge who your famiily trades with to keep their land. Demon's hells, if my grandfather had been a better trader himself, our family might be trading today instead of breaking our backs hauling ifrit-stone to pay for our quarters.Chet: Yeah, but then you wouldn't have those shoulders that all the girls like.Biff: Anyway, it's not that I mind your father trading with Harovia. It's just agreeing to deliver, and having you make the run. Isn't he afraid of, well...Chet: The nightwalkers? You're afraid of the nightwalkers of Harovia? Hah! Do you also leave a bowl of milk by your doorstep for the silver fae?Biff: I'm not afraid of anything, trader-boy! I just... if I die, I want it to be in honest battle. And I don't want to come lurching out of the grave to serve some Harovian necrothurge after I do.Chet: Well, I don't plan on dying at all on this run, so just relax.Biff: You're really not frightened of them at all?Chet: Even if they do exist, they're still nothing compared to the djinn. Once you've smelled the brimstone and seen the fire in their eyes, not much else can scare you..... and so forth. (Although I'd never do it for that long unless really cool stuff was happening between the dialogue lines, something that could hold the reader's interest.)Good luck on your novel! Let us know how it goes!</blockquote>

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