Overwhelming background information

Use this forum to discuss the July 2021 Book of the month, " Worldlines: A Many Worlds Novel" (Many Worlds, #1)" by Adam Guest
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Sushan Ekanayake
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Overwhelming background information

Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

The author has gone too far, as per my opinion, describing the background details when he took the reader to a new scenario. A few examples are the descriptions about the road in the scenario of Gary's nearly missed accident, the details about the campus cafeteria when Sinead took Gary to meet her boyfriend, the details about the train station when Gary went to London to get his girlfriend and the details about the local pub that Gary and Michelle had dinner.

Do you feel the same as me? Could it have been better if the details were a bit less? Did you find it distracting or did you prefer it the way it was?
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Post by Reema Aydieh »

I did notice that too, I feel like the author could have focused more on the story and how the plot progressed than describing things that didn't move the story forward. Maybe that would've worked if things were equally described to draw readers into the world.
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Post by Unsullied »

I loved those descriptions. I was able to get into the new planet through those descriptions. For a fiction, I think those descriptions were very necessary.
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Post by ROSEY-ANN »

Sushan wrote: 01 Jul 2021, 01:00 The author has gone too far, as per my opinion, describing the background details when he took the reader to a new scenario. A few examples are the descriptions about the road in the scenario of Gary's nearly missed accident, the details about the campus cafeteria when Sinead took Gary to meet her boyfriend, the details about the train station when Gary went to London to get his girlfriend and the details about the local pub that Gary and Michelle had dinner.

Do you feel the same as me? Could it have been better if the details were a bit less? Did you find it distracting or did you prefer it the way it was?
I think the descriptions were necessary to soften the book a bit by using imagery. The description made the story seem realistic and provided prevented the book from being monotonous.
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Post by Eriny Youssef »

I feel the same way as you do. As a reader, I don't appreciate too many details about background, or too mich details in general, for the matter. However, I think it differs from one reader to the other. Some top sellers are stacked with details and people love it.

I find it distracting and think the less the better. Concise and to the point is my preference.
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Post by t_mann23 »

I think it's really a matter of preference. Some readers love having lots of details to set them in the scene and others don't. In this case, for the most part, I thought there were the right amount of descriptions and they were helpful.
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Post by jomana_3 »

The detailed description didn't really bother me. Actually, I enjoyed reading these parts, and they helped me understand the characters better. Moreover, I didn't feel that the details were excessive or boring.
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Post by DyanaFl »

I think the descriptions highlighted the fact that the worldlines were similiar with just a slight difference in one or two details (for the most part). I'm not a big fan of drawn out repetitive descriptions, but in this case it didn't bother me as much. I didn't view them as a hindrance.
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Post by Mtibza eM »

No, I think the descriptions were perfect. There worked well in laying the foundation that the story was going to be built on top of. So had the author hurried to properly describe those scenes, most readers would have been confused and lost.
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Post by Reader-247 »

I hate to admit it but at times I would skip indepth details which set the scene because I, just like you, feel that stories are dragged and these details do not add to the plot of the story.
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Post by Akanksha D »

I did feel the same. Sometimes it was ok, but sometimes it was too much. I feel like the book could have spent time instead on character development, which it lacks quite significantly, in my opinion.
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Post by Suzer6440 xyz »

I don’t think it was overwhelming at all. For a book like this, a lot of description is needed in order to get a real feel as to what is happening in the story. It doesn’t matter if it’s not significant to the story, what matters to me is understanding what I’m reading and every single description helps make the story real
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Post by Goodness C N »

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes authors do bad by giving overt descriptions. I find this quite distracting to say the least. Regardless, this book was an amazing read.
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Post by Neenu B_S »

I didn't find it distracting because it gave a flow to the plot. It was necessary as all those details reminds us of the scene when it happens in another worldline. And it also helped us to visualize the scene better.
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Post by Victor Kilyungi »

I did notice them too but they weren't overkill for me. I think they served to show that only minor changes in the worldlines had occured. After all, isn't the many worlds theory suggesting that there are minor changes between worldlines all summing up to form an infinite number of possibilities for each scenario, each place, each person and each action?
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