Is it acceptable to have a LOTR/Tolkien-style introduction where you establish a few of the basics regarding races/setting/etc beforehand, or is too overdone and/or identifiably Tolkien?
Asking mainly in reference to large works, whose worldbuilding would otherwise take up huge parts of the actual story.
These days its more in fashion to simply display the different races in action rather than front-loading a huge tutorial.
No one likes infodumps, unless they're amazingly written.
Don't think in terms of originality. If you're writing fantasy there's going to be an assumed degree of derivativeness, so tell your story and present it however way you best see fit. You're not writing experimental literature here, I don't think.
If you want the reader to feel they are reading an academic history of a fictional world an introduction like that might help, if you want them to feel at first alienated by the fantastical world and slowly come to an understanding maybe not.
>>7788064
Don't do it.
Just hint at it through side remarks, or display it in action. People don't need to know what they don't need to know -- and they won't *want* to know it. People only like it when Tolkien does it because it's Tolkien.
unless you have a good reason for doing this, don't
but if you have a good reason, by all means. it's your book.
>>7788084
I'm not a writer, but it's not something I see a great deal of, nowadays.
I tend to read large works, and there's a few I've read that I felt could have benefited from a Tolkien-style introduction (and appendices) due to the story being constantly skewered with all sorts of details to paint an ultimately clumsy picture of certain races/places.
>>7788064
If you think it is overdone then it is.
>>7788064
>races
It sounds like you're writing genre fiction, so no, it isn't acceptable. Write something real and stop being childish.
