When writing, we want to consider the cognitive load on our audience. This is how much information the reader needs to remember throughout your story so that they can follow along.
Cognitive load includes things like:
- Character names and appearances
- Relationships between characters
- Place names, such as cities and countries
- Unique mythological creature or fauna
- Backstory, including mythology and folklore
- Language names
- The general plot (who is the protag, who is the enemy, etc)
- Magic usage (who has the power, how they acquire it, any conditions it comes with, etc)
- Power dynamics between characters, countries, and so on
- Political systems, if included
Even in the most barebones story, this is a lot to remember. As such, we need to consider what is most important for our readers to generally understand the plot and emphasize this, letting the rest serve as background information that is not quite as essential. The more emphasis we put on something, the more we direct a reader’s attention.
So let’s look at some tips for how to reduce cognitive load while still creating a compelling story.
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Think About What the Audience Wants
Have you ever listened to a terrible storyteller? They’re trying to tell you about something interesting that happened, but they keep jumping around or getting sidetracked with things that don’t really matter. The story fractalizes, and you must pull them back to the main point.
You cannot do that when writing. While people may politely listen to a friend yammer, they won’t give you, a stranger, the same grace.
Especially in fantasy, many writers spend days, weeks, years on their worldbuilding. They feel they have to include every possible thing in there because they already did the work, and damned if they’re going to let that go to waste. But that’s the wrong way to go about it.
Would you rather have that thing in there and bore your readers so they don’t want to keep going, or would you rather remove it and keep them interested?
Every part of your story needs to compel readers. Don’t put in things they don’t care about.
A beta reader can be helpful here, as they’ll let you know if you’re infodumping.
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Don’t Spell Everything Out
It’s fine for something to just be something because you said so. You don’t need to delve into the backstory or exhaustively explain why something works a certain way. People do not necessarily care.
Do I know how Bluetooth works? No. It works. That’s fine. What about how the name “Russia” came to be? I’ve no clue. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about Russia as a concept; it just means that I’m not particularly invested in the etymology of its name.
Your readers also have this level of ambivalence about certain things. As a writer, it’s your goal to imagine what they would be ambivalent about – and then restrain your urge to force that info down their throat anyway.
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Limit Characters and Locations
This is something that a lot of newer writers (especially in fantasy and scifi) struggle with. They want their world to feel large and well-populated, so they introduce dozens of different characters and locations, not realizing that this is really frustrating to readers.
Think about it like you’re introducing your reader to a close friend group. There’s probably no more than a handful of really close friends, with brief mentions of others. Similarly, you probably only visit a few locations regularly: your home, school or workplace, gym, a few friends’ homes, a favorite restaurant or cafe.
Your reader doesn’t want to memorize a hundred names; they want to know a few characters and locations on a deep, personal basis. The fewer characters and locations you have, the more you can really flesh each one out, making them feel special and unique.
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Keep Plot Twists to a Minimum
Someone died, but then they were revived, and then we found out they’re the evil long-lost sibling of the main character, who didn’t realize they were royalty!
Then we found out that the main character fell in love with the evil long-lost sibling’s spouse while they were dead, but the spouse was actually their cousin? They’re all related?!
And the main character’s mom is trying to kill them, but then the cousin-affair-partner-spouse defends them, and we find out that they’re also royalty but from a different country?!
I need a nap.
A plot does not need to be extremely twisty-turny to be effective. In most cases, writers do this because they want their readers to think they are very smart. But readers don’t care about you and don’t want to think about you. Stop trying to impress them and focus on making a good story.
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Don’t Delve Too Deep into Mythology or History
Please don’t think I’m discouraging you from sharing any mythology or history. Rather, think about whether these things are integral to the plot rather than factoids.
Readers assume that anything you share in your story is going to be important in one way or another, and they will be frustrated if you mention some mythology that never shows up again.
By the way, it’s okay if the mythology or history only comes into play many chapters (or even books) later. In fact, I wrote a whole (free!) novella, Saint Luridalr and the Peony Phoenix, to share the main country’s founding legend.
If that happens, you need to give a brief recap of it in case readers have not been following along with the entire series or simply forgot about it because it happened a while ago.
Again, readers who note the information will assume it’s important later. If they already know it’s a multi-book series, they will be able to guess you’ll use it at another time. But you have to actually do it!
Keeping track of your lore can be helpful if you know for a fact that something will be plot-significant. Do not just write things out for the sake of having them. Be sure you will apply this information somewhere.
That’s why I discourage you from spending too much time on worldbuilding before you start writing. You may not use any of that stuff, and now you’ve wasted a lot of time thinking up things that won’t be important.
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Differentiate Character Names
This is one of the easiest nitty-gritty things to fix, but it can make a huge difference.
For example, imagine you have someone named Cam (hi) and someone named Dan in your book.
Both names are three letters; both have an “a” in the middle, and “m” and “n” look very similar on paper. When quickly glossing over a text, a reader is really going to struggle to keep track of who is who – especially if they are talking to one another. What a nightmare!
So here is my general rule for naming characters. I don’t always stick to these rules, but I try my best.
Every character’s name should ideally start with a different syllable.
If two characters’ names start with the same letter, they should be different lengths and end with different syllables.
Two characters with names that start with the same letter should not be introduced together, and they should interact only after one of the characters has been fully fleshed out.
Two characters with names that start with similar-looking letters (M and N for example) should not be introduced together.
Characters should be introduced by themselves or in groups of no more than three per chapter. Don’t introduce four new characters in the span of one chapter.
The more unique the name, the more important the character.
As an example, I have two characters named Orrinir and Ono. Both start with the same letter, but one is introduced in the very first book, and one is introduced in the sixth book.
By the time we meet Ono, we are already very familiar with Orrinir: his characteristics, his speaking style, his relationships, etc. We also don’t get to see them interact until the very end of the sixth book, and then only very briefly. We’ve gotten to know them separately before they come together.
You may say “well, Tolkien introduced like 400 characters all at once in The Hobbit.”
Yeah. He did. Are you Tolkien? No.
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Don’t Name Background Characters
One time, I was beta reading a story, and the author named every single person that appeared in the book. There were dozens of names, many of which sounded very similar. Every character had a backstory, even if they only appeared for like a paragraph. It was headache-inducing.
If a character does not appear in more than one or two scenes, you do not have to name them. The more names people have to keep track of, the more confused they get.
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Introduce Unique Place Names One at a Time
There’s a lot of places in the Eirenic Verses. Just off the top of my head, I can think of Breme, Sina, the Rimuk Mountains, Bewerian, Goldnin, Quirnis, Vercingetorix, Cachaille, Kulniryi, Santal … etc etc.
But these are all introduced very slowly over the entire series. By the time you have heard about a new place, you have already physically seen an earlier location and gotten to know what it looks like.
In 9 Years Yearning, we’ve got only four main places to work with: Breme, Rimuk Mountains, Goldnin, and Bewerian. There are very brief mentions of other places, like Sina as a whole, Uileac’s hometown of Quirnis, and so on.
Each of these was introduced one at a time. We hear that they live in a place called Breme and live in a town named Goldnin. Later, we hear about Bewerian, which is next to Goldnin. And near the end, we learn about the Rimuk Mountains.
In Pride Before a Fall, we introduce only two new places: Vercingetorix (which is plot important) and Cachaille (which is only briefly mentioned). I knew readers would need to be reminded of where we were, so I didn’t introduce them until much later in the book, after we’ve been brought up to speed about Breme, Goldnin, Bewerian, and the Rimuk Mountains.
If you never see a location, you don’t need to talk about it much. Say the name and gloss over it quickly so the reader knows they don’t need to remember it, but they have an idea of a richer world. Again, the more time you spend on something, the more important it is.
By the way, all of the mentioned places do come up again later in the series. They are important, just not important quite yet. In fact, every town that is ever mentioned does get visited at least once.
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Use Boring Names
A lot of the places in my book have dumb-as-brick names that basically just spell out what they are for:
- War Academy – a military academy
- War Committee – military headquarters
- Bremish Council – government building
- Swordsman Society – bar for infantrymen
- Bow and Bridle – bar for cavalrymen
- Great Gold River – big river that comes from the Gold Cascade (big waterfall)
And so on and so on. This wasn’t out of laziness; it was a way to reduce cognitive load. By making straightforward names, I can let the readers focus on memorizing the more unique terms in the book. It also draws attention away from these places and makes it clear that they are less important.
Think about how many places in real life are named in a way that explains their purpose, whether that is the Cook County Courthouse or University of Colorado. It’s not lazy; it’s considerate to your reader.
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In Fantasy, Keep Magic Systems Simple
You do not need 800 rules and conditions for a magic system. That gets confusing – plus, it makes you more likely to contradict yourself.
The most common conditions for a magic systems are that they 1) drain the user’s health and 2) can only be used on certain things. Those are easy to remember.
If it’s fire magic, maybe a user who tries too strong of a spell can be burned alive. Maybe it can’t work on anything that’s wet. This offers you a variety of fun plot twists, like an antagonist building themselves an underwater palace so they can’t be attacked.
My own magic system, High Poetry, will harm the user if they channel too much power, but it also can backfire in unexpected ways if the poem isn’t written correctly. (We see an explosive example in the fourth book, What Is Cannot Be Unwritten, coming winter 2025.)
This is fun because I have to figure out how figurative language could be taken literally, as well as how to make something poetic but also straightforward.
By imposing limits but not getting too precise with them, you give yourself wiggle room without overloading the reader.
Sometimes magic can mess up, which is a good way to keep it from getting overpowered. Just make sure that its failures are consistent so it doesn’t seem like you’re doing that solely for drama.
There’s a lot more we could discuss about this, and maybe I’ll make a second post sometime, but I hope this has given you a good idea of how to streamline your writing for maximum enjoyment. Try implementing these tips and see how much better you can capture reader attention.
