From Indies Unlimited:
We writers are very sneaky people. We lie to our readers constantly, luring them into imaginary situations and manipulating their emotions shamelessly under the pretense that we are entertaining them. And all the while, what we really want to do is preach to the reader about how the world works and how to make it go better. The difference between a good writer and a bad writer is that the good writer doesn’t get caught. Good writers make readers need what we want to tell them. Less experienced writers start their novels only thinking about what the reader needs to know in order to understand.
“You Need to Learn This”
From the author’s point of view, a novel is about ideas: humanity, society, individuals. So we make up our own versions of humanity, society, and people, and use their interactions to demonstrate those ideas.
“Entertain Me.”
As far as the reader is concerned, a novel is about people doing things. That’s it. Characters in conflict.
So when you sit down to write a novel, you say, “I want to write a novel about ……(your choice of burning social evil)…… but in order to understand what’s going on, the reader needs to know about…
Whoa. Hold it Right There
The reader doesn’t need anything of the sort. The reader needs to be entertained, and he hopes your book will do that. If you fill the first pages up with backstory, philosophical discussion, and all those ideas circulating in your head, you’re gonna get busted. The reader gives you the “Papa Don’t Preach” response and puts down the book.
Character Portrayal
Characters are the first strength of a good book. Our mistake is that, because the characters are most important to us, we think we have to lovingly create all the people and relationships before we start the action. We think to ourselves, “In order to understand the story once it starts, the readers need to know this about the main character, and this, and…oh, yes, of course this, and wouldn’t if be nice if they knew…” and away we go for three chapters, and the story hasn’t started yet.
Link to the rest at Indies Unlimited