Need Help With Long Introductions

I plan on making my first fan fic, but first I'm making the first few chapters on Micrsoft Works Word. I need to make a very long introduction about my main character because I want to tell readers that my character did these activities to help in his conflict, but it requires me to make the first 2 to 3 chapters very long and be mainly about the character and not the plot, and there aren't a whole lot of pokemon in the 1st few chapters. Does anyone think that readers on the forum would read 2 very long chapters mainly about the character and wait for the plot to start in the 4th chapter? If not then can I get suggestions to help me introduce my character correctly.

I'd suggest that, rather than dumping all the backstory about the character on the readers in a huge block of exposition, you instead break it up and introduce relevant information as it becomes important to the story. I doubt most people would want to sit through three chapters of pure exposition without an idea of where the story's going; I doubt that most characters would honestly need that much exposition in a huge clump before the story got moving.

I think you should summarize the two chapters before posting the others. And maybe your readers may not be so bored.(As you said)

Yeah, you shouldn't spoon feed the whole thing to your reader in one huge helping like that. It's perfectly fine to not give a full exposition about everything immediately. Heck, I prefer stories where reading on gives me a whole new perspective on earlier events, and trying to figure out why your character is having such huge problems with one thing or the other could be a good hook to keep readers interested too.

So yes, I'd say take Negrek's advice: limit the information flow and spread it out across the fic. It may make your story harder to understand at first, but that also makes the eventual revelation all the more rewarding. I usually expect to see some inkling of plot by the end of chapter two; four seems a bit...much, and may well leave your readers with the impression that you don't quite know where to take your story. oO

In all honesty, I think it depends on how much of the backstory is really necessary in the beginning. I mean, you may not realize it, but there are a lot of things you can do to integrate background into the plot rather than just slather everything on, like everyone else was saying. A thing I did in Feral Twilight's first few chapters was to write it so that events were "shown" for the guy's backstory rather than just told straight out as is. But then, my character's kind of a jerk, and whiny, and has a smart-aleck comment about almost everything he goes through...but, even then, no one's complained about being overly bombarded with pointless info (on the other sites I've got it posted on...). But, when it comes down to it, it's all about learning what gels and what doesn't with your audience, especially since you're new to the fanfic writing. I mean, even I didn't get a whopping audience when I started posting some of my works late last year...

If the introduction is good enough, it won't bore readers, but is it really absolutely necessary to tell everything before the story? As other have stated in this thread before me, open mysteries and flashbacks are a good thing. Mysteries keep readers interested and flashbacks give light to future events, maybe even past events. I'd agree with Alter Ego with this:

Heck, I prefer stories where reading on gives me a whole new perspective on earlier events, and trying to figure out why your character is having such huge problems with one thing or the other could be a good hook to keep readers interested too.

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A good story is one that you'll read again and even gain more on the second round...

But, if you really, really think it's absolutely necessary to tell it all at once and before anything, you can do that, too, but then it has to be shortened a bit. Or, maybe, if it's a really well-eritten and captivating explanation, who knows, maybe it'll be the best part of the story.

Personally I like well-written and thoroughly thought characters. You know, ones with history, personality, common lines or actions. It's nice that you think about your character that much instead of putting all your effort in the plot ^-^ That's a mistake a lot of people seem to do...

One thing: Never, ever, EVER spoon-feed readers with a big chunk of introduction.

What I think is you should first put in basic information, and while you are building the story, you can tell us about the "introduction" you were talking about, bit by bit.

May I suggest flashbacks?