I really dislike coming up with character names myself, and tend to obsess over it. One of the best things about fanfic- the characters usually come with names.
In my admittedly limited experience, I, too, write *far* more than actually ends up in the story. The one time I didn't (the Invisibles crossover), it was soon very clear that I should have. And yes, a lot of it gets filed away and will show up in some form or another later (assuming I get some inspiration again- it's been in short supply so I've been reading more than writing recently).
And again I agree- restraint is difficult. So much of the best fiction writing works in part because the world is larger than what you are shown. The real world is like that, and when you can tell that the fictional world exists beyond the page at hand, it feels more real. This is why Tolkien had and continues to have such an impact within Fantasy. The amount of world building and writing that he *didn't* publish is tremendous, but it all hovers around the edges of what he did.
Narnia, as much as I love it, was clearly built a bit more piecemeal. Although to be fair, the first version of The Hobbit didn't fit the backstory as smoothly- Tolkien revised it at some point.
Getting back to your point, I always want to *explain* everything. But it really does seem to work so much better if I don't.
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In my admittedly limited experience, I, too, write *far* more than actually ends up in the story. The one time I didn't (the Invisibles crossover), it was soon very clear that I should have. And yes, a lot of it gets filed away and will show up in some form or another later (assuming I get some inspiration again- it's been in short supply so I've been reading more than writing recently).
And again I agree- restraint is difficult. So much of the best fiction writing works in part because the world is larger than what you are shown. The real world is like that, and when you can tell that the fictional world exists beyond the page at hand, it feels more real. This is why Tolkien had and continues to have such an impact within Fantasy. The amount of world building and writing that he *didn't* publish is tremendous, but it all hovers around the edges of what he did.
Narnia, as much as I love it, was clearly built a bit more piecemeal. Although to be fair, the first version of The Hobbit didn't fit the backstory as smoothly- Tolkien revised it at some point.
Getting back to your point, I always want to *explain* everything. But it really does seem to work so much better if I don't.