expositing what you know already

Once upon a time, at a con panel, one of the audience members was holding forth on "legacy code" in terms of writing, on building on the expectations and knowledge of fantasy tropes of the audience.  To which my retort was, But then you're shutting in your audience to those who are already familiar with the genre, and not drawing new people in.

Never wise to limit your audience when you don't have to.

Except that if you go too far the other way, you have a real danger losing your audience on the other side.  No one wants to be lectured about stuff they already know, especially as slithering in the data often slows down the story.

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