World building is a problem in fantasy novels. How much to include and how much to leave out requires a constant attention to the most telling details. I wrestle with it daily.
     If you're unfamiliar with the term "world building," it's exactly what it sounds like: building a world based on particular assumptions. For instance, if your world has dragons, certain things had to take place to allow such a creature to exist. If your society has magic, then it's going to develop differently from a society that doesn't have it.
     Some authors spend quite a bit of time in developing their world. They have religions, nations, races, complicated systems of magic, politics, languages, foods, and so on and so on, until their books teem with details. In lesser hands, this becomes a travelogue of an imaginary place rather than a story. I don't like books where I have to wade through pages and pages of fake history and a cast of thousands. In those books, the world building has swallowed the story.
     Almost as bad is when the world building has created such strict rules that the characters are trapped by their society into predetermined roles. A good writer will break the characters out and have a romp. The poor writer will make us slog step-by-step to the characters' dooms. (But not me because I have freed myself from the obligation to finish every book I start reading.)
     The secret is in carefully choosing the most telling details. The ones that allow the reader to make certain assumptions about the society without the writer having to use precious story space to explain. Example: If you have a Lord or Count in your story, the reader is going to start making assumptions about how your world's society is organized politically. If you have magic, your reader will assume that there will be wizards or witches or shamans. If you mention that a person's clothes are stained and torn, then the reader will assume the character is poor (or just poorly dressed). In a sense, a writer is using clichés -- or better word -- assumptions that the reader holds about our world in order to create the new imaginary world.
     Another example: My characters refer to the passing of time as candle marks. I don't explain that my society doesn't have watches or clocks or the terms "hours" and "minutes." I just let the reader know casually that the society measures time in this fashion. This means the society of my world hasn't quite mastered the art of the gear and lever and the intricate metalcraft required for watches. (However, the Empire is experimenting with huge wooden clocks, mostly in the larger cities; but they still call the divisions of time 'candle marks,' not hours.)
     So I'm trying to choose the most telling details in my story. I want to give the reader enough info so that he/she understands the world, but not so much that it overwhelms him/her. That's the plan. We'll see how it turns out.

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