More or Less an Analysis

One of the things I wrestle too much with in my writing -- am I telling the reader too little? Too much?

The first thing I think of is Chekhov's Gun, the rule that if something is important to the plot, it should be introduced before it becomes important. My first segment, then, is a veritable Clue game ("Look! There's the candlestick that Mr. Mustard will use to kill the deceased in the parlor!"), but is it too much? Or too little?

What do we know from yesterday's post of the first segment (yesterday's post)?

• Annie's mother is a cultural anthropologist who supposedly told Annie odd bedtime stories when she was a child;
• Annie doesn't remember her childhood;
• Annie has chosen to follow her steps, focusing on urban legends;
• Annie's stepfather was/is a renowned cryptographer for the government, and kept possession of codes when he left his position and changed his identity;
• Annie dabbles in cryptology and inherits his cipher box and codes;
• Her parents die three months after that passage in a home invasion;
• An unknown time has passed, and Annie is remembering the incident.

I worry about whether I'm doing the right thing by not explaining these things more, but the too little/too much dichotomy runs through my head when I reread it:

• Are the items above too much for the first thousand words of a book? Should I put in more description so it doesn't feel like an information dump?
• Have I given too little reference to time, so that I strand the readers in limbo and give them no clue as how the segment fits in the book?
• Does Annie not worry enough about coming into possession of what might be government secrets?
• Can I just leave Annie's casual mention of not having childhood memories (a rare thing to not have any before a certain age) as something she just accepts, or do I have to explain more?
• And, most importantly, does this beginning make my readers want to read more of it?

Just under a thousand words, and I have this many questions to answer. In some ways, writing fiction reminds me of writing my dissertation way back when -- I'm relieved when the number of comments in red in the margins finally becomes less than the number of words I've written.